This reminds me of the long ethics of Mustachianism discussion we had a few months back.
Sol and Bakari would, I believe, have a different opinion than most have expressed in this thread.
I don't know about "most" - the first three reflected my stance pretty much exactly. I do sometimes get groceries from FoodMax, but its mostly things the local grocer doesn't carry. I'll often get things online, but I'll give preference to a non-amazon shop if its an option. I believe in true free markets - i.e. perfect competition, i.e. small independent business, but I'm not strict about it.
That study that shows the 35% better wages for employees of large firms seems to be looking at overall numbers, and not controlling for variables, so it may not be directly relevant to this question:
"The ... selection of employees ... are responsible for the positive relation between wages and employer size."
"Large firms demand a higher... education, job tenure, and a higher fraction of full-time workers."
Unless you compare employees with the same education, work hours, etc, then you can't use relative wage data to say whether any given worker would be better off at a small or large firm.
I offer as counter evidence:
http://www.ilsr.org/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail/"Independent businesses spend more on local labor"
"the arrival of a Wal-Mart store reduces total county-wide retail payroll by an average of about $1.2 million"
"...2,953 counties, including both rural and urban places, and find that, after controlling for other factors that influence growth, those with a larger density of small, locally owned businesses experienced greater per capita income growth"
The website lists about 40 independent studies that put hard numbers on the negative impact of big chains on local economies.
And, while we probably don't want to hear it, this is what we should expect, since in addition to paying for wholesale purchases, overhead, and labor, corporations also have to come up with dividends to pay its shareholders - in other words, all of
us! That money has to come from somewhere. Economies of scale only go so far, so if a company wants to both have the lowest prices, and provide good dividends, it has to reduce costs. If it is going to have quality product, the only place left to give is wages.