People Who Complain About Wal-Mart

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

There is an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit that covers Walmart.

I find that I don't complain about them quite as much as I used to.

Anyone who has Netflix can see the episode...it's an eye opener to the truth behind the common feelings towards it.

Now I just bitch about MY Walmart since the people working there are assholes. But then again it's not in the nicest of areas so the worker base is a little surly to start with.

[Boozy]

I hate Walmart, although not for any political or economic reason. I just hate shopping there.

It's dirty, overcrowded, the employees are poorly trained and in miserable moods (if you can even find one), and the goods are shoddy.

You'll never save money in the long-run buying shoes, clothes, non-brand-name electronics, or housewares from Walmart. There's a reason this shit's cheap, folks - it's garbage. You get what you pay for.

Groceries may be a different matter. Maybe you can get decent stuff for less at Walmart, but I haven't been to our nearest supercentre to find out.

Walmart was a godsend when I first graduated from university, had twenty bucks in my pocket, and needed dress pants for job interviews. But now that I can afford better, I shop elsewhere.

[Teysa]

I know Wal-Mart likes to make a big deal about how much cheaper their groceries are. Actually, from what I've seen they average between 15 and 25 cents cheaper than the grocery store I work at. In fact, quite a bit of their stuff costs more.

As for the store itself, I have two Wal-Marts close by. They're both reasonably clean and well run. Of course I avoid the place like the plague during the Holidays and peak hours, preferring to go there late at night on the rare occasions I do shop there.

My stepdad works at Wal-Mart and has done so for around ten years. Their benefits have been good enough to help with both his and my mom's medical expenses. He has heart problems, and my mom has both Parkinson's and heart problems of her own. They've also been really good about working with his schedule when he's had to take care of my mom.

[Andara Bledin]

Anyone who has Netflix can see the episode...it's an eye opener to the truth behind the common feelings towards it.

I've seen it. They actually missed a couple of things, such as the multiple and repeated fines levied against various locations for abuses against employees, and nothing else they said was news to me.

I know Wal-Mart likes to make a big deal about how much cheaper their groceries are. Actually, from what I've seen they average between 15 and 25 cents cheaper than the grocery store I work at. In fact, quite a bit of their stuff costs more.

You can't outsource grocery production; things grow where they grow. There is no economy of scale that can be leveraged to make groceries much cheaper than they already tend to be. There are no margins to shave, really.

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[AdminAssistant]

I've seen it. They actually missed a couple of things, such as the multiple and repeated fines levied against various locations for abuses against employees, and nothing else they said was news to me.

One thing I noticed about that episode is that they were praising Wal-Mart for providing crappy, low paying jobs to people who need them. However, in their episode on recycling, they talk about how people who support recycling claim that it creates jobs, specifically, people needed to sort everything out. Then they joke about, "Oh yeah, that's a great job!! Whoo! So glad I'm getting to work here!!" Wal-Mart jobs are good but working in a recycling center isn't? I'm confused, Mr. Magician.

[guywithashovel]

To some extent, I actually can sympathize with Wal-Mart haters. During my last year working there, the store I was working for was really going downhill. The store management was getting tighter and tighter about investing in more employees and resources, and the whole staff was getting spread thinner and thinner. I was expected to work my department (and do it to 300% perfection, and yes, I know 300% isn't exactly realistic . . . just using a hyperbole to make a point), and I was also expected to run to the registers whenever the CSMs called me up there, and I was expected to help out in any other departments that needed help. To top it off, I was getting reamed out for (allegedly) not doing my job to satisfaction.

It's pretty much just the things I said in my OP. People complain it sucks, yet they continue to go back, and so does over half of the rest of the population. Also, I'm having a hard time buying the argument that some people can't shop elsewhere, unless it is literally the only store in town. I've found that I usually don't spend that much more (if at all) when I shop elsewhere, especially if I watch for sales. In fact, around here, if you're on a tight budget, it would probably be even cheaper to shop somewhere like Aldi's (we have a few of those).

[protege]

this may have been true AT ONE TIME. Wal-Marts business stragegy in the early years was to establish locations that others did not seem to want to serve ie. the more rural locations. the problem with that was it slowly destroyed, what is now commonly called, small town Main St.

That's *exactly* what happened. They came to town, and drove everyone else out of business. I've seen it happen, folks. Go down to Waynesburg, PA. That town once had a thriving business district. By 2000, it wasn't great, since every other surrounding town had a Wal-Mart (or Target, Kmart, etc.), but it wasn't decrepit. Then Wal-Mart opened outside of town, and the dollars that would have been spent in town...are now spent out there. There's very little left "up town" now. Once the larger stores started closing, the smaller ones left as well. Once they're gone... it's *very* hard to get them back!

I don't shop at Wal-Mart solely for that reason. I simply hate the store. For some reason, I feel like I've been *infected* with something the few times that I've been in there. Either it's because the stores are always dirty, they attract the lowest common denominator, or simply because (at least locally), the vast majority of the employees seem to be pissed off.

As such, I avoid that place like the plague. I don't shop there, unless I have to. I'll go to Target, one of the borough stores, or anywhere else.

[Smithereens]

See, when I complain about Wal Mart it's usually about the fact that even the express lanes are as slow as the regular lines, and that shopping in the grocery section is excruciating because of the amount of people wandering around with their carts in the way. However, I do like that there is a lot of stuff there and I can usually find what I need.
As for the pay, well. My brothers and I work retail. They work at Wal Mart, I work somewhere else. The place where I work seems to have a good reputation. It's popular. My brothers make a lot more than I do.
I shop around at pretty much any grocery store, and I don't have a preference. As long as they have what I need, I'm okay with it.

[McDreidel09]

I tend to shop at Wal-Mart because it tends to be cheaper for me. We do have a Kwik Trip in my college town where I can get good quality fruit,bread, eggs, and bagged milk for much cheaper . However, everything else I get from Wal Mart unless Piggly Wiggly is having sales or if I want Aldi's brand stuff (which can be good).

Then again, I am a college student with a very small budget to work with. As for Wally World electronics and appliances, my mom bought me a small coffee pot as a birthday gift almost a year ago and it is still working like a charm. Plus, I love their back to school sales!

[blas87]

I shop for all my groceries at Wal-Mart because they are cheaper (unless the grocery stores are having sales, which I'm not going to shop there just for a few sale items) and it only makes sense to get necessities and toiletries there as well.

[Dreamstalker]

As an experiment I bought 2 of the same items (cellphone charger); one at WM and one at Target. Both were the same brand for the same phone.

The Walmart-purchased charger heated up quickly and actually tripped the surge protection on the power strip that it was plugged into. The phone battery was also toast (the phone itself was OK, although the new battery won't hold a charge like it did before this happened). Obviously defective somehow.

When we went to return the Walmart phone charger it took 15 minutes to convince them that it was indeed defective, and for some reason even though we had a receipt for a cash payment they wouldn't give cash back.

[Mytical]

Wow, that is actually unusual. One of the things I really disliked when I worked as a Cashier/Service Desk (returns/info/etc)/Stocker (endcaps and breakpack boxes)/gopher/whatever else they could think of...was the fact that management would return near ANYTHING. Including something I didn't even know what it WAS. No upc, no writing of anykind on the object, no receipt, no box...and it was a black rubber (take a engine out of a car, shrink it, make it out of rubber, fill in any 'holes' with said rubber..and it would ALMOST resemble that)...something. Supposedly a pump of some kind .. with no holes *shrugs*. Took the persons word for what it was, how much it cost, and where it was bought from.

[Andara Bledin]

Manufacturers will ship different versions of the same product to different retail sources.

Tyson makes a chicken nugget pack. I can either go a block away and buy them from the local Food 4 Less (a Kroger store) or two blocks and buy them from the local Costco. Same package, same ingredients list, notably different flavor, however.

^-.-^

[Boozy]

Manufacturers will ship different versions of the same product to different retail sources.

Citation, if possible?

I have never heard of manufacturers shipping different products inside the same packaging. Yes, they may make several different kinds of products with varying qualities, and send them to the appropriate stores, but they package them differently.

Sending out products of lesser quality in a reputable brand-name package harms the brand. It doesn't seem like something a company would want to do.

[Andara Bledin]

I can only go by what I have personally witnessed.

The Tyson chicken nuggets use a different selection of spices for the packages that get sold at the Food 4 Less than they do for the packages sold at Costco. The packages are identical, but the spice loadout isn't. For all I know, this is just a minor variance based on which Tyson plant they came out of, but the boyfriend and I both agree that we only buy the ones from Costco because we don't like the others.

Considering that Walmart only offers rock bottom prices so they can sell at lower prices, it wouldn't surprise me to find that companies sell their lowest-rated product to Walmart, and reserve the items that get higher inspection marks to vendors willing to pay more for them.

Or, it could just be that in the OPs case, the item he got from Walmart was just a bad item and it was just luck of the draw that it came from Walmart instead of Target.

Not really related, but I remember the days of floppy disks and how the only difference between a regular density and double density was how many errors were found during a post-production quality check. Same media, same production line, and often the same overall quality, too. I know a lot of people who punched their disks to make the computer think they were rated higher and I can't recall any of the ones I used ever having a problem.

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