Wal Mart thread

[Imran Siddiqui]

mrmitchell take off the rose colored glasses. Someone can always come in and take the crown away. JohnT is right, bad management may sink the ship. Sears is a great example, but what about IBM. Who in the world thought IBM would have run into the problems they did in the computer market?

[Datajack Franit]

Walmart should be outlawed just for the way they treat people working for them

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, I don't know about icons having to fade away. In Canada we still have the venerable Hudson's Bay company, one of the oldest companies in the world. I think they got their charter in the late 17th century.

Walmart has become a big competitor, even up in Canada. The opening of the local walmart was a big deal in my hometown, it was a sign that we had 'arrived'.

[:) Smiley]

Walmarts may make it possible to get a wide variety of consumer goods on the cheap, but there are a lot of side effects, namely:

1. Traffic
2. Unhelpful employees who don't know where stuff is, much less make product recommendations
3. Boring shopping experience

Many of the country's most popular tourist destinations are built around shopping areas. Can you imagine anyone going on vacation to a Walmart?

[Wiglaf]

http://forum.walmartsucks.com/ftopic5101.html

[Dis]

They censor the bad words out of the CD's they sell.

I like to hear the word **** and ****.

[Ben Kenobi]

Dunno about that. The walmart in Universal city not only knew where the product was, but could show me when the next shipment was supposed to arrive, simply by looking at their handheld. That was very cool!

[Zkribbler]

Here's my prediction: Some Asian store is going to come out of nowhere, supported by a home or regional market of 300,000,000+ and kick Wal Marts ass, just as Toyota is doing the Big Three. You wait and see. And then people will really be yelling!

The revaluation of the Yuan should hit Wal Mart hard.

It's been demanding horrendous price concessions from its suppliers (crushing Rubbermaid when it balked). When the suppliers complain, Wal Mart encourages them to close down their American plants and move them to China. Now, with revaluation, everything Wal Mart buys from China will cost it more.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Smiley
Walmarts may make it possible to get a wide variety of consumer goods on the cheap, but there are a lot of side effects, namely:

1. Traffic
2. Unhelpful employees who don't know where stuff is, much less make product recommendations
3. Boring shopping experience

Many of the country's most popular tourist destinations are built around shopping areas. Can you imagine anyone going on vacation to a Walmart?

I don't know about you but I don't want a vacation experience when I shop, I want to get what I came for and get the hell out of there. I have better things to do. Every store is different and your bound to find people who don't know where things are but like Ben said your also likely to find people who know exactly what you need and where it is.


For all those Walmart haters out there here is a little inside info. The things I hated most about that job wasn't the managers or bad health care or not being apart of a union, it was you people out there (the customers) that make working there a **** job. You come in with a bad attitude because your spouse/kids/boss/mother in law has made your day hell and proceed to take it out on the people working. Your kids are screaming, your late for something or you decided to wait to the last minute to get something you needed instead of getting it when you should have. But then again that is the job of the associates is to take all the crap that is dished on them by people who can't see that there are about a 1000 other shoppers in the store and we may not be able to get to you just then. That or you ask someone in toys what isle the damn rice is on. Then again you may be dealing with a worker who just doesn't give a damn. So happy shopping

[:) Smiley]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


The revaluation of the Yuan should hit Wal Mart hard.

It's been demanding horrendous price concessions from its suppliers (crushing Rubbermaid when it balked). When the suppliers complain, Wal Mart encourages them to close down their American plants and move them to China. Now, with revaluation, everything Wal Mart buys from China will cost it more.

A $10 item generally costs a fraction of a dollar to make in China. The rest of it goes to shipping, storage, overhead, etc.

That or you ask someone in toys what isle the damn rice is on.

Why ought groceries be sold in the same store that toys are sold in? Among other things it undoubtedly creates a parenting nightmare.

[mrmitchell]

1. Traffic
2. Unhelpful employees who don't know where stuff is, much less make product recommendations
3. Boring shopping experience

1. is pretty much unavoidable. Cities build infrastructure around Wal Marts to fix it. (Or Walmarts get built around infrastructure.)
2. Every chain has some dumbasses in it. Most Wal Mart employees I've dealt with are very helpful.
3. If "boring" means "no unwelcome surprises that cost you in time or money" then I'll take it.

Besides, not everything sold in Wal Mart is made in China. Many local US manufacturers have big contracts with Wal Mart and they would be smaller and worse off if they didn't. (A lot of them are in Arkansas.)

Personally I think it would be great if Wal Mart bought everything in the USA, but that would drive prices up, which would mean the lower and middle class would effectively be poorer because they couldn't purchase as much. People don't realize, Wal Mart is not running away with huge profits on everything it sells, even if something is made by a Chinese guy for 10 cents a day they're still looking at every point from raw materials to sitting on the shelf for a place to cut costs.

EDIT: I've got several things from Wal Mart sitting on my desk. Their home countries:
USA (duct tape)
Mexico (candy)
USA (rubber bands)
Canada (deoderant)
USA (batteries)
USA (playing cards)
China (belt)
Mexico (glue)
China (a notebook)
USA (a book)

Walmart supports probably thousands of American jobs for that duct tape, rubber bands, batteries, and cards alone; and thousands of high paying Candian jobs for that deoderant; and Mexico is a lot better than China.

I'll try to find statistics on country of origin for Wal Mart products...

[:) Smiley]

1. is pretty much unavoidable. Cities build infrastructure around Wal Marts to fix it. (Or Walmarts get built around infrastructure.)

Another case of externalizing costs to taxpayers.

Personally I think it would be great if Wal Mart bought everything in the USA, but that would drive prices up, which would mean the lower and middle class would effectively be poorer because they couldn't purchase as much. People don't realize, Wal Mart is not running away with huge profits on everything it sells, even if something is made by a Chinese guy for 10 cents a day they're still looking at every point from raw materials to sitting on the shelf for a place to cut costs

Having the ability to buy lots of cheap consumer goods =/= higher standard of living. The latter stopped going up around the 1970s.

[Traianvs]

aaargh smiley, you beat me to it with that pic

[Ninot]

I once emailed a complaint/concern to Wal Mart. They replied with a personalised email, telling me my complaint was invalid, make believe, and that the small guys were out to bankrupt them.

I had no sympathy of course, and havent directly given them a single penny since. And if I find out that my money is somehow getting to them, i'll stop that too.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Walmart supports probably thousands of American jobs for that duct tape, rubber bands, batteries, and cards alone; and thousands of high paying Candian jobs for that deoderant; and Mexico is a lot better than China.

Perhaps, but at what cost?

Wal-Mart, due to their gigantic scale of operations, pretty much gets their way in negotiations with suppliers. Eventually, they will make their suppliers provide them with their products at such a low price that the manufacturers are forced to cut jobs or move overseas to cut costs.

Yes, Walmart may be supporting domestic jobs now, but what about later down the road?