A grocery store about a block away has changed hands several times in the last 3 years. Talking to one of the owners, buying groceries from distributors means buying from one of the major grocery chains, as they own the distributors for their stores. Walmart is the only one that won't sell outside their chain. If you want to sell certain brands, you can only buy from a certain distributor, and if you choose one distributor, the others won't touch you.
None of them sell at wholesale, so the markup for 4l of milk has to be kept to under a dime or customers will spend $1 on gas to go to the box store to save 8 cents. You buy at the same price as if you went to their store like a pleb. They never sold any fresh fruit or veg, didn't run most of their coolers of freezers, never used A/C in summer, or turned on most of their lights. Costs need to be saved somehow, and they had to run about $100k a month in sales to meet costs even at that.
The store closed again last month, and didn't re-open. Workers are there right now stripping the 1970s era IGA fixtures out. I assume the owner doesn't think it's viable for a grocery store. If you grew up in the 1970s, you would recognize the store.
It's the 3rd independent grocery store to fail in my area in the last 2-3 years.
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