A very eye-opening article about the very serious problems at Walmart.

[palbert]

You don't shop at Walmart. You forage.

The quality is deplorable and the service non-existent.

I don't shop there.

 

[JayHawk]

I have witnessed the decline of Wal-Mart. I have always tried to support my local grocer because you get better fresh foods and they will meet your personal needs if you ask. For instance, the local Price Chopper stocks Vernors Ginger Ale at my request.

I did end up at WalMart yesterday though... for Dobie pads...

couldnt find them anywhere and they are a must for a good clean up on a ceramic topped stove....


I don't want Walmart to die... they simply need to reorganize and re-brand. That means closing several stores to reach that sustainable profit level that allows proper service. They could easily do it around here. I live within a mile and a half of three super centers.

Another thought, as the recession wound down in 2011, I was moving out here to Kansas. That took me through the panhandle of Florida. The biggest noticeable effect of the downturn in that area was bog box blight. There were so many empty boxes scattered everywhere, i have no idea how whole communities recover from such mass exodus. I can see it here as well but on a different scale. Here as lower income families move into areas you can see entire shopping areas become blighted and empty except for the two or three anchors. That movement around KC is outward from the city center.

Anyways way off topic....

 

[JayHawk]

I think that this syndrome is called 'Too Big Not to Fail'. We have seen it with almost all the retail 'Giants' in North America.


In the case of Walmart, this failure can't come too soon for me. Time for North America to re-think the whole philosophy of loading up on cheap plastic shit made by virtual slave labour in China.

Hey my Dobie pads were made in Mexico.....

 

[CowboyBob]

I haven't been in a Wal*Mart in years. The OP's article explains why. The Wal*Mart stores around here suffer from everything in the article... empty shelves, long checkout lines, virtually no floor help. They can't even keep managers and general managers for long.

Wal*Mart places ads everywhere here begging for help, but no one wants to wants to work there. Where I live there's a massive shortage of help that employers start you at decent wages but Wal*Mart and Sam's Club refuse to pay competitive wages.

I try to do most of my shopping at local merchants and what I can't find there I go to Target or ShopKo.

 

[chrisrobin]

I cannot disagree with anything that is posted here.

ANECDOTE ALERT:
When I visited my alma mater several years ago I couldn't help noticing the in-town stores that had been closed. Lucy...whahapen?

Not only was a new Wal-Mart built a few miles out of town, but the IBM building had been converted into a regional distribution center (so they could fuck up the local merchants in other small towns). The locals go out there in droves.

I'm relatively sure that destroying local businesses is legal, but I'm not the one to judge how ethical it is. It's a product of free enterprise, doncha know. Simple solution: I don't shop at Wal-mart any more. My checkbook does all the talking. End of story.

 

[JayHawk]

Simple solution: I don't shop at Wal-mart any more. My checkbook does all the talking. End of story.

See I think this way too but my checkbook can afford that discerning opinion. Lots of folks cant. I recall a recent story by either WAPO or Huff Post that showed eating out fast food was cheaper and therefore the only alternative for some families. They end up feeding corporate america and shit policy by only being able to afford that stuff.

Yesterday as I was doing my shopping I stopped by another chain that I frequent - CVS. I had a long list but they didn't have some of the brands I wanted so I just bought the dish soap and window cleaner there. Because two other stores didn't have Dobie pads I ended up at walmart. For shits and giggles I price compared.

One item was Ajax Triple Action Citrus - 30oz for 3.24 at WalMart it was 1.97 for 52oz .... so I get it. If you have a couple mouths to feed on one or two minimum wage jobs plus assistance then you get more bang for your buck at WalMart. What Sam Walton did by lowering the cost of all items was good. What the global MNC of WalMart has done to exploit and crush all competition in many areas is not good. Many cities are getting smart and not allowing WalMarts to stamp out all business and then move on. However, the more sparse the prospects in an area then the more likely folks will want a store, cities will want the taxes and employment.

 

[roadtripboy]

I just got home from work a few hours ago...that picture of folks waiting in line looks like what I looked at all day long today.

 

[frankfrank]

I don't LIKE the fact that I am given few choices for shopping in this town of 20,000 people (and nothing larger within fifty miles). The only places even resembling a "department store" (now-passé retail terminology), besides the Supercenter, are KMart (an ordinary one), and Farm King (which leans more toward hardware and farm stuff). Walmart is the only place, other than I think one or two small and rather expensive local places, which sells much of anything to do with computers. About the only "big" place actually driven out by Walmart in my 28 years here, has been the Shopko - as well as two of the three big supermarkets which were here when I moved here in 1985. (Only Hy-Vee remains out of the three, with Country Market and Thompson's Food Basket gone; Niemann Market - cute name - also remains, but it's a "smallish" supermarket. Walmart had no supermarket yet at the time.) Never been a "Tarzhay", Costco, etc. here at all. Walgreen's and CVS do have some "department store type" stuff, though not much.

I almost never shop for groceries at Walmart at all, though, because one of the supermarkets has that covered very well (Hy-Vee).

Vitamins and supplements are FAR cheaper at Walmart than nearly any other place in town; only KMart is at all competitive with that.

If I absolutely boycotted Walmart, I would often need to travel 100 miles (round trip), or more, to buy stuff I want. Unfortunately the same is true for many millions of people. In many cases Walmart has killed off all alternatives in towns somewhat smaller than the 20,000 here and people almost are forced to go to Walmart.

And as for the "MADE IN CHINA" bullshit, it's not like it's possible to go to KMart, Dollar Tree, or anywhere else to find an alternative. When I needed to replace a toaster about five years ago, I checked all four places that sold toasters at the time, and EVERY toaster was made in China.

I have witnessed the decline of Wal-Mart. I have always tried to support my local grocer because you get better fresh foods and they will meet your personal needs if you ask. For instance, the local Price Chopper stocks Vernors Ginger Ale at my request.

through the panhandle of Florida. The biggest noticeable effect of the downturn in that area was bog box blight. There were so many empty boxes scattered everywhere,

In my word-coined jargon, I often call these "man-made carcasses."

Here as lower income families move into areas you can see entire shopping areas become blighted and empty except for the two or three anchors.

Worse than that - in Toledo, Ohio the former Southwyck Mall is ENTIRELY gone...stolen...poof!!!!!! Literally, ALL that remains is a massive concrete-and-asphalt slab, and a couple of streets that don't really go anywhere. In the late Seventies when it was built, it was a large, state-of-the-art shopping mall. That city of one-half-million, including suburbs, has only one shopping mall that is actually doing well.

VERNORS??!!!?? I grew up on that Detroit liquid!! I had no idea anybody sold it in "faraway" Kansas City area.

 

[Rickrock]

Cutting staff and pay benefits and hours is and has been going on in almost all businesses in the U.S. for the last ten or fifteen years. Walmart might be carrying it to the extreme, but it is happening to some degree in all businesses (in my experience), whether it is office work or factory work or retail. They expect you to do ten hours of work in eight hours and not do any overtime. When someone leaves for whatever reason, they often don't hire another employee but divide their work up between the remaining employees. I saw it in accounts payable in a law firm and in a real estate investment company and my sister sees it in UPS (where the new employees aren't getting the same pay rate as the old employees) and in Staples. My mother and aunt saw things tightening up in a major department stare they worked in years ago. I see it in J.C. Penny's stores too where they used to have employees assigned to every department to help you, but now have only centralized cashiers and very little if any help in the individual departments.

 

[rareboy]

In related news....Target is finally opening their stores in Canada in the place of the old Zellers.

The most tragic effect of Walmartization here was Loblaw opening multi-football field sized [STRIKE]Super[/STRIKE]StupidStores, in order to 'compete' with Walmart and Costco. The decline in the quality and availability of products as a result has been a goddamned shame. After spending about 90% of our food dollar at Loblaw's, we probably spend less than 50% there now....the good news being that it has driven us to find the other, better, smaller stores. It takes us way longer to get our shopping done.

 

[frankfrank]

Rareboy, does the COLONIAL brand of chocolate fudge cookies ["biscuits"] exist anywhere, any more? As far as being a health-food-or-not, they were AWFUL

...but, also the yummiest cookies I ever found in my lifetime. (The Dare version, and Fudgee-O's, possibly President's Choice also - I forget, etc., simply are not as good.) The last time I ever found them (1999??), I think it was Zeller's who was selling them under some house brand I forget.

Colonial branded cookies were from Kitchener, and I don't think they were ever sold in the west.

 

[rareboy]

http://www.colonialcookies.ca/inform.php?cat=PRODUCTS&nv=6

Sadly...they were probably Zeller's brand and died when Zellers did. Colonial is a 'Brands' baker...they do the production for a lot of house brand cookies....including it would appear, Mrs. Fields! It appears that Colonial is now a division of Interbake which is owned by the Canadian based Weston food conglomerate....(they own Loblaw as well). You might want to check with them to see if they marketed these cookies under any other brand name, find out where they are sold and order them electronically.

http://www.interbake.com/

We do this with a number of specialty foods from across north America now when we can't find the brand locally.

 

[Sha-Rok]

I haven't bought anything from Wal-Mart in 3 years..Fuck them.

 

[frankfrank]

http://www.colonialcookies.ca/inform.php?cat=PRODUCTS&nv=6

Sadly...they were probably Zeller's brand and died when Zellers did. Colonial is a 'Brands' baker

Thank you...I actually remember back from the day that those cookies ACTUALLY carried the Colonial logo. I've still never found any cookies (and, among all edible things, ALMOST nothing) better than those. I am rather surprised how minimalist their website is, though - but I think last I checked about three years ago, they had NO website.

At least they give a way to contact them.

 

[Jack Springer]

Walmart = Target

I don't see the difference -- other than Target is more expensive. Maybe it's because I live relatively close to Walmart's headquarters that the stores are nice, clean, well-stocked. The local Target store is about the same age as the Walmart store. Walmart's parking lot is always full, Target's parking lot never is full.

When I lived in PDX, the Walmart stores were awful -- but so were the Target stores. Both were old relics, but that's the kind of thing that's popular in PDX. Even Pizza Hut is vintage 1970's there.

 

[frankfrank]

^ Uhh...when did you live in Portland? And why did you leave there? I would find it extraordinarily hard to leave, if I was living there already. PER CAPITA, there is as much "stuff to do" there - activities and foodie destinations, etc., of all types - as in a bastion of that such as New York City or San Francisco, I think.

 

[The Fly]

^ Uhh...when did you live in Portland? And why did you leave there? I would find it extraordinarily hard to leave, if I was living there already. PER CAPITA, there is as much "stuff to do" there - activities and foodie destinations, etc., of all types - as in a bastion of that such as New York City or San Francisco, I think.

Didn't you read his post??? He moved to be near a well stocked Walmart.......

 

[Jack Springer]

^ Uhh...when did you live in Portland? And why did you leave there? I would find it extraordinarily hard to leave, if I was living there already. PER CAPITA, there is as much "stuff to do" there - activities and foodie destinations, etc., of all types - as in a bastion of that such as New York City or San Francisco, I think.

I lived in PDX during the mid 2000's. It's hardly NYC or SF, lol. Best food -- not really, not a decent BBQ place in town. Their BBQ was old beef ribs with huge bones. McCormick and Schmidt is a great place -- but they are all over the country now. I ate at a great French restaurant there as often as I could .. the last time I went there the lady had sold the place and the food was awful.

The scenery is beautiful outstate. I'm not into protesting and I take regular showers -- so there wasn't much reason to go downtown. The biggest restaurant news while I was there was the opening of Krispy Kreme -- the people went nuts.

Grocery store prices are very high there also -- especially fruit and vegetables.

I am happy to still be able to get Tillamook cheese at Costco. The 2-year aged white cheddar is incredible.

I moved back because of family issues otherwise I would have stayed.

Like I said before Portland is a city of extremes -- far left liberals and far right conservatives -- not much in the middle.

 

[The Fly]

Same too you....