Labor Day

Last week I and my ad director met with a gentleman from Regency Centers, a real estate developer from Orange County. They are currently finishing a new retail center in Santa Maria and Paul was in town catching up on the progress before heading up to Paso Robles for meetings about another shopping center they're looking at building there.

We'd contacted him about a promotion idea we've got for the center in SM and for the retailers setting up shop there. Paul was very gracious and listened to our ideas and expressed interest in it. All in all, as preliminary discussions on such matters go it was quite a good meeting.

We discussed the market and as the hour went on, traded stories. Paul is a long time veteran of such things, having opened 45 Ralph's stores in California prior to Kroger's running of the chain into the ground, so he had plenty of stories to tell.

In the course of the discussion, as would be expected in any talk of retailing and national chains, the conversation did turn for a time to WalMart. While no fan necessarily of the organization, he did have some interesting comments.

"They make everyone else better." An uncommon refrain, speaking about the way WalMart pushes it's vendors and suppliers. It's true though.

And then there was this: "Are they really any different than Target? If somebody blindfolded you and walked you through a store would you know the difference? Could you tell where you were if they got rid of all the yellow smiley-faces?"

The more I thought about that the more I agree. For whatever reason, Target can engage in fairly similar practices (to the benefit and/or detriment of the same folks) and sails smoothly on while WalMart is dumped on from all quarters over their business practices.

Just something to ponder.