Online expansion opens military exchange to another 240K shoppers in Tampa Bay area

[HAB911]

TAMPA — Military exchanges like the one at MacDill Air Force Base have long offered big savings to active-duty troops, military retirees and their families.

Starting Saturday, Veterans Day, deals like 25 percent off on watches, 30 percent off smokers and $70 off an HP laptop will be available to a whole lot more people worldwide — anyone, in fact, who has ever been honorably discharged from the military.

In the Tampa Bay area, the expansion is projected to boost the customer base from about 140,000 now to some 380,000 — and increase the exchange’s local economic impact from about $35 million annually to $100 million over the next five years.

"This includes salaries and businesses that support the exchanges," said Tom Shull, director and chief executive officer of the Dallas-based Army and Air Force Exchange Service. "We are looking at almost tripling the overall economic impact over a five-year period."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/Online-expansion-opens-military-exchange-to-another-240-000-shoppers-in-Tampa-Bay-area_162374110

[unc70]

1. Local economic impact claim is misleading

Most of the additional sales through the exchanges are being offset by lost sales by other businesses in the local economies and by the loss of local sales tax revenues in those areas. There will be ripple effects all over the place

We should also follow the profits not reinvested in the military community. This doesn’t feel quite right.

[HAB911]

2. Florida Retail Federation

comment surprised me. I wonder what the Chambers of Commerce and local retail orgs think about it. I would not like it were I them.