Upstate N.Y. shoppers welcome Wal-Mart - Jamestown, New York

Discount Store News, July 22, 1991 by Mary Ellen Kelly

Upstate N.Y. Shoppers Welcome Wal-Mart

Say They'd Shop Discount Giant Over Current Choices

JAMESTOWN, N.Y. -- The word around town is that Wal-Mart still plans to open a store in this market, 50 miles south of Buffalo, even though the initial deal for land in nearby Lakewood fell through.

Wal-Mart's plans to open numerous stores and warehouse clubs in upstate New York towns such as Utica, Greece, Rochester, Henrietta, Pennfield, Seneca Falls, Geneva, Niagara Falls and Hamburg (south of Buffalo), has local businesses keeping watch on construction sites and empty lots around town.

The proposed site, 185 E. Fairmont Ave., was adjacent to a Grossman's home center, according to local businessmen and the Jamestown newspaper, The Post-Journal. Wal-Mart is supposedly eyeing a different location in the Jamestown market area in the town of Ellicott at the Gaslight Motor Inn, also on Fairmont Avenue at No. 720. Motel owner Henry Secord said a real estate agent had told him Wal-Mart was interested in buying his property a few months ago, but he has not been called since that time.

If Wal-Mart does seal a deal for a store opening in the market, area customers will greet them with open arms. Those interviewed by DSN on a recent visit to the area said they would turn their backs on other chains in the market such as Ames, Jamesway and Hills.

A couple leaving one of the local discount stores was asked whether they would like to see a Wal-Mart in the area.

"We're from Canada and are on our way back home now. We've shopped Wal-Mart everywhere we go, from Missouri to Florida to Salt Lake City, and if there was one up in Canada, that's where we would shop. We would shop Wal-Mart over any of these other stores," they stressed.

A woman shopping at one of the area discounters said, "I'd love to see a Wal-Mart out here. I went to one in Indiana and I loved it." She noted low price and good selection as the primary attractions. None of the discounters in the area had earned her loyalty. When interviewed, she was picking through the summer clearance racks, but bought nothing.

Store managers at the chains in the Jamestown area were concerned about the possibility of Wal-Mart coming to their market and were surprised that the premiere discounter would be interested in coming to their overstored, sluggish retail market.

"I've heard in some areas Wal-Mart has actually helped sales by increasing traffic to the shopping area," said one area discount store manager who asked not to be identified, "but I think it would hurt us here in the Jamestown area. We're overstored already, and there is no customer loyalty."

Another said, "There's not a lot of growth in this market and as far as I know, none is expected. The only thing Wal-Mart could gain by coming here is putting some of us out of business. I don't understand why they don't build in markets where there is more growth and less competition."