Posted on 06/24/2008 4:28:02 AM PDT by PurpleMan
"But the pharmacist said not much has changed in the year since the behemoth from Bentonville, Ark., threw open its doors. His loyal clients have not strayed. They like the fact that he delivers for free and remembers most of his customers' names."
"...But local proprietors and community leaders say the fears have not panned out."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Thanks for the advice. I pass two of the stores on the way to Wal-Mart and the quality is better on meat and produce there.
If all these other stores put as much effort into taking care of their customers (and their employees) as Wal Mart does they could compete.
The one thing you rarely find in any Walmart is Clerk Rage that snide “I don’t get paid enough to deal with you” attitude you can find in any other store chain besides Walmart.
WalMart Ping
Your welcome, hey you looking to buy a bridge?
“If you do not like WalMart, don’t go there. I like their prices on the same items I am going to buy anyway. I just have to pay much less at WalMart.”
I don’t like Walmart and rarely go there. They force manufactures to reduce the quality for most of their products. thats how they keep the price so low. So yes you can get a pair of jeans at walmart cheaper than most anywhere else. Don’t expect customer service, and don’t expect the material to be of the same quality.
Walmart worship is annoying. Its a stupid company that has grown too big and saturated its market. Its sales are dropping and its losing its family friendly management.
Well there is an unbiased opinoin from someone that admits they rarely go to Walmart and wouldn’t buy their products.
Just a simple question really. if you don’t go there and don’t buy there, aren’t your opinions based upon second hand information and the opinions of others?
Name one product whose Manufacturer has publicly complained about being forced to make a lower quality product for them....
That shouldn’t be hard to do nor should an article in the news be hard to dig up proving that point.....
Wal-Mart is for people who don’t need their hand held just to buy simple items. They have removed the cost of service in areas where service isn’t necessary.
Indeed. I am a former Wal-Mart employee (note the past tense). Sam Walton must be spinning like a gyro right now as the bean-counters are running the shop in a way that Sam would never countenance.
Cases in point: This coming 4th of July week, employees are being cut back from 40 to 32 hours so when they get the holiday pay, the company only pays out for 40 hours. Eight hours x how many employees saves a bundle. NO overtime. If you are one minute over, your work week is cut a couple of hours. (The work hour is broken down to two decimal places and there is no second hand on the time clock. If you are caught standing in front of the time clock waiting to clock out, you are fired.)
Their "You're not an employee, you're an 'Associate' (friend, buddy, pal) now means you have the choice of vaseline or 3-in-One oil when they bend you over. Their open door policy is "Don't let it hit you in the butt when you leave." I left on amicable terms but others got told "this is your last day" or "if you don't like the policy, you can leave." And this is just not one store, according to some Lifers who checked around.
The B/S they are pulling would fill a book and sound like what some guys told me went on during the Depression. When service jobs are all that's available in these small town, you are threaded, i.e. screwed.
‘That shouldn’t be hard to do nor should an article in the news be hard to dig up proving that point.”
You want proof? Have you ever bought clothes there? Sheets? Anything else?
Of course manuf. aren’t going to complain publicly. walmart still has a significant portion of the market. P&G sells around 25% of their products at Walmart.
Whats most amazing is the number of people that are offended when someone doesn’t like walmart. Holding Walmart up as the iconic image of capitalism is farsical. There are many good companies who treat their customers well and still make money.
Huh? Wal-Mart's same-store May 08 sales were 9.8% higher than its May 07 sales. That's dropping?
You are making an assertion of truth here. Where is your evidence to back up your statement? Just as with Obama's statement of "This is no longer a Christian nation" saying it does not make it true.
Walmart has saturated its market. it has no where else to go but down. Perhaps they should put a few starbucks in the walmarts. :)
It's not that people are offended at all. It's that people are honestly confused by what amounts to irrational hatred of a company for no other reason than that it is supremely successful at what it does. So then confused people will inquire about the irrational hatred, which you confuse with being offended. Maybe the one thing that people are offended by is the attitude of anti-Wal-Mart folks which tends to come accross as "I can't believe you backwoods hillbillies actually shop at Wal-Mart. Are you too stupid to know that Wal-Mart [abuses its employees/won't hire union workers/imports all its products from China/poisons children/starves old people, etc.]?"
For instance, it doesn't offend me that you don't like Wal-Mart. Shop there or don't; I don't care. But when you say things like "its sales are dropping," that's just plain wrong--and I'll chime in. There are hundreds of millions of people that shop at Wal-Mart every year, and apparently it must be doing something right, because lots of these people come back week after week.
Is that right? How do you explain 10% same store growth year-over-year?
The surprise here is not the story but that it was from the Washington Post. It has been known for a long time that Walmarts helps growth more than it hurts it. Some businesses may be hurt by Walmart but others see the opportunity in all the traffic Walmart can bring to an area. I shop Walmart, but most of my groceries are bought at Kroger’s and Aldi’s. A Kroger store brand on sale is usually just as good a deal if not better than what you can get at Walmart.
“You are making an assertion of truth here.”
the easiest way to view this is to buy two items and compare. buy a shirt at walmart and one at a place like JC Penneys. Walmart has a lower thread count. the material doesn’t last nearly as long.
There were numerous stories about this a while back. Places like B&D having to reengineer their products to reduce the price.
Walmart buyers tell the product reps they want “China Pricing”. They provide lawn chairs for product reps to use when in Walmart offices.
You like Walmart, good for you. I prefer dealing with a person and not some corporate entity as much as possible.
My first eye opener was when I bought something at Sams. Turned out I could have bought the same thing in a more reasonable size and cheaper at a place that actually treated you like a customer. So I started watching the unit prices. Sure some things are cheaper but many items are more expensive. They bank on the fact that people are well trained and just accept that prices at walmart are always cheaper.
Walmart has saturated its market. it has no where else to go but down.
Market saturation is one problem that major chains have to watch out for. However the population of the US is still increasing and urban sprawl is still ongoing. The sprawl may change a bit with the price of crude doing its thing. I’ll wait a bit to see what Wallyworlds long term sales figures are before I commit them to the ash heap of history.
“It’s not that people are offended at all. It’s that people are honestly confused by what amounts to irrational hatred of a company for no other reason than that it is supremely successful at what it does”
Oh plenty of people are offended. They worship Walmart apparently. I don’t hate Walmart. I just think there are other considerations when buying a product. Quality is a big one. Environment is another.
I stopped going to Target for a long time because it was french owned. I recently started going back and was greatly greatly surprised at the difference in clientel. Not too many MS13 gang bangers going into Target which is a good thing for me.
Walmart sold all its stores in South Korea because it could not compete. The competitor wasn’t cheaper. They just had great customer service and clean stores. They had cute ladies greating you at the door and another cute lady in every aisle to help you. I keep hoping some chain here in the states will take up that customer service model.
The typical arguments against Walmart only apply in rural towns where people frequented local businesses because they had no other options. The high prices charged by the small stores depressed the standard of living in the small towns. Often, the quality of the items sold wasn’t very good.
Once the Walmart came in, people had an option and didn’t need to pay high prices for a small selection, which served to kill many smaller stores.
In a big city, Walmart is just another retailer. People have the choice of malls and other big box stores. Walmart’s prices are negligibly lower than other stores.
Smaller stores in urban areas don’t directly compete with Walmart since they tend to serve a niche audience who frequent the store for unusual items or higher quality service.
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