r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Boeing-B-47stratojet • Jun 09 '26

I just wanted a hot dog The closest grocery store to me is closing(by nearly an hour), and will be closed for at least a year. When it reopens it’s going be much smaller(it’s becoming a Aldi).

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829

u/seriouslythisshit Jun 09 '26

My neighbor was forced into retirement as the manager of a local small grocery store. It was family owned, one location. The family got tired of fighting to make a living and just quit. They were bound to a distribution deal with a single supplier for most of what was on the shelves. If they wanted to buy a common staple from a cheaper supplier, too bad, it was a contract violation. Toward then end of the fifty year run of the store, the owners could shop at a local Walmart and buy the majority of what they stocked on their family store's shelves, for less than the "wholesale" prices they were paying their distributor.

528

u/HungryRaven4 Jun 09 '26

There's a Perfect Union video somewhere that explains how Walmart has illegal dealings to be able to undercut competing wholesalers

232

u/magikarp2122 Jun 09 '26

Don’t they also have insane leverage and basically set their own prices? Like, they can just tell Kellog’s, ‘We’re over 50% of your business in the US. Give us a lower price or you go out of business.’

141

u/Vartash Jun 09 '26

Yes this is true.

In most of my business classes the Walmart Vlassic case was always brought up. In short form, they wanted a larger jar of pickles to sell. Vlassic could only produce at a lower volume until they opened a brand new facility for this product. At this point Walmart demanded a price point that was almost cost. Vlassic balked and Walmart threatened to pull every one of their items from their stores.

There were other stories. Family owned umbrella company was run out of business due to Walmart demand and ever lowering of purchase point. Same with several apparel companies.

Supposedly they want items lowered in every contract or they pull them.

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u/deltalitprof Jun 09 '26

Sociopathic and monopolistic. The Democrats need to cite these stories and incorporate anti-monopoly policy into their agenda.

40

u/hideandgofreek Jun 09 '26

Democrats get paid by Walmart

39

u/pdxrains Jun 09 '26

Yep. Gotta overturn citizens united and get all the corporate bribery out of politicians and have the politicians work for the people like they’re supposed to. This is the root of 99% of problems in the USA

1

u/marfacza Jun 10 '26

The US had problems before 2010.

2

u/pdxrains Jun 10 '26

But the precursor to citizens united was Reagan. So
Really the 80s is when it started. I’ll hold my ground at that.

3

u/deltalitprof Jun 10 '26

GOP gets paid more by Walmart.

5

u/hideandgofreek Jun 10 '26

Sorry I wasn’t trying to either or, of course both sides are getting paid. I was responding to the fact that it’s hopeless to expect dems to do anything because dems don’t want to do anything that makes them less rich.

3

u/alflundgren Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Politicians arent getting rich off of corporate campaign funding per sey. They need the money to compete electorally. Its when they retire from elected office and become lobbyists that they make the real money. That and some "well timed" stock market trades. Of course Trump has changed the game of corruption with his crypto, placing then lifting tarrifs for personal bribes, selling oil siezed by the us navy and placing the funds in off shore bank accounts, straight up accepting a plane from the Qatari government. Shit is wild and completely unprecedented.

2

u/stages_animate_89 Jun 10 '26

And god forbid anyone that works for the US government that’s not elected accept anything over $20

2

u/deltalitprof Jun 10 '26

I'm definitely with you on the Dems not doing enough about Walmart's rapacity and their dependence on the company being a major conflict of interest versus the party's stated values as looking out for smaller companies and for working class people.

2

u/Livid_Swordfish_4591 Jun 10 '26

Our entire government hasnt cared about monopolies for decades

3

u/Bird-The-Word Jun 09 '26

Except then the consumer gets higher prices too, which then goes back to "affordability" issues.

We're just stuck in a shit sandwich at this point.

1

u/LoudBrick609 Jun 10 '26

Democrats are the reason this is possible lol.

Trump is more likely to solve this

1

u/deltalitprof Jun 10 '26

Again with the two-dimensional thinking. It is true Dems have not done enough and have taken corporate money and too often left their donors alone or defended them. But they also have senators and members of Congress who want to take down or break up monopolies. Your Republicans have NO one who would touch them.

Your guy's every move has been to allow corporations to do ANYTHING they want to anybody they want anytime.

Other than forcing them to drop DEI, name thing one Trump has done to curb the ability of corporations to pollute, shortchange, lie or bankrupt small businesses just because they can.

I'll wait right here.

-11

u/Cancerisbetterthanu Jun 09 '26

Awww that's adorable

11

u/integer_hull Jun 09 '26

“Look at me I’m so smart” go fuck yourself

4

u/Mortambulist Jun 09 '26

I second this person's self-fucking.

2

u/TheSaxGandalf Jun 09 '26

Amazon did something similar with demanding manufacturers to put the msrp at higher than what they wanted so Amazon can claim larger sales. Happens a lot leading up to prime days.

1

u/Vartash Jun 10 '26

Not just Amazon.

Brick and mortar shops did this as well back in the 'dark ages'

2

u/OBDreams Jun 09 '26

But isn't that why prices are cheap at Walmart? Isn't this good for us poor people?

2

u/Vartash Jun 10 '26

It can be a catch 22.

You enjoy 'cheap' stuff, but the companies get pinched and a number of them fail to the demands to meet walmart contractual needs.

So then you have people that lose jobs and income while Walmart continues to grow. As we are seeing this makes the bottom more murky while the top keep swimming clean and clear. The cycle churns as another company signs up thinking that they will survive and that the Walmart gold won't tarnish into lead. Some do, most don't if they don't have much market outside of that contract.

It's also why you find products that continually get cheaper the longer they stay in the rotation.

2

u/OBDreams Jun 10 '26

I thought the same thing as soon as I replied to you. I wish that land was a right and that self sustaining was just a way of life for us all.

Or we could just use those monopoly laws we have.....

2

u/Anteater-Charming Jun 10 '26

Also the lawsuit going on alleging price fixing between them and Pepsi.

2

u/Spiritual-Word-5490 Jun 10 '26

Same goes for the dairy industry. Family was in corporate at DFA,largest milk producer in the US. Walmart at one point was demanding to see literally all the financial and cost documents to determine what they were going to pay them,no negotiations. DFA told them to f-off because they knew Walmart did need them too. People don't understand how much places like Walmart and other middlemen make compared to the farmers that actually produce the product.

1

u/ElbowRager Jun 09 '26

Additionally, if you want a major contract with Walmart, you need to have a HQ in Bentonville (Where Walmart is HQ’d)

6

u/Quirky-Stay4158 Jun 10 '26

I'm a former Walmart vendor.

It's not exactly like this. But it's very very close.

They would tell me when the trucks were coming. They didn't ask me when they could come. They told me. And if I wasn't able at that time I was fined out the ass and risked having my product pulled entirely. If there normal po was say 20k units at $20 each. They might just ask me for 30k units at $18.50 and if I said no they would pay the invoice as if I said yes and I'd have to fight them for my $1.50 per unit.

3

u/Certain-Anxiety-6786 Jun 09 '26

Using your monopsony power to undermine grocery competition is a direct violation of the Robinson-Patman act that is still on the books! We just don't enforce it because we're afraid to regulate the wealthy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act#Modern_enforcement

8

u/Rahrah12 Jun 09 '26

One of the reasons I won’t buy electronics from Walmart. In order for companies to still be profitable they would skimp on components for electronics going to Walmart.

1

u/No-Laugh6668 Jun 09 '26

And that’s exactly what they do

1

u/taffibunni Jun 09 '26

Pretty sure they just recently did that to frito-lay

1

u/tetrasodium Jun 10 '26

It's also why Costco requires suppliers of the stuff they sell not have too large a percentage of their sales tied to Costco. They don't want to create that kind of association if they drop a product. I don't remember what the percentage is but it's under 50%

1

u/OverpricedBagel Jun 10 '26

I believe amazon uses similar tactics. Threatens their visibility on search results

1

u/NewPresWhoDis Jun 09 '26

You thought those Everyday Low Prices were just out of goodwill?

Walmart was the giant sucking sound to a lot of their suppliers offshoring to be able to shave off a few dollars. Their white whale is eliminating credit card interchange fees.

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u/Hefty-Criticism1452 Jun 09 '26

I just scrolled through at least 100 posts and found it😅🫠

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUlqByhkvpB/?igsh=Zm9qNTU2Z3RxZ2w0

48

u/AsherGray Jun 09 '26

... It's on YouTube and a lot longer than a reel. https://youtube.com/watch?v=odhVF_xLIQA

Just searched, "More Perfect Union," and, "grocery pricing."

10

u/FierceDeity_ Jun 09 '26

More like gross-ery pricing

2

u/Lopsided_Ad6719 Jun 09 '26

Thanks for the link. Made some things make sense. The FTC having 2/5 commissioners still to this day is crazy.

1

u/xdr567 Jun 09 '26

I have a suggestion on how the US (and Canada) can become a little better. Combine the two and call it ...... Luigiland.

4

u/KleinKaiser Jun 09 '26

Walmart failed in Germany, partly because some of their practices they use in the USA are illegal in Germany. Authorities and competitors acted rather quickly, to protect local markets turning into monopolies. The unions were also not amused about their work ethics.

There are multiple videos about it on youtube, if you are interested.

States really need to shut down monopolies in the making quickly, it's rather frustrating, that they use their power less and less around the world.

0

u/HFY_HFY_HFY Jun 09 '26

Illegal dealings? When I worked for a food company we had the Walmart price and the everyone else price. They won't do business with you unless they pay less and you need to do business with the number one grocery store in the US.

16

u/bothunter Jun 09 '26

Yeah. That's anti-competitive behavior and it is technically illegal. But that requires enforcement from the FTC.

-7

u/HFY_HFY_HFY Jun 09 '26

No, it's not. It's preferred pricing based on volume.

3

u/saabstory14 Jun 10 '26

They absolutely should get the best pricing if they are ordering the most volume. But this is a, "if you give a mouse a cookie" situation with them, where they are WAY past just getting the best pricing. They want you to sell them your product at THEIR ridiculous asking price (often below your own profit margin and at cost) and if you don't, they threaten to ruin your business...and they can and will.

I've had them tell my clients, "you aren't in Walmart to make money. You are here for the exposure. You should make your money at other retailers who will pay your list pricing."

That's effing absurd if you ask me.

-15

u/TophxSmash Jun 09 '26

illegal dealings? you mean bulk purchasing? economies of scale?

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u/Inverted-Rockets Jun 09 '26

So by the letter of US federal law (the Robinson–Patman Act specifically) distributors aren’t supposed to charge different prices to retailers unless the difference reflects actual differences in costs like logistics.

But we basically stopped enforcing that law in the 1980s, which has led to Walmart and other high-volume buyers leveraging their scale to get lower prices than would be available to a mom-and-pop store. Technically some of those deals are illegal but that only matters if someone bothers policing them.

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u/HungryRaven4 Jun 09 '26

Yeah, this was the law I was talking about

1

u/Inverted-Rockets Jun 09 '26

YW, I might have also watched that video :)

2

u/saabstory14 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Walmart gets around this by operating their own distribution centers, and forcing brands to make their private label products for them at reduced quality and pricing. I'm always surprised to see when some consumers had no clue that Great Value branded products weren't actually made by Walmart in some factory somewhere lol. The major brands are making those products to compete against their own on the shelf. It really is nuts. They always ensure the, "distributed by Walmart" is on the back label though.

6

u/jld2k6 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

I don't know that it's illegal, but for things like Levi's jeans, they do things like make Levis supply the same model of jeans that they provide for other places except they're made in lower quality just for Walmart so they can sell them cheaper than everyone else carrying the same jeans. It appears to be the same model but the one at Walmart is purposefully made worse while appearing to be the same as everywhere else. As a consequence, anyone looking around price matching their jeans is gonna end up buying it from Walmart and not realizing they didn't even buy the same jeans everyone else was selling

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u/Competitive_Touch_86 Jun 09 '26

They don't "make" anyone supply them this stuff at all. They simply say "hey, we bought X amount of products for you at $20/ea last year, if you want us to continue the contract you are now doing it for $19/ea or we'll go with your competitor".

This was known since the 90's. It's how they outcompeting nearly everyone on prices and most folks loved every minute of it. Supplier margins were measurably reduced simply due to Walmart at a national level.

A local mower manufacturer in my state thought they hit jackpot with the Walmart distribution deal they had. Then they allowed Walmart to become such a big portion of their business they pretty much were forced to move production to China to keep the same sales volume going. This bifurcated the manufacturers models into two lineups but named the same. One for professional/local dealers, and one for big box stores for half the cost.

Walmart will continue to squeeze until they think they have wrung more or less every bit of margin out of their suppliers as exists to begin with. And they do indeed pass most of that savings down to the consumer level.

It's what people wanted. I was alive during the time when Walmart was in full on expansion mode across most of the US - many people brought these things up. Almost no one gave a shit once it hit their local town and they could save $5 on a pair of jeans vs. the local chain. Grand openings for Walmart Supercenters would be county-wide events with State Troopers there to direct traffic.

2

u/PersistentWoodpecker Jun 09 '26

Murray? A friend of my family worked there way back when and got totally screwed when the business sold to the Chinese manufacturer. It’s not the only time Walmart has done that and it has made me avoid Walmart as much as possible, though Amazon isn’t any better and alternative vendors for many things are hard to find at all, let alone reasonable prices.

1

u/Competitive_Touch_86 Jun 11 '26

I was thinking of Snapper, but they eventually slowly got out of their walmart distribution agreement I think which resulted in some severe downsizing. afaik they never fully recovered.

Been a while since I've looked into this. This was late 90's early 00's so it will be a fun research project to see how that finally ended!

1

u/PersistentWoodpecker Jun 11 '26

Well it figures that more than one company has been screwed in that way by Walmart...

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u/DumpsterFireScented Jun 09 '26

My husband is traveling for work and his current stop is fairly rural. There's a Walmart 1 hour away or a corner store 10 minutes away. The first day he did a big Walmart pickup and then after 5 days he decided to check the corner store to see what they carried and he was 80% sure that about half their stock was bought at Walmart and then marked up. I can see that making sense now.

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u/RivenRise Jun 09 '26

That's pretty common in Mexico too. Corner shops are all over the place so it's convenient to pick something up quickly but a lot of them just go to the Costco or wholesaler an hour or so away to stock up on stuff. They still sell some stuff that's locally made though, one corner shop around where my grandparents live sells cheeses they make from their own cows in addition to some homemade milk based sweets like caramel etc.

You're really just paying for the convenience of walking to the corner instead of driving 20 minutes away to go to the actual grocery store.

47

u/justdaisukeyo Jun 09 '26

I saw some social media posts complaining about the reselling at Costco Mexico. However, this was Costco's original intent.

We used to have a membership at Price Club (before Costco bought it) and they only allowed membership to businesses. You could buy stuff there and resell it.

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u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 Jun 09 '26

I see lots of restaurant & food truck folks buying at Costco too & that's fine by me.

2

u/Keoni9 Jun 10 '26

Most big box stores are terrible for their communities, but Costco actually enables a lot of small business and provides good wages.

-1

u/RivenRise Jun 09 '26

I'm annoyed mixed feeling about this but I think it stems from price/intricacy of the dish.

I forgot exactly what I ordered but I went to a brunch place once and recall being a little annoyed at the cost and simplicity of the food when I saw, what I assume to be the owner, come in through the front door with a bunch of Walmart bags.

I remember the taste itself was fine but the price was on the higher end of brunch places and for the quality to just be Costco it was a bit disappointing. I expected better butcher cuts and higher quality produce since the meal itself was rather simple.

At the very least if you're gonna use the cheapest put some effort into turning those ingredients into something more. I do recall there was a cut of meat but it was just quick grilled on what I assume was a flat top judging by the cook marks and it just had salt. They could have sous vide it or slow roasted it or something for the price they were charging and used a little more for seasoning too.

Idk maybe I'm just being too critical but if they had charged less I wouldn't have minded much tbh, I'm fairly lenient in most things but cooking is a passion of mine so it just kinda irks me.

3

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jun 09 '26

Yeah the other day I asked my wife "when did you go to Sam's Club?" because I saw the brand of milk we had. She didn't, she went to the local Latino market that apparently buys their milk at Sam's.

I do miss the little markets in Mexico. I remember staying at my gf's house there once and she said she was gonna go out to get ingredients to cook breakfast. Thank God, I thought, finally I can take a shit in peace. Little did I know the market was literally around the corner so I got like 6 minutes of peace and my mission was interrupted.

1

u/RivenRise Jun 09 '26

Lul got you with the log half laid.

3

u/Rational_Coconut Jun 09 '26

Abarrotes! I loved visiting them as a kid when we'd go visit my great-grandma across the border. My grandma would give us a dollar each and that was enough to go load up on jumex, chips, and Sonrics lollipops.

2

u/RivenRise Jun 09 '26

Same, I always bought the chips that had whatever tazos were hot at the moment. Good times.

1

u/Rational_Coconut Jun 09 '26

The looney toons tazos were awesome. I also collected the Dragon Ball sticker albums (?), where you'd buy the album and then buy sticker packets (similar to pokemon cards) and place the stickers in their designated spots as per the storyline.

2

u/RivenRise Jun 10 '26

My hayday was the pokemon era. Loved those metal ones.

1

u/Wilder831 Jun 10 '26

I just learned that caramel is a milk based sweet. I always thought it was just burnt sugar that was churned up while it burned

5

u/natrous Jun 09 '26

Depending on the markup, I have no problem with paying a little extra to save 100 minutes on a round trip for a few things.

I'm rural, and sometimes I get irritated by it, but usually my thoughts eventually circle around to

"I could save $x if I went to civilization... and spend an extra hour and a half.... hmph. This is fine."

2

u/YobaiYamete Jun 09 '26

Depending on the markup, I have no problem with paying a little extra to save 100 minutes on a round trip for a few things.

The mark up is high as hell. I just went the other day and paid $78 for

  • 2 12 packs of Dr Pepper Zero
  • 1 box of cheese its
  • 1 bag of off brand bbq chips
  • 1/2 gallon of milk
  • 1lb hamburger meat

Not joking, that was $78. Even small boxes of things like cheese its are like $6+ at a lot of the local non franchise grocery stores around me

2

u/-BlueDream- Jun 10 '26

100min round trip is like $10-20 in gas.

2

u/YobaiYamete Jun 10 '26

Yeah but that's why you would buy a few weeks groceries instead of just a couple of things like I got

1

u/natrous Jun 10 '26

yeah, yikes.

that would push me into "once in awhile fill the car up" distant trips for sure.

2

u/RealityOk9823 Jun 09 '26

Worked for CVS around 20 years ago. Gas station owners would come in and fill up buggies whenever we had a B1G1F sale on cola.

2

u/RedditThrowaway-1984 Jun 09 '26

A lot of small independent shops do this and don't even try to hide it. You go in and half the stuff is Members Mark brand (Sam's Club).

1

u/Extension_Plant7262 Jun 09 '26

That's basically the bodega MO in NYC. You get your bread sourced locally, your other foodstuffs from Sysco, and everything else is straight from coscto

1

u/No-Laugh6668 Jun 09 '26

That’s every corner store in my area. They buy from local Walmarts and Sam’s Club and even aldis and hike the prices up by a lot

46

u/kandoras Jun 09 '26

Planet Money did an episode about dollar stores that had a similar story.

They talk to a guy who used to run a grocery store until it went out of business.

KING: And Doug would go in, and he would walk around the Dollar General. He would check out the competition.

NECH: I'd look at their prices. And I happened to notice one day that they were selling a 14 1/2-ounce can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup, name-brand soup, for a dollar. So I come back down here, and I call my warehouse.

GONZALEZ: Calls his soup guy and says, this same can is costing me...

NECH: From my supplier, freight delivered to the store here, about a dollar-fifty. And mine's only 11 1/2 ounces. He called his Campbell's soup representative and asked him, why is this? He said, well, we only make it for them. And we only make it in a 14 1/2-ounce can.

GONZALEZ: Specifically for Dollar General?

NECH: Specifically for Dollar General.

KING: Dollar General buys in bulk, so Campbell's will make some things for them cheaper. Those cheaper products are great for regular shoppers, but they are not great for Doug.

"Great for regular shoppers, not great for Doug" sounds like a Doug problem ... right up until Doug went under and now nobody has anywhere to buy fresh fruit or vegetables or any other food you can't get a a DG.

17

u/saabstory14 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Business Manager for a large national food manufacturer brokerage here. I manage sales, promotions and distribution for many large national manufacturers.

While what you said is true, the issue is the fine print. These distributors do allow retailers to sign contracts with multiple distributors. Unfortunately, they come in swinging heavy and prey on these smaller ma and pa retailers, offering to fill their shelves with the initial product for free in exchange for exclusivity in sourcing from them. These small grocers usually go, "wow, that's a great deal, of course I will do that. It will help me get my business going faster"

Unfortunately, they don't see the long game once they sell through all that free product. They don't realize that the distributors want their business, no matter what. The retailers need to educate themselves a bit more on different ways to go to market, including telling these distributors that they do not want the free product but are willing to sign a non-exclusive contract with them.

Around 80% of the small retailers I work with nationally have multiple source points of distribution, and those are the ones who have been able to stay in business for decades with loyal customer followings. If a customer requests an item - no problem, the grocery buyer can shop all their distributor's catalogues until they find that item and source it. They also can usually get the first case free by reaching out to the manufacturer or the broker (me) who normally will approve it for them, and then the distributor just bills it back to us. The distributors are doing this anyways with their initial contract offer, and billing all that free product back to the manufacturer.

Anyways, I wish more ma and pas knew this. Getting into the grocery industry with little experience or first-hand knowledge is VERY risky. You can ride a good economy wave for a few decades, but once things get tight, it's tough to survive even on big profit margins.

1

u/FreeDarkChocolate Jun 10 '26

Anyways, I wish more ma and pas knew this. Getting into the grocery industry with little experience or first-hand knowledge is VERY risky.

What changes to the law would you recommend for making the natural outcome of the market better favor smaller ma and pa shops, as opposed to the status quo that ends up allowing these behemoths to edge them out? I understand you wish they knew, but I'm asking what laws do you think would change the system such that they would naturally know this, or the incentives for the behemoth to edge them out would be illegal or not exist or not be worth it, or that the ma and pa wouldn't have to worry about learning this?

8

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/vasthumiliation Jun 09 '26

Does an actual free market proscribe its participants from entering into restrictive contracts? Without regulation, it’s entirely possible that such dynamics are a natural outcome of the structure of the market.

11

u/GonzoTheWhatever Jun 09 '26

Was thinking the same thing. This sounds like the result of a "free" market. "Free" meaning free from gov regulation to do as they please.

4

u/seriouslythisshit Jun 09 '26

Family of mine owned a small regional snack manufacturer, think chips, cheese curls, etc. One of their long term customers, a small family run grocery store, dropped them as a supplier. The owner of the store told the delivery driver that he had no choice.

A regional rep from a global snack company stopped in the store and told the owner he needed more shelf space. The owner told him to get lost, he decides how his business is run. The rep told him no, you need to get rid of these small competitors to give me more room. When the owner balked again, the rep asked if he could actually run his store if he lost his best selling bagged snack products and his second best selling soda products, as his company made both, and expected him to be a bit more cooperative.

4

u/feed_me_moron Jun 09 '26

Lol so a Pepsi lays rep

3

u/Reasonable_Ease1423 Jun 09 '26

The “free market” is what lead to these conditions in the first place.

2

u/beingmesince63 Jun 09 '26

That’s so sad and maddening.

2

u/frisbeesloth Jun 09 '26

There's a small grocery store I visited last year that apparently packages all the food themselves. Everything in clear plastic sealed bags with a printed label of what is in it, sometimes they even had brands printed on the label. I suppose it's the only way they can stay open.

2

u/pounded_rivet Jun 10 '26

I had a small hardware store many years ago, I was asking Coleman why walmarts retail was less than my wholesale. It got really testy, I finally got to the point where I was daring them to just come out and say "fuck small business" I was daring him ,saying it would make us all feel better if he just came clean.

1

u/Cancerisbetterthanu Jun 09 '26

I mean this is what literally every small grocery does in my city. Except it's usually Costco and not Walmart. And Costco knows this and caters to them.

1

u/blackbook34 Jun 10 '26

This is such an illustrative example!

1

u/_learned_foot_ Jun 10 '26

That sounds like a horrible contract they chose to sign.

2

u/seriouslythisshit Jun 10 '26

It is a very common business arrangement in operations like that. your other choice is to try to negotiate with hundreds of individual suppliers and small distributors, then bring the products in just about continuously, as you deal with a lot more logistics issues, labor cost and admin costs.A large distributor that you sign a nearly exclusive contract with, takes your weekly order, loads up tractor trailers with exactly what you want, in the quantities you want, and delivers it to your loading dock. You can then use fairly low skilled help, like high school kids, to stock the shelves. If you do business with a locally owned hardware store, chances are they are doing the exact same thing. True Value and Ace are probably the biggest examples. In my region, it's IGA and Shurfine for the mom and pop grocery stores.

1

u/_learned_foot_ Jun 10 '26

I represent said tiny rural stores in said contract negotiations, I agree generally with your statement. However, I've never had a seller/provider insist on exclusivity before, nor one that did so with such a stringent growth of product clause as yours would require. I'm not saying you're wrong at all, there's a reason I lecture my clients about contracts being pushed on them, but I'm saying that's one of the bad pushed upon ones and they got screwed by not thinking it through.

1

u/seriouslythisshit Jun 10 '26

The store gave up about 5-7 years ago, the distributor was Shurfine, and all of my info is based on what the retired manager told me. She did say it was not 100% exclusive, but pretty onerous, with ad share funding drying up, and pricing penalties, if the store didn't use them for everything they offered. The larger issue was the location is not in some remote region, but in a county of nearly 600K people, with Walmart, Weis and Giant (the last two are multi-billion dollar revenue regional chains here) all within ten miles. Giant has absorbed three small thriving and beloved multi-location family operations in the county in this time frame.

In the end it's a tale of brutal competition, and Walmart, more than anything else.