Posted on 02/20/2015 7:48:48 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
An IMPROVING job market and the QUALITY of JOBS and PAY available are two different worlds.
Thought you might like to see this.
”… the federal minimum wage of $7.25, ..."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Note that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate minimum wage. The so-called federal mimimum wage is evidence that corrupt federal politicians are exploiting low-information voters by promising to raise national minimum wage regardless that the feds have no constitutional authority to address such issues.
I'm pretty sure that Walmart was, and is, pro-Ocare. This pay raise will cost them a couple hundred million now but they'll get a couple billion on the back end as they dump employees into the government system.
Most likely Walmart is being forced to raise pay rates to complete with unemployment “insurance” payments and other permanent welfare entitlements.
“but I’d checked Walmart and they didn’t have the specific item I needed.”
Empty Walmart shelves is epidemic in my part of the Colorado Front Range. I pretty much quit going to Walmart for much of anything. The major grocery chains in my area (mainly Safeway and Kroger’s Colordo King Soopers) long ago figured out how to match Walmart grocery prices. Not to mention way better service, way better employees, and way better quality.
Walmart’s pharmacies do however still beat the pants off of Walgreen’s around here in every possible way.
WalMart, the Company Store
There is no reason for being out of a product on a regular basis for days and sometimes weeks on end. It's not that things sell out fast. I shop late at night and see what's on the pallets. That's how I know items are never making it to the store.
If you ask the clerks they take the gun and scan the Bar-Code and will tell you the product is there & almost 100% of the time when you have to ask them it's not there. I ask them show it to me then. They scan bar-code on shelf again and say there are X number on the shelf. Again I say show me where then. The clerks are not matching bar-code on shelf up with the bar-code on the product that is supposed to be there. That should be implemented as a confirmation step when they check their zones. If they can't produce an item matching the bar-code on the shelf where it is supposed to be then that should trigger an immediate order.
I miss the Walmart Sam built and it was well worth even the 50 mile round trip we used to make to shop there.. Even the smaller non superstore ones were well stocked when he ran it. Most important Sam had a Made In USA campaign and policy he tried to honor and that was what made Walmart great. I'm sure any anyone over 30 or so remembers when it was Walmart's slogan so to speak shown all around the store.
The management upon his death went quickly to a Made In China policy and pressured their vendors to go overseas to meet Walmarts prices. There is an article about that very tactic. It was about three years after Sam Waltons's death. The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart
From the little I know, it’s up to the department manager to check inventory and order. The Telxon shows the inventory in the store including what’s in the back room and what’s enroute.
Our store makes a determined effort to keep shelves stocked. Food is the normal priority for the night shift. The managers on the shift often take an aisle and stock. That might be an easy aisle like cereal. But I have seen a manager do paper and chemical. Paper is easy and goes fast. Chemical usually has at least two pallets of boxed soap stacked over six feet high. That will give you a work out.
Walmart is buying time. The left hates Walmart for the wealth of the Walton family, the Sam Walton’ uniquely American success story, it’s nonunion workforce, and it being a living monument to capitalism. It is a favorite target of leftist groups for what the left portrays as its exploitive wages, discriminatory promotion practices, lack of social conscience, and the size of its profits.
It may be management knew Obama and the media were gearing up for an all out assault on the company during Obama’s last two years in office. By paying tribute in the form of higher wages, Walmart is making a preemptive against the coming income inequality and worker exploitation attacks, rather than stand by and get the Koch brothers treatment. The company gets to take credit for the wage increase rather than appear to be giving in to the attack machine a year from now.
The left doesn’t see technology is soon going to allow Walmart to eliminate hundreds of thousands of cashiers from its payroll. The company has been working with vendors for two decades on RFID technology which will soon replace bar codes on every product. Instead of a bar code, a tiny RFID chip will be embedded in every product, giving every single item in the store a unique identity that will be tracked electronically. No need to take inventory, the store’s computer will perpetually be updating the identity and location of every item whether it is on a shelf, in the back room, in a customer’s cart, or concealed in the customer’s purse. The major obstacle to implementing this technology has been the cost and size of the chips and the development of the tracking technologies. The cost and size of chips has been shrinking and the IT work has been done and proven. At the same time we are within 2 years of every credit and debit card bearing a similar chip giving the customer the ability to pay without presenting a card to a customer.
Effectively Walmart will be able to eliminate the checkout process. As the customer leaves the store every item in the cart will be scanned and the customer’s credit or debit card charged. If the customer has pilfered a product, hiding it in his pocket or concealing it in her purse, the product will still be scanned and charged. The consumer will have the ability to see a list of what is in the cart and affirmatively validate the purchase before leaving the store thereby eliminating claims she was charged erroneously for items. Five years from now Walmart will have effectively eliminated most humans from the checkout process just as the airlines eliminated humans from the fight check in process a decade ago.
RFID will allow Walmart to dramatically reduce its payroll costs, improve its inventory management, and reduce the cost of shoplifting. Also with RFID technology Walmart will have the ability to change its relationship with suppliers. Once it has achieved perfect control over every unit of inventory, throughout its system, it can dictate stricter payment terms with suppliers. Instead of paying for goods upon shipment from a factory, or receipt at a warehouse, Walmart will be able to tell its suppliers going forward they will be paid daily for items when Walmart is paid by its customers. When it pulls off this transformation, Walmart can eliminate completely the cost of carrying inventory. Instead of a customer, Walmart will become a landlord and warehouse for its suppliers. Walmart will essentially be providing value added distribution services, giving suppliers direct access to consumers for a fee. By eliminating the cost of carrying inventory, Walmart will be able to lower prices, allowing it to compete more effectively with Amazon and other emerging 21st century technology enabled retailers.
In Walmart’s future world it will require fewer but more highly skilled associates on the floor. These associates will need to be able to serve customers on the floor using technology. Ask an associate anywhere in the store if Walmart carries a purple Rival brand two slice toaster. The employee can look up on a hand held device where the item is located and take the customer to it. If the store is out of stock the employee will be able to order it from a warehouse, or even directly from the manufacturer and have it shipped to the customer’s home in one to two days. The customer will be able to pay for the ordered item while talking to the employee.
Perhaps Walmart is killing two birds with one stone. Getting the government off its back today while beginning to put in place the higher paid, higher capability employees needed for tomorrow.
I used to drive a truck and one shipping company I used to pick up freight at hit the nail on the head.
I was in the Dispatch Office getting paperwork for my load and the supervisor heard a dispatcher saying to a customer on the phone "sorry I have no trailers available for your load". He blew a gasket and said "The next time you tell me and we'll buy a trailer never ever loose a load for that reason". That was a shipping company in Philly a large shipping company. He understood his commodity which was the trucking service depended on steady sales and them always being there. To apply this same principle to Walmart if it's not on the shelves it's a lost sale. It's loss of profits and that is what the Doofs at Bentonville can't seem to grasp.
They go out of their way to make certain rack 123443 in store # 0000 is in check out lane 5 {because check out line racks and other spaces are rented to vendor companies} but corp doesn't pay attention to inventory.
Unfortunately they seem to give the store managers very little say in these matters because I've talked to my local one several times.
Walmart Corp VP's believe it or not used to return calls. Remember the corralling and the real shrill high pitched alarms that used to be in Electronics years ago? Everytime someone went in or out the only entrance the blasted thing went off for an eternity if someone was standing at the sensor. I'm hypersensitive to such noise and wrote a letter to Bentonville. The VP in Bentonville in charge of Loss Prevention at that time {back when Sam was alive} called me and we talked about 5 minutes. Within six months they were gone in most stores.
Today if you call or write a letter or use online Contact Us to get someone at Corp you'll instead get a local associate who has absolutely no power or say to address anything. When I said it isn't the Walmart Sam built that's what I meant.
Nothing irks a consumer more than such things as items mystically discontinued especially when still at other stores, food items over in the action aisle near Toys, & items not on shelves. Sales are how companies make profits. Don't have shelves stocked? Increase deliveries and if necessary the employees. Walmart lost most of my food purchases for such stunts as Great Value only products they tried to do and it never was quite the same after. My local has decent produce usually.
Once upon a time I knew I could come out ahead money wise and find most things doing grocery shopping there. Those days are gone. They take up an entire aisle of food for whatever holiday is coming up. They have to do that because years ago Corp decided to remove an entire shelf level store wide.
Thanks for posting that. Generally our food section is well stocked. There are a few times items are out of stock, but normally not for long. As I mentioned, I’ve been told the department manager can special order. the local store is also the top rated store in the region. Management and associates must be doing something right.
The Telxon we used for stocking is a portable data terminal. It does have access to an area where orders can be placed. The warehouse will occasionally dump product to the stores. It’s not unusual for us to get large quantities of something for which there is no shelf space. The local store is different than others in that the backroom is smaller due to part of it being taken when groceries were added.
The extra product has to go somewhere so it ends up as a “feature.” I’m not sure if Walmart ocassionaly gets deals or aht happens then. Some products rae obviously seasonal.
If I carry a product back into the store the next day, in my backpack, will I be charged a second time for that same product?
An example of what I do is get a pack of Bic pens and carry it around in my backpack. I could end up being charger $20 over the following weeks for a product that should cost only $1 ... what a deal!!
Adjusted for inflation minimum hasn’t changed since the 1960’s.
What I’m talking about here is multiple charges for the same product ... :-) ...
I think that is a big part of it; for too long people in low-wage jobs lived little better than welfare parasites who didn’t have to exert themselves at all...
“If I carry a product back into the store the next day, in my backpack, will I be charged a second time for that same product?”
You shouldn’t be. The RFID tag is unique to that particular item, analogous to the unique DNA markers of each human being. In other words, even though two black Bic pens look identical in appearance, each has a unique identity in the system so it can be tracked. The scanner will identify the chip in the items you are carrying or wearing but the database will tell the computer the items were sold previously and should not be charged. Women won’t have to worry about the bra they bought a week previously.
The toughest items to deal with are fresh food. A banana or apple can have the chip in a sticker. However, other fruits and vegetables like grapes, broccoli, herbs, and green beans are problematic. Those items will likely have to be packaged.
I had to run out for some Cold Meds a few minutes ago. Lo and Behold Bentonville had been to the Clinton, Tn store again remodeling. It's like Scavenger Hunt every time those clowns show up. I also noticed {REDUCED} on hand inventory yet again on the shelves. Now this wasn't just the typical snow buy out I mean reduced shelf space for high Volume Items. The person doing this nonsense are Morons and Walmart deserves to loose money if they are stupid enough to continue doing this nonsense. The system you speak of means it will only get worse. Walmart is fixing to become the new K-Mart. The same arrogance at a corporate level is what done K-Mart in. They too stopped listening to consumers.
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