When Walmart pulls out of town, the stores next door don’t pick up its shoppers — their sales are down 20% a year later | Fortune

Walmart’s closure of a local store leaves nearby retailers worse off, with sales at neighboring stores down about 20% a year later, according to research by Vivek Astvansh, Preetinder Kaur and Pushpinder Gill. The finding challenges the assumption that competing stores automatically absorb shoppers when a Walmart exits a town. The authors attribute the decline to lost customer traffic and the halo effect a big-box anchor creates for surrounding businesses. The result matters for local retail markets, commercial landlords and policymakers weighing the impact of store closures. What to watch next is whether smaller retailers can rebuild foot traffic through other anchors or whether closures trigger further vacancies.