Wal-Mart

[fireheart17]

Ny, are you sure it's Wal-Mart? Last I heard our state was getting an ALDI and a Costco. I won't mind the Aldi so much, the Costco might be a slight problem.

as for the Kath and Kim debate, I believe the Australian version worked well for two reasons.

1) The characters were a lot easier to relate to.
2) it was funny

The American version I think tried too hard to be like the Australian version.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

One reason I am extremely leery of shopping there is because they have a habit, at least around here, of putting merchandise they know is faulty back on the shelves.

And then instead of one unwanted trip to Walmart, you end up with two when you have to make a return.

A friend bought a pair of shoes that had a nail coming up through the sole. Returned them and a couple days later found the exact pair back on the shelf.

I had a couple similar experiences myself. Found the unusable item I'd returned back on the shelf.

They have a pretty "don't care" attitude when it comes to returns, so that's good, but if they KNOW their merchandise is broken/damaged/faulty and knowingly sell it anyways, well, that's just sucky.

They don't really treat their customers any better than their employees. So I guess it's not personal, they just...you know...suck.

[protege]

The other problem around here is people don't want them here. For instance a walmart can't open within Boston city limits.

Sounds like what my borough did in the early 1990s. Back then, Walmart was thinking of building a store in an abandoned field just inside the borough limits. Of course the tax dollars would have been welcomed, but once traffic studies were done, the cost of getting the land ready, plus environmental studies, and other costs were done...plus the outrage from residents, it was felt that the costs simply outweighed the benefits. My borough actually *refused* to rezone the property, and told Walmart to go fuck themselves. We simply didn't want to deal with the problems caused by that store. How's that, that one of the smallest (2 square miles) boroughs in suburban Pittsburgh had the balls to tell off one of the largest corporations on the planet...to fuck off

Surprisingly, Walmart chose not to fight, and instead...built their store in a neighboring borough. Sure, we miss not getting the increased tax revenue, but I think the right decision was made. Since that place has become a superstore, crime has seen a huge jump up there. There have been several gang-related fights, a couple of carjackings, assaults, and a woman was raped in the parking lot After reading all that (and seeing some of it!) that other borough can deal with it. Not our problem

We also didn't want it, simply because of the increased traffic. We get enough traffic, usually from surrounding areas. Most of that cuts through the borough to bypass the traffic on Route 51, or to get onto the toll road faster.

[Nyoibo]

Ny, are you sure it's Wal-Mart? Last I heard our state was getting an ALDI and a Costco. I won't mind the Aldi so much, the Costco might be a slight problem.

as for the Kath and Kim debate, I believe the Australian version worked well for two reasons.

1) The characters were a lot easier to relate to.
2) it was funny

The American version I think tried too hard to be like the Australian version.

Yeah, we're getting a Costco, Walmart is trying to break into the Australian market but they haven't done it yet.

I've never seen an American remake of a show that was actually funny.

[Dreamstalker]

I've heard that manufacturers send to WM the items that came just this side of failing quality control for other stores.

Don't know if that's true, but I was in NM two years ago for the holidays and left my cell charger at home. The first universal charger purchased at WM came very close to either bursting into flames or damaging the phone, I wasn't going to leave it plugged in long enough to find out what. WM gave us hell when trying to return it since of course it wasn't in the original packaging (but we have the receipt dated yesterday, the damn thing's FAULTY!). Eventually we get a refund...in the form of a gift card that can only be used at Wal-Mart (where's the head-banging smiley?)

Head to Target. Buy the same universal charger, same manufacturer, negligible price difference. I'm still using it.

Two friends bought the same brand-name desktop; one from WM, the other from Micro Center three years ago. The Micro Center computer (still quite alive, the WM one died a strange death awhile ago) has needed fewer "service calls" from me overall.

[Mr Slugger]

I've heard that manufacturers send to WM the items that came just this side of failing quality control for other stores.

The thing I know about walmart stuff as far as electronics is usually their stuff is say a model 3623a type stuff. You can find the 3623 a best buy for $50 more. But the 3623a on that walmart sells has say a less powerful motherboard, and unless you read the differences line by line you'd never notice. Like one I bought for my daughter had a much lower L2 cache, and a crappy video card. But sometimes those types of things no one notices.

[pile of monkeys]

The whole strong-arming manufacturers/suppliers thing is totally true. I have a good friend who works for a large, multinational company that makes, let's say, widgets, that are sold in many different stores. She used to work for the Walmart inventory division of Widget Manufacturer, now has been transferred (promoted) to another store's division. What Walmart does, according to how she's explained it to me, is this:

-Widget X costs $2 to make. It is sold to many different stores for $3, and retailed for $6. So most stores that sell Widget X buy and sell it for roughly the same price, with some variance based on quantity purchasing or buy-in deals.

-Walmart tells Widget Manufacturer that they will only buy Widget X at $2.05 each (thus allowing them to retail it for, say, $4.10, almost a third less than every other store).

-Widget Manufacturer isn't happy about losing 95 cents per Widget X, but Walmart will not only not purchase Widget X anymore if the price isn't met, but they will also not stock Widgets A-W and Y and Z, either. Walmart=country's largest retailer. If you don't have a presence in their stores, you have little chance of succeeding for very long.

[Boozy]

And yet it is still profitable for Widget Company to provide the widgets at $2.05, or else they would not agree to that deal. Consumers then pay almost $2 less for their widgets.

Walmart's drive to keep prices low has meant that the price of goods has come closer to reflecting their marginal cost than ever before. It's about what we'd expect from an intensely competitive market, despite the fact that Walmart has actually driven many competitors out of business.

It will be interesting to see if that continues once Walmart has completely cornered the retail market. My guess is "probably not". They'll raise their prices as soon as the pressure to keep them low has eased off. We've already seen in in many areas.

In the meantime, Walmart is mostly good for most communities, despite popular belief. Yes, they pay low wages. Yes, they have lousy health insurance for their staff. But the appearance of a Walmart in any given area drives the consumer price index down significantly -- whether one chooses to shop there or not.

[Rapscallion]

And yet it is still profitable for Widget Company to provide the widgets at $2.05, or else they would not agree to that deal. Consumers then pay almost $2 less for their widgets.

For that particular widget sure. However, the deal is for the range of widgets. They can make enough on all widgets to cover the loss on the one out of the range.

We do similar things at my place. We accept a somewhat reduced margin, occasionally even a loss, on certain products to make sure that we keep the otherwise profitable account.

It's also the case that it could be profitable for them at the $2.05 price, but then Wal-Mart is getting all the benefit from the manufacture and sale, not just the sale (which as a retailer is all they should be doing).

Do I think Wal-Mart is evil? I think the system where such antics are allowed is flawed, and that they're just doing what comes naturally. Is that good or bad? No idea. I've not looked into it sufficiently.

Rapscallion

[Pedersen]

In the meantime, Walmart is mostly good for most communities, despite popular belief. Yes, they pay low wages. Yes, they have lousy health insurance for their staff. But the appearance of a Walmart in any given area drives the consumer price index down significantly -- whether one chooses to shop there or not.

Actually, the "mostly good" is the part where I take issue. I'm not sure that that's true.

Assume a typical Wal-Mart store employs 100 people, and that 100 manages to serve the community well enough to make people willing to shop there. Now consider the add-on effects of that store succeeding:

The following local store types will have trouble staying in business: shoe, clothing, grocies (assuming a super Wal-Mart), electronics, hardware, gardening, automotive, pet supply, pharmacy, toy, craft, kitchen supply, and home decorating.

If a given community has one of each of those, and each of those employs 10 people (including owners, so it's not totally out of the question), that's 120 people who could find themselves jobless. And the jobs aren't at the Wal-Mart, either, since it already has 100 employees serving the community well enough. They must now leave their community to find work, requiring that they be gone for the majority of the day. Their ability to participate in the community goes down.

The people who have the jobs at Wal-Mart are also making significantly less, requiring them to either live at the subsistence line, or to get second jobs, and thus reducing their own ability to participate in their community.

Once that happens, there is also less money in the community. Instead of people shopping and spending locally, with the money recycling as the local owners also shop and spend locally, a significant chunk of the money moves down to Arkansas. The entire community actually gets poorer.

With the loss of wealth in the community comes poverty. With poverty comes decline. And with that decline comes social problems, such as drugs and gangs. And the people who would have cared enough to prevent it are spending the majority of their time away from their community just trying to earn enough to pay their mortgage/rent/food/utilities or are too tired (thanks to working two jobs) to participate.

And let's not forget the add-on costs: Any Wal-Mart increases traffic, which means further road maintenance costs, further patrol costs to enforce the rules of the road there, further maintenance costs on the vehicles doing those patrols, etc.

In other words, I'm not at all convinced that Wal-Mart's lower prices do "mostly good". When you narrow it down to one specific measure, there's a strong benefit. When you look at the whole picture, though, a Wal-Mart can easily be seen as an overall negative.

[smileyeagle1021]

The people talking about Wal-Mart eventually raising prices... I've seen it first hand in two different cities. Hell, they've gotten so arrogant that they don't even wait for their competition to close, they know people are stupid enough to just keep on going to wal-mart because "they have the lowest prices". In Reno they drove pretty much everyone other than Target, Home Depot, and a few grocery stores (at least in the mid to low price range... the higher end stores haven't really been affected) out of business south of the McCarren loop and even several stores within the McCarren loop. On the north side though it hasn't gotten as much of a foothold... want to make a guess which parts of the valley have the cheapest prices... I'll give you a hint, it's not the side with the Wal-Mart dominence on them.
In Salt Lake they haven't even waited to carve out an area of control... they just started raising their prices on the assumption no one would notice... I noticed... I also noticed I spent less money when I went to Reams. Sadly, I'm one of the few people who noticed. My roommates have finally been turned off of Wal-Mart because the one closest to us has some of the worst customer service in the state. They seem to intentionally hiring the people with no customer service skills just so they can get people for cheap.
Of course as others have mentioned, Wal-Marts always seem to bring traffic problems (though in fairness, any major development does that), but Wal-Mart does nothing to try to mitigate traffic. Barnes and Noble has a store in the Sugar House district that was already along an established bus route, so they designed the store to be easily accessible by bus passengers as well as people driving to the store, Wal-Mart built a store a block away from a major TRAX station... they did absolutely nothing to make it accessible to TRAX passengers, in fact it is almost as if they went out of their way to make it NOT accessible by making people walk along a very busy access road without any sidewalk to get into the store. Hell, even Century theaters which builds every single building identical at least worked with the placement of the building to be easily accessible to the pedestrians either walking in the neighborhood or coming in by bus as well as to people driving in. Added that to what others have said, I think we can say, Wal-Mart just isn't a good community neighbor.

[Mr Slugger]

Around here they're not much cheaper either, although again as I mentioned the competition here is trying to fight back. But I know I went to one of the super walmarts around here a couple of months ago, and looked through the meat deptartment. They were really only 5 to 10 cents a pound cheaper. And for the aggravation of fighting those lines is that really worth it? Not to me really.

As for strong arming vendors. My belief is this. If you're in business you attempt to work with a business. Sure you might not get the exact price you want, but they will be more likely to help you out in a pinch. Sure walmart is the big guy now, so was Sears at one point. And if and when competition starts to give walmart a run for their money, and they're perhaps better to the vendors they'll drop walmart in an instant.

[MadMike]

I've heard that manufacturers send to WM the items that came just this side of failing quality control for other stores.

I believe it. They seem to be OK for simple things like a pair of jeans or a DVD, but anything electronic seems to be a crapshoot.

That's one reason I don't like to shop there. Another is the crowd of idiots who don't watch where the #$%@ they're going. It does not work well with my claustrophobia. If I absolutely have to shop there, I try to do it late at night when it's not so crowded.