Word: wal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Wal-Mart is going up in Creston, 20 miles away, and Greenfield's merchants fear the worst. Wall Street traders will hail America's richest man, Sam Walton, and his relentless retailing march across the country. But Walton's new store, dropped in a field of asphalt (one of 1,400 in his discount empire) will suck a bit more of the commercial life out of Greenfield and similar towns in the same radius. Another comfortable old building with arched windows and high ceilings may have to be padlocked. Not so long ago they were all open, and the square...
...America's richest man? Forbes magazine says he is Sam Walton, 71, of Bentonville, Ark., the folksy, pickup-driving founder of Wal-Mart Stores (1988 sales: $20.8 billion). Last October the magazine estimated Walton's wealth at $6.7 billion. Forget about it, says Institutional Investor, noting that a portion of Walton's wealth is shared with four grown children. In its May issue the financial monthly says the richest man in the U.S. is Ronald Perelman, 46, of New York City, who has amassed a personal fortune of $5 billion in a mere ten years by assembling companies in businesses...
...green to yellow to red without anybody noticing. Most of the shops on the town square rarely get more than two customers at a time. Shoppers who once bustled along the dusty main strip have defected to the new mall in Manhattan, 40 miles to the southeast, or the Wal-Mart outside Concordia, equidistant in the opposite direction...
...growth of huge regional discount stores -- despite all the convenience they provide -- has been devastating for many small downtowns, since one shopping center can draw customers away from a dozen or more communities. Says Robert Van Hook, executive director of the National Rural Health Association: "Wal-Marts are the last nails in the coffins of a lot of rural Main Streets." Because downtown retail shops are important employers, their decline can be fatal to the rest of the town's economy as well. Another major small-town employer, the local hospital, is disappearing at the rate of more than...
With one sweeping markdown, Sears hoped to regain the loyalty of customers who have drifted to such discounters as K mart and Wal-Mart. Abandoning its decades-old philosophy of luring buyers with frequent sales, Sears is turning to "everyday low prices." To put new price tags on 1.5 billion pieces of merchandise, Sears recruited a temporary army of retirees and high school students. Together with regular Sears employees, the price changers wielded 29,000 label guns. Said Chris Skinner, a high school freshman who worked at the Sears outlet in Columbus' Northland Mall: "The worst was the screwdrivers...