posted
Usually, Wal-Mart is disappointing and doesn't have quite the selection I think it needs. It rarely has the shows, movies, or CD's that I want. So, I have to buy it at a slightly more expensive price some place else.
Today though, something was different. My local Wal-Mart actually had a better selection than usual. And amongst its new merchandise was Arrested Development season 2. And, of course, since I didn't have it yet, I bought it.
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posted
I live in a small town. Its all we have when it comes to stores. And I've been wanting to get this DVD for a long time. I'm sorry.
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posted
The nearest Wal-Mart to me is actually almost an hour away. The second nearest is two hours away. And I wouldn't say either of them are what you'd call "thriving".
I guess we're just not very fond of Wal-Mart around these parts.
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posted
I've never been inside a Wal-Mart in my entire life so far! I think I only saw around 2 or 3 when my family had a roadtrip to Vegas.
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posted
I hear tell of Wal-Marts in the south that have kind and helpful people - stores that are almost community centers in a way.
The northeast has nothing of the sort - in fact, I've found some of the worst service and help in Wal-Marts, when compared to other similar stores (Target, K-mart, etc). Add on top of that the fact that the company is evil incarnate, its true form most effectively captured as the giant black mass moving through space in The Fifth Element, and I generally try to avoid the place.
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: The northeast has nothing of the sort - in fact, I've found some of the worst service and help in Wal-Marts, when compared to other similar stores (Target, K-mart, etc).
That's interesting. I don't know how far northeast you're talking, but the Walmart I went to near Pittsburgh was a thousand times nicer than any of the ones in Tucson. It wasn't crowded, the shelves were actually stocked, and there weren't obnoxious children running everywhere.
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: The nearest Wal-Mart to me is actually almost an hour away. The second nearest is two hours away.
I live 15-20 minutes away from TWO Wal-Marts. They do not constitute a pleasant shopping experience. The best that can be said about them is that they are an improvement over the K-Mart shopping experience.
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posted
There's a K-Mart 30 minutes away. There used to be one right down the street from us, but boycotts were so effective that it went out of business. (Although I've always found K-Mart to be a better experience if I absolutely had to go than Wal-Mart.)
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: The nearest Wal-Mart to me is actually almost an hour away. The second nearest is two hours away.
I live 15-20 minutes away from TWO Wal-Marts. They do not constitute a pleasant shopping experience. The best that can be said about them is that they are an improvement over the K-Mart shopping experience.
posted
I'm becoming really partial to Sav-a-center, since Tchoupitoulas Wal-mart closed down.
But I still have to go to Wal-mart for my electronic needs. Or Best Buy. I bought the ultra mega uncut unrated special edition copy of Saw from Best Buy for $12.
posted
How much was Arrested Development? I've been wanting to buy Season 1 as a gift for my roommate but they haven't carried it here.
Wal-Mart is the only place to shop here. The only other electronics store in town was the Sam Goody which sold items at twice the price and is now closing shop. As for groceries, in the last three years there's only been one shooting (yep, I got evacuated from a Wal-Mart) which is WAY better odds than the two Brookshires in the area.
When I say its our only choice, I'm not kidding.
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quote:Originally posted by theCrowsWife: That's interesting. I don't know how far northeast you're talking, but the Walmart I went to near Pittsburgh was a thousand times nicer than any of the ones in Tucson. It wasn't crowded, the shelves were actually stocked, and there weren't obnoxious children running everywhere.
--Mel
Are you sure it was actually a Wal-Mart? I thought those things were just standard.
We bought season two of Arrested Development there for $20, but that was over a month ago. I don't know if it's still on sale.
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Seriously though, it's been very good to me. Not the best quality by any means, and Target usually trumps it for service, but for me personally, no place trumps it for convenience or prices.
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quote: Seriously though, it's been very good to me. Not the best quality by any means, and Target usually trumps it for service, but for me personally, no place trumps it for convenience or prices.
I wholeheartedly agree. Walmart is far, far cheaper than most of the other stores around here. Plus, I love being able to buy ink, a movie, and groceries in one trip.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Wal-Mart? *shudders*
I have a very conservative uncle who teaches government at a public highschool. Whenever the family or guests at thanksgiving get into a conversation about Wal-mart, and somebody says wal-mart is bad, he looks them right in the eye and says:
"You just don't want to shop with POOR people"
This is a conversation killer. Not very fair though.
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posted
Hah. Whenever I'm on vacation in the US with my parents, they have to stop at Wal-Mart or K-Mart and stock up on random household stuff like towels and sports equipment. It's become a something of a family tradition. I would probably hate to shop there every day, but it doesn't really seem much worse than any other superstore.
Although Wal-Mart exists here in the form of Asda, it's not really the same thing at all.
quote: "You just don't want to shop with POOR people"
Uncomfortable, yet somewhat accurate maybe? Whenever we go, the customers always seems to be a mixture of tourists or the poverty stricken. I get that a lot of people avoid it for moral reasons, but I also get the impression that some people worry that other people might think that they need to shop in there, and that thought horrifies them.
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posted
Quality has been an issue with Wal-Mart as well. My roommate shops there, buys all manner of things because they are less expensive than anywhere else. And these less expensive, okay let's call them cheap... these cheap things wear out or fall apart in relatively short order.
Wal-Mart's philosophy generally seems to be that they'll lower prices so far as to make things almost disposable, which forces their client companies to make products of such quality so that they basically are. Levis jeans has an entirely separate line for Wal-Mart because if they sold their normal jeans at Wal-Mart prices, they'd take a loss on each pair... so, you get an inferior product for a lower price.
They asked the Snapper lawnmower CEO to do the same thing, make a lower quality product just for Wal-Mart, and he basically told them to go to hell. (Not really, but he said "No thanks, and no, you can't sell our lawnmowers at all anymore").
Vlasic was driven into bankruptcy by Wal-Mart's unrealistic "everyday low prices".
RV Parks are even feeling an economic pinch in many areas because Wal-Mart encourages RVs to stay overnight for free in its parking lots, even putting out a guide book to all the Wal-Marts that allow this practice nationwide.
Now, I'm all for lower prices on things - take gas, for instance, where the high prices are there simply to increase profit - but lowering prices to the point where you're seriously sacrificing quality or crippling your suppliers? I can't really get behind that.
But, then, I guess every business Wal-Mart drives under gives them more unemployed people who can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Perhaps that's also part of their strategy.
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posted
I wonder if rather than forcing the Wal=Marts to pay for customer's healthcare, we forced them to publish, on every receipt, how much the taxpayer is, on average, paying for their healthcare?
Honestly, Wal-Mart is an example of a systemic problem with the US as a whole. It's a manifestation of a serious issue in every American, whether they shop there, or at Target, or any other bulk discounter. It's a problem that looks great in the short run, but has a decent chance of making us the new post-Age of Exploration Spain.
posted
Well, I used to work for Wal*Mart, back when Sam was still alive and it was a totally different place. I left them not too long after he died.
There really was a change in the company after that.
P.S. Wal*Mart, used to be a hyphen instead of the *. It was changed to honor Sam. I got to meet him once and he was a humble, honest individual. Who else could be worth millions and still drive an old beat-up truck.
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quote:Who else could be worth millions and still drive an old beat-up truck.
There are a surprising number of multi-millionaires who do this. (Actually, not surprising to me, but the number surprises other people.)
quote:I like Wal-Mart.
*runs for cover*
Seriously though, it's been very good to me.
Maybe the problem with Wal-Mart isn't how it treats you, but its how it treat other people around you.
Bokonon,
quote: I wonder if rather than forcing the Wal-Marts to pay for customer's healthcare, we forced them to publish, on every receipt, how much the taxpayer is, on average, paying for their healthcare?
Honestly, Wal-Mart is an example of a systemic problem with the US as a whole. It's a manifestation of a serious issue in every American, whether they shop there, or at Target, or any other bulk discounter. It's a problem that looks great in the short run, but has a decent chance of making us the new post-Age of Exploration Spain.
That's exactly right. _________
SteveRogers, et al.,
The issue isn't that you shouldn't shop at WalMart because it has inferior products. Wal-Mart is going to have everything you need, and it's going to have it cheaper.
The issue is that you shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart for the same reason you shouldn't by "blood diamonds," because your purchase empowers a socially degrading animal.
In order to appease your appettites, and cater to your irresponsibility, you are helping Wal-Mart set the quality of American Labor back 100 years, to save 3 dollars on a DVD. Wal-mart is the business instanciation of California's Prop. 13, where Californian's voted to lower the property taxes, hoping/pretending that social services would only be marginally affected. The result the being that California's public infrastructure and schools and amenities went from being the best in the US, on the road to being the best in the world, to large swaths of California becoming an affluents slums.
Middle class Wal-Mart shoppers are the equivalent to Edmund from the Chronicles of Narnia, selling out everyone in the world for sweeties. If you can, pay a little more, get it from a different store. If you can, wait until you can afford to pay a little bit more, and get it from a different store.
posted
The single biggest issue with Wal-Mart is that they have (like some other, but much smaller, companies) figured out how to game the health-care system. Fix health care and Wal-Mart becomes just another big retailer as far as "evilness" goes.
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posted
Health care is the big issue. But there are other issues. When factories controlled community jobs, it was permissable, because entrepreneurs could make their living on satelite and auxiliary services. With one company controlling all of the auxiliary services, not only does it cut into existing business, it precludes starts ups because for those starts-ups to gain any traction, they are going to have to have some sort of relationship with Walmart.
I have my own business in the computer industry. As a small businessman, independent coffee shops and hotels are my vendors. Thankfully, I can still get a living working outside of the chain coffee stores and hotels. The chain coffee stores want to work with national company. And if there is no national company in my industry, they'll wait or go without. As a small businessmen, it's much, much easier for me to secure business from other small businesses than to have to get the approval of a corporate development director. And as I talk to more small businesspeople, this isn't a small issue.
Maybe it's my approach and demeanor, but everytime I speak with an owner- or even a decision maker- I get a new vendor, contract signed and people are happy, if I have to go through VPs and assistants, I'm screwed, and it's a long degrading, expensive, and exhausting screw.
I don't have any "in"s in the industry. And networking functions and associations cost more capital with only offer dubious results. But now I'm getting off topic.
quote:I wonder if rather than forcing the Wal=Marts to pay for customer's healthcare, we forced them to publish, on every receipt, how much the taxpayer is, on average, paying for their healthcare?
Only if you make that requirement for every other business out there.
quote:Maybe it's my approach and demeanor, but everytime I speak with an owner, I get a new vendor, contract signed and people are happy, if I have to go through VPs and assistants, I'm screwed, and it's a long degrading, expensive, and exhausting screw.
This was my experience as well. Too often, what's best for the company isn't what's best for the high-level executive.
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posted
Irami, there have been huge, controlling businesses since the time of the Roman Empire. There is no golden age to return to. While businesses have been getting even bigger, you might notice something similar about the population of the earth as well. A vast network of almost all small businesses is doomed to incredible relative inefficiencies, leading to far greater poverty.
Also, your odd idealism regarding factories seems unfounded based on my readings of the period.
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posted
The farther you get from Bentonville, the worse the Wal*Marts get. Sad but true.
The ones out here in CA treat you like every other store/bank/whatever treat you... like there's 10 million people in the bay area so what the **** do they need your business for?
But back home they do radical things like labeling the products with the price and stacking them on the shelves instead of throwing them there.
Its a rare executive that reads anything. I mean, him/her recieving a proposal from my company is the equivalent of reading a credit card offer that I recieve at home. Unless I'm in the mood, I just throw those letters in a box.
Its understandable. So what happens is that after many phone calls and office visits, I have to pitch to some low-level exec or assistant, who in turn has to pitch it again to his or her boss. But the problem is that when the low level exec or assistant pitches to his or her boss, the assistant can't field questions or be flexible, and one of my strengths as a small businessman is that I field questions excellently, with charm and aplomb, (maybe not aplomb, but I have buckets of charm), and I have I have the imagination and sincerity to work out a solution that'll fit the vendor's issues.
The assistant then pitches to the boss through a game of telephone. The assistant gets something wrong, the boss has questions, and in the end, the answer comes back, "No." The whole process takes months, and it fails because I'm not in the room when the decision is made. I don't know exactly how to deal with this, yet.
With the independent vendors, I schedule a meeting with a boss. We get along. I cut a deal that meets his/her needs, and I come back again a few days later with a contract.
Of course, once a few of the big name vendors sign with me, or I buy a better suit, or I amass an armada of small business clients, the big assistants will take the company more seriously, and probably make a more energetic pitch on my behalf.
There has to be a way to cut these assistants out of the picture, short of stalking the bosses.
Again, it could be me. I'm not ruling out that my contempt and distrust of mid-level management somehow infultrates, in an untoward manner, how I negotiate with these non-decision makers. I don't particularly like business people or business culture. It doesn't get me hot, and for the most part, I don't think that money is morally arresting. There is a good service I can provide. It makes people happy, and I do it well. I'll say it, the assistants I'm dealing with are usually posers. They are predisposed to say "No," and I'm predisposed not to trust them to competently be a surrogate me.
Fugu,
At Ford, although there is a break room, you still have a person running a lunch cart, then the person running the lunch cart has his own set of suppliers, but the person owns that lunch cart and the suppliers deal with him.
posted
With more complete automation in factories, the supposition I usually hear is that the people who used to do the job the machine took over will lose their jobs. This makes sense, of course, and actually happens. But could it be that with fuller automation of maintenance and menial tasks that eventually people would be free to have a fulfilling career in another area?
It's happened before, and is in fact responsible for civilization itself. Before the plow, everyone could harvest or kill just enough food for himself and his family. After the plow, suddenly you have excess food, and people in your community can hold other jobs. That's how we got our priests, our breadmakers, our philosophers, and eventually, every other profession.
So instead of degredation of society, could automation solve the wal-mart problem? If stocking is done by robots, and everyone scans their items themselves (as they already do), and a sophisticated camera watches for theft, the only employees needed are the ones keeping the machines going. The initial problem is that a bunch of people lose their jobs. That's bad. And imagine if it happens all over--the service industry is completely wiped out by automation. All of the dreary, back-breaking, sweaty jobs are taken over by computers and robots. What will people do with themselves then?
What happens to all those people? I'd like to think that society would advance enough for all people to find fulfillment in whatever they decide to do. But it could just as easily create an even more tiered society than right now, with the poverty-stricken only being seen as a plague to the extremely rich.
But anyway... since I don't see people stopping shopping at wal-mart until something better comes along, I was wondering what the solution is...
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quote:The assistant gets something wrong, the boss has questions, and in the end, the answer comes back, "No." The whole process takes months, and it fails because I'm not in the room when the decision is made. I don't know exactly how to with this, yet.
This is ENTIRELY the case, Irami. And speaking as a former consultant and current decision-maker, there ARE tricks that will get you in the door. In general, you need to find out where the executives in your target industry actually get the information they trust. In many cases, it comes from their peers and a handful of trade publications. Recommendations from an underling are only considered if they SPECIFICALLY address a problem the executive has acknowledged and is soliciting solutions for at that very moment, so you're gambling with timing any time you cold-call a large company and try to sell a mid-level employee.
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You're in a different situation than I was. I was usually trying to finalize deals - my partner did the approach and the initial selling.
My problem was always that the owner understood why he wanted to do things a certain way. So, when I wanted to deviate, the owner could tell me his concerns and we could reach an agreement that met those concers without requiring that things be done in only one way.
Executives almost never truly internalized the "whys" underneath the policy, and so could give me no useful information for crafting alternatives. By the time I was involved, though, the owners usually had a stake in the outcome and were approachable.
Your more in the position of selling a product; I was more in the position of forming a working partnership. Obviously, there are elements of both in each of our cases - I just think the different emphasis changes the dynamics we had to deal with.
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quote:This is ENTIRELY the case, Irami. And speaking as a former consultant and current decision-maker, there ARE tricks that will get you in the door. In general, you need to find out where the executives in your target industry actually get the information they trust. In many cases, it comes from their peers and a handful of trade publications. Recommendations from an underling are only considered if they SPECIFICALLY address a problem the executive has acknowledged and is soliciting solutions for at that very moment, so you're gambling with timing any time you cold-call a large company and try to sell a mid-level employee.
Thanks, I thought I was going crazy. I can figure out a way around this, I just have to...figure out a way around this.
Wow, I used an ellipsis. I don't use those. I really am in a bad way.
Dag, I'll put it all on the table.
I install and maintain internet stations. They are Dell PCs with a credit card swipe afixed to the side of a "17 flat screen monitor. A patron can walk up to the machine and use it like a pay phone. Either they insert cash into the tower. (I refitted the Towers, knocked out the CD drive and put in a cash receptor in the slot.) or they can swipe their credit card. The machines, installation, and maintainance are free to the vendor, the vendor gets a cut of the profit. We work out the DSL service and comission in the details of the contract.
Now wi-fi is approaching ubiquitous, as are those Trios and Blackberries, but there is a surprising large market of people who want to sit at a real computer and do ten or fifteen minutes of internet work, either they don't have a blackberry or they don't have their laptop with them. One of the reasons I know this demographic exists is that I'm one of them. And if you go the library, you'll see a whole lot more, waiting in line to use the computer. I actually think that we are the silent majority.
I keep the charges low, and the machines running smoothly, and the vendor gets a monthly check, a source of revenue from a space that previously wasn't producing any. __________
I'm thinking about putting them into break rooms. Some of the big stores have 200 employees working 8,9,10 hour shifts, plus a night crew, cleaning and restocking. I've worked these jobs, and while I was on duty, I was isolated. Half my breaks or lunch time periods were spent staring at the wall. The other half, I spent reading a book. I would have paid a few bucks to go on line right then and there, especially, if I could use my excess minutes at my next break.
The other potential sight is a laundry mat, but that involves me building a sort of citidel to house the computer, so it looks like one of those old school Mrs. Pacman games. I've seen them, and I'm pretty sure I can build one. That's it, I'm starting a small business thread.
posted
Irami: one lunch-cart vendor is not large factories having space for lots of small "auxiliary services." I think you'd find that by far most of the auxiliary services were handled by the factory, and that at most factories this included any on-site lunch provided (through a subcontractor, of course).
And of course, I can point out that there are chain coffee stores that buy their coffees locally, and chain bookstores that buy from local presses, et cetera.
That they centralize decisions about your small business does not mean they centralize decisions about all of them.
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posted
The lunch cart vendor was an analogy. The factories were not complete microsms. They served only one member of the house. Factory workers didn't buy the family grocery at the Ford cafeteria. Wal-mart, on the other hand, aims to sell everything. All of the auxiliary servics and goods for everyone in the household. Short of a hair cut, people can get everything they need from Wal-mart.
The chain bookstores and chain coffee stores buy locally because books and coffee are on their radar. It the services that aren't on their radar that centralized in the name of uniformity, but the issues is that if instead of having three Starbucks in a given area, there were two independent stores, I've have a much better chance of getting those contracts.
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quote:Short of a hair cut, people can get everything they need from Wal-mart.
Hate to break it to you, but Wal-Mart Supercenters do contain hair salons. At least, the one close to me does.
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posted
*shrugs* selfishness about what would be best for you is fine, but there's nothing particularly new about Wal-Mart. Large retailers that sell nearly everything are quite old; so are small stores that do a bit of everything (even hair-cutting) -- perhaps you remember the term General Store?
Don't misperceive your own self-interest as a moral adjudicator.
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So lets say that you are a small business person who has come up with a hair care product, and Wal-mart has knocked out 40 percent of the local independent hair stylists. Getting your product in the store and used used to be an issue of walking about to the owner and chatting, now you have to petition, and hope beyond hope that Wal-mart doesn't turn you down because you aren't a big enough company. And if it doesn't work out, you can always get a job as a cashier at Walmart.
Fugu,
I am working under the assumption that small businesses are good, and that they are something we, as a society, want to promote. My complaining about bureaucratic problems of dealing with bigger companies is similar in kind, but not in scope, to a teacher complaining about the bureaucratic problems of securing the appropriate textbooks.
posted
Sure, its nice to have a decent number of small businesses. But a society with almost only small businesses is no longer viable. Great poverty would become far more widespread.
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posted
The trick isn't to complain about the existence of Wal-Mart then, because you can't stop that, but the non-existence of smaller businesses, which you can affect.
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I was forever scarred by watching that 20/20 thing where a woman stood there in front of a woman who made clothes in India that were sold at Wal-Mart and said that she wasn't sure if she would buy an item if it was 25 cents more, making it possible for the workers who made it to be paid 1 cent more an hour, which would allow for a better quality of life for the people working in the factory. (The factory had proposed it and was turned down by Wal-Mart.)
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quote:The trick isn't to complain about the existence of Wal-Mart then, because you can't stop that, but the non-existence of smaller businesses, which you can affect.
Yes, you can invest a lot of money, start a small business, and then be run out on a rail when Wal*Mart undercuts all your prices to sell brand name products at a loss for their suppliers.
They're putting their *suppliers* out of business with their unnaturally low prices - how can a small business, which don't deal in the same quantities and need to charge more per item, compete?
Truth is, they're not competing so much as trying to keep their heads above water.
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posted
Dag, I was thinking of the other "big box" stores too... Wouldn't have to do it to intra-state small businesses, and what small/medium business wouldn't love to get mandated good advertising?
And if all businesses are essentially getting their health care costs subsidized by the government, maybe a national healthcare system becomes something more than a socialist boogeyman?
posted
This isn't exactly what I'd expected when I announced buying season two of Arrested Development...
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posted
And one of the big things that gives Wal-Mart that little extra oomph and lets them drive a higher percentage of stores out of business is their successful gaming of the healthcare system. Fix that and small businesses have another couple percent margin to play in.
Additionally, even given that small businesses survive. Yes, the balance has changed, but its not like Wal-Mart is an absolutely implacable juggernaut. There are small businesses that successfully coexist.
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quote: I was forever scarred by watching that 20/20 thing where a woman stood there in front of a woman who made clothes in India that were sold at Wal-Mart and said that she wasn't sure if she would buy an item if it was 25 cents more, making it possible for the workers who made it to be paid 1 cent more an hour, which would allow for a better quality of life for the people working in the factory.
That's so cold, I can't wrap my mind around it.
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posted
Fugu and Bokonon are right. Wal-Mart is indicitive of substantial problems with American (really, Western) cultural priorities...but for all the talk, very few people want to do anything about it.
People talk big about how unjustified it is for us to buy cheaper and thus harm standards of living abroad and sometimes even here in America...but I suspect that there isn't a single poster who deliberately buys the more expensive thing for humanistic reasons.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
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posted
Well, some of us do work very hard to keep big megastores out of our communities and support local small business whenever possible.
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SteveR, I was just thinking that very thing while I was reading through this thread.
