Wal-Mart and the Internet

August 15, 2005

I was meaning to write today about how Wal-Mart has changed the lives of people in Norwalk Connecticut. They came to our town with a few stores around five years ago and the by product has been the eventual killing off of other companies. For example the local hardware store closed down this past year (perhaps we can blame Home Depot here -- open for about five years) and also the local nursery which was unfortunately enough across the street from one of the Wal-Mart stores and Home Depot.

Today, I noticed the local photography shop was also on the way out and the owner told me the $4,700/month rent coupled with the trend towards e-mailing photos and Wal-Mart’s inexpensive photo processing made it impossible to compete.

This is not an opinion piece as I can’t say anything bad about Wal-Mart or online photo companies like ofoto (yes Kodak renamed it but I like this name better). I just think it is worth reiterating that you need to keep an eye on your business as models change.

As I got back to the office I went to the room where SBC is installing our T3 fiber connection and marveled at how we are keeping up with the technology as the world goes online. You really need to stay one to two steps ahead of tech if you want to survive in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing business environment.

Update: Here is an article fromt he USA Today about a new book on Wal-Mart that unlike me does have a strong negative opinion on the company.

Wal-Mart and the Internet

Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Wal-Mart and the Internet