Meadow Lake should go big to compete

Posted 6 months ago

55 West Enterprise Region recently released its Retail Shopping Patterns Report for 2009.

The survey is directed at retail businesses in the region that would like to increase sale volumes, but the data points to something more unsettling for those retailers.

Area shoppers think that Meadow Lake needs a Wal-Mart.

Groceries are the only products for which 50 per cent of the buying is done locally. The most common reasons listed for this are product price, selection and quality.

If the new city wants to be a retail hub, it may require the addition of a few big box stores.

Although some might claim that the presence of a retail giant like Wal-Mart would hurt local business, it would do wonders for attracting regional shoppers that might otherwise bypass Meadow Lake in favour of Cold Lake or Saskatoon.

Meadow Lake is the largest community in the northwest and part of its plan for grown centres on its nature as the cultural and economic capital of the region.

Local businesspeople may worry that the presence of a big box store would draw away customers, but the survey clearly shows that these people are already doing a majority of their shopping elsewhere.

They're just doing it a few hours away rather than down the street.

If there were a Wal-Mart here, more people would likely come to town to shop, or at least stay in town to do most of their shopping, and the increased volume of customers could benefit local businesses as well.

Besides, there are already a number of chain stores in the city such as Extra Foods, McDonald's etc. These are not as big as Wal-Mart, but they certainly haven't collapsed the local economy.

JC

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