Why the threadshit? I don’t see anyone saying “Walmart will certainly go out of business cause no one I know shops there!” which is the only way your post could make sense in context.
I hate Walmart. They pretty much have the same crap everyone else does, plus whenever I go to the one nearest me, I feel like I’m at Larry the Cable Guy’s family reunion.
Nothing I’ve bought at Wal-Mart ever lasted a year, except for three boring-to-the-point-of-ugly little trash cans, that, perversely, have last more than a decade.
It is on my way home from work, and sometimes I give in to temptation and run in. I always regret it.
(Since Target scanned my driver’s license without asking, or even telling, me in advance, I have no where to shop for those little things you need for the house.)
I don’t go to the local WM because they play loud, unavoidable ads, especially in their checkouts. I’d rather not have propaganda blasted in my ear at full volume while I am waiting to give them money.
Plus they are 4 miles farther away than K-Mart and only 1 mile closer than Target. In the past 2 years I’ve gone to my local WM exactly twice. Well, thrice, but that was just to see if they had turned off the ads, and they hadn’t so I walked out again.
But when I am on the road, I often do not know the locations of small businesses or alternative department stores, so I will shop at WalMarts. It seems that it’s just my local one that insists on loud ads in the checkout, thankfully.
[quote=“Musicat, post:27, topic:679979”]
With all the hate seen in this thread, I wonder how they can stay in business?
Possible explanations:[ul][li]Dopers are not a typical cross section of the economy, but a minor sub-section* Dopers are hypocrites and shop at WalMart but don’t admit it[]Dopers are following the crowd. The alternative crowd. Y’know – the one WalMart doesn’t care about and doesn’t cater to[]Dopers who like WalMart are afraid to stand up because they’ll be shot down.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
[ul]It’s more fun to post about something you hate than something you’re “meh” about[/ul]
We saw a Walmart in China, and being Americans went “Oh look, Walmart!!” The guide said it wasn’t well thought of there and their products were (and I am phonetically guessing) ‘mo mo shu shu’ or something. Meaning crap.
I will Walmart when I need a bunch of unrelated stuff-Coleman lantern mantles, shoelaces, cat food and paint brushes. Otherwise I avoid.
They are crowded, I’ll grant you that, and so many families seem to chose it as a destination getaway, bringing everyone along including the spinster aunts and the kids from down the street. Making the aisles incredibly hard to navigate.
Once I went to look at a toaster, and there on the shelf was a dirty diaper. Someone had changed a diaper and just left it.
And re: cat food-if I buy 48 identical cans of cat food (my cat eats one flavor only) why the hell can’t they do a item x 48 instead of hitting the button 48 times, losing count and having the check the tape too many times.
What’s up with that? Happens to me all the time, too. They are often flat out of grocery items I am there to buy. In my mind they are a 24-hour product receiving dock with super calculated inventory. But they can’t even bother to have confectioners sugar or skim milk when I am there.
I’m ambivalent about the place myself. Perfect when I need socks and strawberries at midnight but I do my major shopping at a grocery store.
I shopped in Walmart as a college kid, from 1988-1992, then as a burgeoning worker-bee trying to make my own way until around 1995. Then I decided I don’t like Walmart and don’t shop there on purpose. I think I’ve been to a couple of them since then, with other people in other towns while on vacation or something.
Walmart has managed to start oozing its way into the city by opening small stores called “Express” and “Neighborhood Market.” If I ever make my way past one while shopping (probably never happen) one day, I’m not against wandering in to take a look around. They are in my old neighborhood, and I shop there occasionally. I guess unless one of those small stores opens near enough for me to become a regular, I won’t have much reason to check it out. Going by their Yelp reviews, I’m not missing much.
Seldom shop there, and when I do, I tend to vow not to shop there again. Its too big, too disorganized - plus, Guin alluded to it - I feel like I lose 40 IQ points and half my income walking in the door.
I went to one in Arizona once that was well laid out with lots of space and didn’t feel like it was full of overcrowded junk. If the WalMarts near me were like that, I might visit them more often - although I suspect their business practices would still keep me a infrequent shopper.
This.
This.
Also, our posters are too classy to say this but… that place just smells like feet.
I believe the issues are mostly with stocking (rather than fulfillment), IE, they don’t have enough staff to get it on the shelf. My mother (who works at a walmart) says they are cutting staff hours too tight and they don’t have enough staff to get everything done. I suspect we are watching the first stages of walmart’s decline - missing products and dirty stores are going to kill them far more effectively than internet competition from amazon.
As for the crowded argument above, being crowded is both a function of how many people shop there and how fast they are moved through the store. If you cut the number of checkout cashiers, or fail to stock products requiring people to search for substitutes, you can be more “crowded” while still doing less business since everyone is in the store longer.
Its sort of Machavellian, but being out of stock on things isn’t a horrible business model for Wal Mart. In a lot of areas they are the only practical game in town - and few people walk into Wal Mart without doing impulse purchases. So you go in for confectioners sugar, it isn’t on the shelf, but you pick up a bottle of salad dressing you walk by, and as long as you are there and have to go through the checkout aisle, a box of brownie mix and a bottle of nail polish.
You are still in need of confectioners sugar, and the nearest store is too far to bother with today, so tomorrow you are back at Wal Mart, picking up confectioners sugar, and nail polish remover, and a copy of People magazine from the checkout aisle (hey, Taylor Swift has a new boyfriend, how can you NOT).
(ETA: I have a cousin who when her son was young, every trip to WalMart involved him getting a Matchbox car…no confectioners sugar, still get a Matchbox car - next day, confectioners sugar and ANOTHER Matchbox car).
I don’t like Wal-Mart, but I don’t hate them. I just prefer Target. I’m sort of happy that there isn’t a WM supercenter near me.
My friends and I have a name for the attitude we have after shopping at Wal-Mart. The “Wal-Mart Grumps.” I never shop there from my own choice. Thankfully, for food, I go to Food Lion, and for anything else there’s the internet 
As a young-ish guy without wife or kids, I don’t mind Wal Mart at all but I can see if you go there with family in tow, it would be a nightmarish hell hole. However, I only go to Wal-Mart only to get
- School/office supplies
- Prescriptions
- Cheap clothing/accessories for theme parties
- Candy/gum
- Single units of whatever is needed around the house in a pinch (Batteries, TP, toothpaste, etc).
I don’t even think booze is cheaper anymore. I can get 30-packs of light beer at the gas station for under $20, wine at Trader Joe’s for under $10, and DC Costco for liquor.
After hearing about their business practices and the way they treat their staff, I’m not particularly happy with WalMart, and avoid them.
When I worked in Southbridge, an economically declining area since the big business in town started selling off pieces of itself, the WalMart, although a drive out of town, was still the big retailer in the area. I stopped in sometimes. Its big-warehouse atmosphere wasn’t particularly friendly, but it was no worse than the “shopper club” stores like Costco. More annoying was the limited choices they had, especially with few options elsewhere.
I prefer Target – the stores are cleaner and quieter and they treat their staff better. But they’re moving a WalMart in down the street from our local Target soon. For the first time, I’ll be living near a WalMart. But I don’t plan on shopping there.
I shop at Wal Mart occasionally, generally when I go visit my parents, they have one near their town. Once every couple of months is good to pick up things I don’t always find at good prices elsewhere. I don’t hate them, they just happen to be the best at minimizing the value of their workforce.
I’m not going to pretend I don’t go there sometimes. I do. When I need a variety of different things and I get off work late and it’s cold outside and I want to get home, I’ll probably go to Wal-Mart and get everything and complain about it the whole damn time. That’s an excuse I know, but that’s what an excuse is for, right?
My favorite discounted was Hill’s department store, did anyone have a Hill’s around? We did up until they turned to Ame’s and then Ame’s went kaput…
And like I said previously, Wal-Mart wasn’t a bad experience when it was a normal size store. You didn’t feel like you needed a map when you walked in. It had enough of everything and wasn’t trying too hard.
I think WalMart is OK. It’s not great, but it’s not much worse than any other stores in town. My major complaint about WalMart is that an amazing percentage of the shoppers there have no sense of how slowly they move nor how much space they take up. Also, there are never more than 2 lanes open at any given time.
Walmart is fine and I’ve bought basic supplies there for years. We have clean, identically laid out stores here in MN. I haven’t shopped the WI Walmarts, but I’m guessing they’re organized the same.