The recent closing of the Winona Walmart store is a matter of real concern for the citizens of Winona, Kilmichael, Vaiden, Carrollton and the surrounding areas.
When Walmart came to Winona in 1979, as one of the first 215 Walmart stores built in America, Winona, as a town, was a thriving community, with a number of stores open downtown. Such stores as a Western-Auto store, several clothing stores, two ten-cent stores, a hardware store, several furniture stores, shoe stores, several grocery stores, two picture shows and other stores. Over a period of time, these stores could not compete with the large volume and lower costs that Walmart produced. Our local Winona stores were forced to close, and this was a sad happening for our town.
With the closing of our local stores, the people of Winona, and the surrounding areas, became dependent upon Walmart for their shopping. Walmart also became somewhat of a social center that our people enjoyed visiting. The loss of 85 jobs, and the hardships placed on these people is a real concern. Loss of sales tax, upon which the city depends, is a problem. All in all, the loss of Walmart presents a rather large problem for our area.
With the closing of Walmart, there are numerous rumors going around as to why the store is closing. Some of the rumors are as follows: our local political officials had something to do with the closing, the store is not making any money, the people who are leasing the building to Wal-Mart are not keeping the store up properly. There are also other rumors that are going around, and I am sure that many of you have heard them. In an attempt to try and correct some of these misunderstandings, and give a partial view of why Walmart closed, I would like to provide the following information.
Some years ago I had an occasion to have some rather distant association with a person who was high up in the Walmart management team. I decided I would try to contact this person to see if I could have any influence in getting him to help keep our Winona Walmart store open. In an attempt to contact this person, I made several telephone calls to the Walmart Corporate office in Bentonville, Arkansas. I was unable to find the person I was seeking since he was no longer with the Walmart organization, and is now the CEO of a large corporation in New York City.
In the process of the telephone calling, I was given the number of the person who was an executive officer over Walmart stores in the deep south.
I talked to the Walmart executive for nearly an hour regarding the Winona situation.
The first part of the conversation was spent in an attempt to get the official to keep the Winona Walmart store open. I had made a list of all the reasons that would justify keeping the store open. We talked about such things as adding a grocery division to the store, and the need for this. We talked about our need for the store for the entire area surrounding Winona, and not just for Winona. We talked about whether or not the Winona store was making a profit. We talked about several other real needs for keeping the store open. We then talked about the rumors that were going around about why the store closed.
The Walmart corporate person was very patient in listening to me. We had a very lengthy discussion, and he was very familiar with the Winona situation. I would like to share some of the information which he provided me.
The executive told me that when they closed Walmart stores, in nearly every situation, the same type of rumors that were going around in Winona, went around where those stores were being closed.
He assured me that the Winona and Montgomery County officials had nothing to do with the store closing. In fact, he said that the mayor and board of aldermen of Winona and the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors had always been very cooperative and easy to work with. He said that the mayor of Winona had called him a number of times in trying to keep the store open and other officials from Montgomery County had also called.
In regard to adding a grocery division to our Walmart, the executive said that they would not do this, since Walmart was getting out of the grocery business, except in Super Walmarts and online shopping.
We talked about the people of the surrounding towns needing our Walmart, and his thoughts on this were that those citizens could shop at the Super Walmarts in Kosciusko, Grenada and Greenwood. He said that in just a short period of time, most people would be doing their shopping online.
In regard to the Winona store making a profit, the executive said the store had a little problem with this several years ago, but in recent years, especially the past three years, profits have been good.
After quite a lengthy discussion, I asked the executive if he could tell me specifically why the Winona Walmart was being closed. His answer to this was that he could provide me with this information.
The executive stated that Walmart officials knew that if they were to continue being successful in their operation, that they had to make a real change in their business operation. The major cause of this change was being brought on as a result of online shopping. Amazon Corporation had implemented worldwide online shopping, and it proved to be very successful. Walmart has to compete with them and others.
In an attempt to remain competitive, Walmart officials spent a number of months studying the situation. The officials generated a number of different business models for operating Walmart, and then made a major decision as to which model the company would use for the worldwide operation of Walmart.
The executive said the model that Walmart is going to use, beginning now, is made up of two basic parts. One of these parts is that they are typically only going to keep the Super Walmart stores open.
One reason the Winona store is being closed at this time is the lease for the store is running out – nothing to do with the building itself. The current ten-year lease expired this year.
To summarize this article, the reason that Walmart closed in Winona was completely based on the fact that Winona did not meet new requirements for having a Wal-Mart store. None of the rumors that are going around as to why Walmart closed are true, they are simply rumors.
Even though we all regret the fact that Walmart is closing, this is not the end of the world for Winona. We may possibly get a new business in the Walmart building, or we may be able to subdivide the building into three or four smaller buildings and get several new businesses.
Walmart closing is a problem, but it is nowhere as great a problem as how we are going to provide additional jobs for people of Winona and surrounding areas. If we do not provide these jobs and make it possible for young people to return to Winona, it will be only a very short period of time until Winona will really be in bad shape.
The provision of jobs is a must, and attracting young people to Winona is a must. We really need to concentrate our efforts towards solving this problem. If we do not solve the problem, Winona will just slowly fade away.
Dr. Tom Dulin
Winona
Publisher’s note: Dr. Tom Dulin was the superintendent of education for the Winona Separate School District from 1966 to 1990.
