Due to the development and rapid expansion of supermarkets in some countries, many small, local businesses are unable to compete. Some people think that the closure of local business will bring about the death of local communities. To what extent do you agree or disagree.

Some people contend that giant supermarkets, that operate in many regions, diminish the ability of local business to survive, therefore local communities will difficult to thrive. To some extent, I personally agree with their claim, but I also agree that the opening of the supermarkets would be beneficial to the people surrounding. Admittedly, there is a justification by people who become the opponents of the supermarket development. Supermarkets can exert leverage over local businesses by attracting more buyer to visit the supermarkets. Supermarket are supported by stronger financial than the local stores are, so that they are able to supply many kinds of items from all over the world with cheaper prices as they buy these items in large quantity. However, still I support the opinion that the expansion of supermarkets would not certainly take over local community business. The first reason is there is a symbiosis between large supermarkets and people around them. The large supermarkets are likely to utilize the local capacity to provide local vegetables or other things as the local business products are easy to be controlled due the short distances. Thus, the more people demand supermarket products, the higher orders that the local businesses receive. Furthermore, the supermarkets demand employees from local people, which spans the job’s opportunity for the local society. Another reason is that local stores offer their customers with a closer relationship and more personal touch. For example, some large local stores in Malang manage to survive because they understand their loyal buyer’s needs and are able to maintain personal communication with each customer, which is hard to be done by national level supermarkets. To sum up, the existence of the large scale of supermarkets in cities may bring advantages and disadvantages for local people but the advantages outweigh the disadvantage. Moreover, local stores have competitive aspects that difficult to be achieved by the large scale of supermarkets.