But that's natural. The innovator in retail is now Amazon. Wal-Mart was innovative when Sam hisownself ran it, and a little past that. The trope is that Sam had a daily report ( presumably on green fanfold paper ) on his desk every day. Very much a tech leader in the pre-Internet network sense.
I lived in a town that had no Wal-Mart and then it did. Before, you had to drive to downtown or a retail area across town and the stores closed basically at dark.
If you went to Penney's, it had hardwood floors, the clerk sent your transaction up a pneumatic tube to the cashier and got your change out of the same pneumatic tube. Banks still use these at drive in lanes.
Only the precursor to Wal-Mart - Gibsons - was open past 6:00ish ( I don't remember the exact figure ). You had to conform to the store's schedule. Mom would send orders with Dad to fill on lunch, back before we had two cars ( this was late '60s, early '70s ).
People invoke competition, but competition really only works out when the new guy has twice to ten times the impact that the incumbent has. Something has to cover switching costs.
I lived in a town that had no Wal-Mart and then it did. Before, you had to drive to downtown or a retail area across town and the stores closed basically at dark.
If you went to Penney's, it had hardwood floors, the clerk sent your transaction up a pneumatic tube to the cashier and got your change out of the same pneumatic tube. Banks still use these at drive in lanes.
Only the precursor to Wal-Mart - Gibsons - was open past 6:00ish ( I don't remember the exact figure ). You had to conform to the store's schedule. Mom would send orders with Dad to fill on lunch, back before we had two cars ( this was late '60s, early '70s ).
People invoke competition, but competition really only works out when the new guy has twice to ten times the impact that the incumbent has. Something has to cover switching costs.