Here’s something about those older stores— research was done to find what kind of lighting, what width of aisles, the amount of spacing between racks & displays and the amount of time spent waiting in line & being rung up were most comfortable for shoppers. It was all researched to be a pleasant shopping experience for customers.

Starting in the 1980s, that changed. Instead of research being done to make customers happy, research started being directed towards bottom line money making. Aisles became narrower, display shelves appeared that were 6.5 ft high, lighting was cut in half, inventory cash registers appeared (this was before computer cash registers & they took a long time to print), cashier stations were left empty. People had to wander around department stores to find an open register when there had been 5 - 6 manned cash registers per floor in mall department stores in the 60s, 70s & early 80s. Supermarkets & discount stores like TSS used to have all of their registers manned. None were shut down during business hours.

There was a Walmart a few towns over that opened in an old Caldor. Wide aisles, bright lighting, plenty of room between displays, lots of good stuff in the discount aisle like summer discounts going into early autumn (half priced miracle Gro, half priced pool noodles). Walmart talked the town into letting them shut that store & build a “Super” Walmart a …mile and a half away, across from an outlet mall being built.

That Walmart is torturous to shop in. And the discount aisle is filled with crap. The miracle Gro & pool noodles get loaded onto a truck & taken back to a warehouse to be sold at twice the original price online. I’m not kidding. I bought Halloween lights in their store & a light set got damaged. The day after Halloween they were gone from the store (Christmas displays had taken the place), so I went to Walmart.com to buy the same ones for next years display & they were 3x the price I’d paid...plus delivery.

There’s a certain cat treat I buy for $1.89 online at Target...it’s $4.98 at Walmart.com. Walmart obviously wants you in their stores, angry, unable to navigate the aisles properly, forcing you to spend more time in their store, and making you stand in the two manned checkout lines or the self serve line that is snaking around the entire interior of the store.

They don’t want you shopping from the comfort of your home.

The McCrory’s in the original 1970s local shopping mall had a shortcut where you could cut through and come out on front of Macy’s instead of having to walk through the entire mall. Other shops in the mall complained they would pull their businesses out of the mall unless McCrory’s closed off the short cut. McCrory’s did - and went out of business shortly after that. McCrorys was a large store, sq ft wise. The reason people went in there was to cut through to Macy’s — but they’d see curtains or bed sheets on sale with a sign pointing to “pajama sale this way —>“ and end up buying stuff there. Once mall goers couldn’t get to Macy’s, nobody went in there anymore.