Another one I thought of is motor oil.
No one sells 5 quart containers of motor oil cheaper than Walmart.
This is one of the main reasons I go to Wal-Mart. They have good prices and selection on automotive consumables, and several other categories that I shop regularly, such as batteries, cleaning products and sodas.
For the most part, the things I’m buying at Wal-Mart are things that aren’t specialty items, and that there’s no real point in buying somewhere more expensive. Things like say… Hanes t-shirts, Ray-o-Vac AA batteries, or Pine-Sol.
We tend to buy bulk items at Sam’s Club (not quite Wal-Mart, but same overall company) because they really do have lower prices per unit, and the nearest Costco is like 20 miles away, while we have something like 3-4 Sam’s within 4 miles.
In my experience, and I’m sure a lot of people are going to get torqued, but the cleanliness and disarray (or lack thereof) of Wal-Mart stores is directly proportional to the income of the majority of the shoppers at that location. Lower income = more destroyed and dirty, and vice-versa for higher income. I don’t know why this is so, but it seems to hold for all stores, not just Wal-Mart. For an example go to the Forest Lane Wal-Mart in Dallas, where 80% of the clientele is low-income, and then go to the Park @ DNT Wal-Mart in Plano, and see which store is less run-down and ghetto. The 10 year old store in Plano is far less crapped out than the one that’s 5 years old in Dallas.
This.
They aren’t closed on Monday. They are open after 5PM. They have the items I want in stock, available to buy today, rather than by special order.
I have an issue with lots of local retailers for the availability of product. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I go to my local hardware stores, or gun shop, and they are closed early, or don’t have the product in stock, or don’t carry it in the first place. Walmart does, Home Depot/Lowe’s does, and they are open beyond 5 or 6PM. I know the local guys have families they want get home to, but if they aren’t open to service the customers, when customers aren’t AT WORK themselves, then they won’t get the business. Retail work is a choice, and if you’re going to be in that industry, you need to be open when the customers can make it in.
I have no problem with WalMart. About 2 years ago a Supercenter went up a mile from me. Also within a two mile radius is a Meijer, Jewel-Osco, TWO Target stores, a Butera and two Walgreen’s. All are thriving. WalMart hasn’t taken business from any of them. I used to go WalMart every week or two and get my dry or packaged goods, plus whatever other stuff I needed from what used to be the dime store. I now have a negative association with WalMart because it was the last store I went to the day my horse had to be put down. He was not put down because I went to WalMart! Just a coincidence, but I couldn’t go to WalMart without reliving that awful day.
I shop at Wal-Mart for two items that are reliably in stock there and at a good price. These trips take place 4 times a year. Otherwise, it’s Target or the specialty shop. I can’t stand how they treat their employees (even ignoring a high-school student’s plea to not schedule him 40 hours a week during the school year) or the poor quality of the crap in their stores. Even the food choices are crap IMO.
I will also go there when I am off on one of my road trips and I can’t get to a Target. In rural areas, Wal-Mart is often the only choice for me to get all I need. If I only need groceries, I hit the local supermarket instead, even though prices are higher. I feel that there at least I can do a better job of supporting the local economy.
Despise the place. Haven’t been in, oh, perhaps 8 years.
Fortunately I have other choices, that WalMart has been unable to smother.
Funny how everyone in this thread doesn’t shop there at all or seldom shops there but they still manage to be the hugest company in the goddamn US of A.
I think asking someone if they shop at Wal Mart is much like asking them how much sleep they typically get (claim 4-5hrs, reality 6-8) or how many hours they spend in the office per week (claim 60-80, reality 45-50). Everyone claims/thinks they never shop there but they have 50 or more charges from there on their bank statement every year.
NASCAR is the biggest spectator sport in the USA, but I doubt if one Doper in ten has attended a race. Flyover Country has some big numbers in it.
You would have to go back to the previous decade to find Walmart charges on any of my statements. (I was in college…there’s a time for everything.)
I’d guess that Dopers are not squarely in the WalMart target market. Granted, we are a diverse group of people, but WalMarts core customers - I would guess - skew less educated, with lower household incomes, more conservative and more rural than Dopers tend to skew.
(I’ve been to a Formula One race…that doesn’t count, does it? How about if I’ve seen Cars?)
I drive a car.
I can spell kar.
You don’t have to guess, here is a side-by-side chart of some demographics for Wal-mart, K-mart, Kohl’s and Target. Wal-mart demo is slightly older, slightly more male and not quite as bell curved on household income as Target. The only place they differ hugely is in region of country - Target is more popular in the West, Wal-mart is more popular in the South. That could have something (or everything) to do with store distribution.
WalMart? Sorry, I have so little dealings with them that I cannot venture a very informed opinion. They do seem to be so…what’s the word…one-dimensional?
I’m guessing on the Doper demographics.
as for the same national brands, check carefully. Look at the manufacturer’s model number and see if you can find it somewhere else. Often you can’t. Walmart makes the national brands make special models for them-to Walmart’s specs. I used to think those specs were always worse. I have been convinced that isn’t always the case. As I understand it, sometimes their specs are actually better than average. But they are always focused on price. If the manufacturer can make it better and cheaper, Walmart is apparently OK with that. But cheaper wins every time. And of course this pushes everything the manufacturer does downward. Target or Ace Hardware or Sears isn’t interested in buying the more expensive products, they want their own cheap models. Pretty soon everything is in the gutter. That is the Walmart way.
Yeah, that happened in my grandmother’s small town in Arkansas. Everyone was excited. That was in the 1980s, I think. The last time I visited that town was in 1993, and my grandmother died in 1995, so I don’t know how feelings evolved.
I’ve heard all the Walmart hate and can understand it, but I’ll tell ya, when the wife and I last visited Hawaii in 2005, we saw a Walmart – which wasn’t there yet when we lived there – and went crazy buying stuff.
Here’s an interesting news article:
" A man who shot and killed another man inside a suburban Phoenix Walmart opened fire in self-defense, Chandler police said Monday.
According to Chandler police, Kyle Wayne Quadlin, 25, shot Kriston Charles Belinte Chee, 36, following a fight at a service counter Sunday afternoon."
Do you think long lines at the service counter were part of the cause of the fight?
Subliminal messaging is to blame.