Sam's Club Catastrophe

In January of this year, Walmart closed a total of 63 Sam's Club stores across the nation, including in Puerto Rico. According to an article by Daniel Keyes, 10 to 12 of the closed locations are to be turned into e-commerce distribution centers. However, this left 11,000 people without work (over 9,000 affected) in short notice.

NOTE: We will be having our first meeting of this semester next week on February 21st at our regular time and place. We will be taking student organization pictures, too. 

Questions:

1. Who benefits most from this shift? Who suffers? Explain.
2. Do you believe that the benefits of implementing e-commerce distribution centers outweigh the costs associated with implementing the change?
3. How will (or has) this impacted the Fairbanks community? UAF? Alaska businesses? Alaskan Villages?  Is there anybody else you can think of who would be impacted by this?
4. With this closure, there are/were 51-53 buildings vacant. What, in your opinion, is the best use of these vacant buildings?

Articles for Reading:
-Fairbanks
-Across the Nation
-Why did they do this?