So Wal-Mart is evil and wants to destroy America? Well. I guess you hate teachers trying to stretch a buck. A friend of my wife is an elementary school teacher and wants to get a race car bed for her son this Christmas. With money being tight, she obviously wants the best price for the exact same product.
That’s right, same thing, check the links. All prices linked include shipping, go ahead, check them out.
The manufacturer can get it there for $440.00. If that’s too much to pay, get it here for only $406.94. Still not a good deal? Don’t go here to buy it for $455.94.
If you want a deal, though, maybe Wal-Malt is your best bet at $332.42
If anyone wants to cover the difference in cost for any non Wal-Mart sites, let me know how you want to send the cash to her. Otherwise, take this as a microcosm of why people will never flee Wal-Mart in the numbers it would take to shut them down. With all the complaints of people being so poor and destitute in the US, I’m surprised anyone complains about getting something for a better price.
Don’t people usually pit Wal-Mart for forcing local Mom-and-Pop businesses to fold? I never knew of anyone who hated wal-mart because they hated teachers trying to save a buck. I think it has more to do with hurting local economies in the short run.
Either way, it’s 299.99 + a $30 handling surcharge with free shipping here. so hopefully all of us who shop on the internet can put big bad Wal-Mart out of business once and for all!!!
The :rolleyes: cannot :rolleyes: back far enough for this one.
I can’t think of any critique of Walmart…including South Park…that did not note that they have very low prices. No kidding. And that people like low prices. And that’s why they’re sucessful. No kidding.
People think they are evil because of how they arrive at the low prices. Like, for example, screwing over their workers.
No one…I repeat NO ONE is arguing that they don’t have low prices and as far as that goes that benefits people…including teachers. Does that negate any other evil shit they do to arrive there?
Thanks The_Llama! Even cheaper. I’ll let her know tomorrow. Maybe now we can get those damn Wal-Martians fired!
[sub]No really, thanks for the link. Any amount will help their family.[/sub]
These sites compair EVERYTHING and even give you ratings on the stores, etc. I am all about saving a buck, and since my wife is a teacher, I’m all about her saving a buck too.
Sorry to turn your rant into a feel good christmas spirit post-fest, but that’s the only way to destryo Wal-Mart!!!
Wal-Martians… that’s a good one!
Here’s the main reason reason I started this thread. Maybe it could have qualified for GD, but it’s about Wal-Mart so it was destined for the Pit anyway.
Little Tykes, the manufacturer sells it for $440.00 direct. Wal-Mart sells it for $332.42. Both delivered to your door. That’s more than $100 difference. How can Wal-Mart eat this much of a loss? Before you tell me about how Wal-Mart forces companies (The Vlassic defense) to sell at a certain price, think about this.
Wal-Mart tells LittleTykes to sell the bed set for $332.42 (all prices here include shipping costs in the total). Yet LittleTykes will sell direct for $440.00. Why doesn’t LittleTykes tell Wal-Mart to shove it and sell the stuff themselves? Or distribute it through Sears or K-Mart or J C Penny’s? Seems to me they could make more money by undercutting the shipping cost and getting the product to our doors at a comparable cost while making more profit. FWIW, online ordering is the only option where I live as the local store doesn’t stock them.
As for the evil corporate entity screwing workers, well from what I’ve read here, McDonald’s has a pretty damn good benefit package. And even in ND they hire high school kids at $6.50/hr. Maybe it’s time for those needing health insurance to start applying elsewhere? Not a sure-fire cure, but more productive than complaining about the benefits they’re not getting. Just a thought.
Instead of bitching about Wal-Mart running “mom-and-pop” stores out of business, how about boycotting companies that allow themselves to be bullied by Wal-Mart instead of finding other outlets to sell thier wares?
I’m still wondering why I don’t ever see rants against Target and thier business practices.
It took me precisely 5 seconds to find many cheaper sources for this product using Froogle. Wal-mart uses loss-leader items that they really don’t even care if they sell or not to convince people that they have the consistently lowest prices, but are actually often more expensive for most items. Check out this weeks Frontline for more information.
You can thank us for fighting your ignorance, Duffer, by having the nice lady send us some cool holiday cards with the extra $100 bucks she’ll have left over from buying it at Target. Oh, and by the way, the stores won’t smell like shit, the people managed there will be treated with some modicum of respect, and I can pick up one of those weird Slushy-knock offs on the way out.
I have no moral objection to Wal-Mart’s incredible cost-cutting and labor exporting; that’s the free market at work. But I still hate Wal-Mart.
Well, we don’t know why little tykes has to sell it at that price. It could most certainly be that they want the extra $100 to line their already fat pockets. But it could also be that that price is what it takes to keep them afloat and make a steady profit margin. Wal-Mart comes in and says something along the lines of " Hey, we are the primary seller of your product in 78% of your selling market, and if you don’t cut the prices that you sell the bed to us, we will take our business elsewhere."
Now, Little Tykes has 1 of 2 options. Screw them, we’ll take our chances without them, or they look at the math and decide that they are 100% likely to go under without wal-mart, and 60% likely to go under doing it at less of a price. I think the choice would be clear in that respect.
Of course, I am totally making up this scenario for this particular company, but I believe that this was the exact situation for a few companies in the past, and when it was made public, that was where wal-mart got their reputation for being evil with this particular practice.
The point still stands that yes, this year little Jimmy gets a cheaper bed. And I’m happy for little Jimmy. But 3 years from now, all of the people from Little Tykes may be looking for jobs so that their sons/daughters can have beds to sleep in too, all because they were strong-armed.
I know nothing about the practices of Target, so I can’t comment there.
You want to take on all those dirty hippies that just hate corporations and G.W. Bush for no reason at all, and you tried to use the Little Tikes racer bed to do it.
Well, here’s the reason why people hate Wal-Mart: they’re absolute fucking bastards. Many other posters can come in and fill you in on personal ancedotes about shitty business practices, but I know people that have worked for many big-box retailers. Most people really dislike big-box retail, which is understandable, the companies aren’t hiring you to become a self-actualized human being. However, everything I have head about Wal-Mart is that it’s unadulterated hell compared to other retailers. They engage in a number of practices which I’m sure you’ll agree are highly unethical. In addition to hiring illegal aliens at below minimum wages and tending towards anti-competitive practices, they do really shitty stuff like force people to work off the clock. I don’t care what universe you live in, Duffer, but that’s wrong.
I’m pretty much as free-market as you can get. I don’t believe that we should have a federal minimum wage. I don’t mind outsourcing or foreign competition. But you have to stand up to your contractual obligations. If you tell somebody you’ll pay them a certain amount for an hours work, you have to pay them that. Any Libertarian agrees that contracts must be enforced for our economy to function. Even with these shitty practices, they still don’t deliver the lowest price.
$220 + $85 for freight charge, and when you go to check out the total is $304 without calculating shipping charges yet. I was almost upset someone found it cheaper!
no, no I don’t compete over stupid things… why do you ask?
And then they turn around and pay the CEO millions.
There’s always a high cost to cheap products and labor. Personally I’d rather pay more for a product from a company that insures workers and provides them with a decent wage. I’d certainly rather do that than get the cheapest price possible and then see my taxes raised to cover an employee’s health insurance and food stamps.
A company that pays workers a pittance and forces them to rely on the rest of us for basic necessities like health care does indeed suck.
Well, thank you again for not only giving me a second site to look through, but to do it in your sweet way. I’m hoping for a response in some thread where it isn’t some personal dig. :wally
And what the hell business practices are there in Boulder? I’ve never been in a store that smells like shit. And for the workers, maybe North Dakota Nice[sup]TM[/sup] is better than your little paradise.
Is it possible that it’s so much trouble for Little Tykes, being a manufacturer, to run the retail side that they charge a premium over WM? So their cost-of-business in retail (even web retail) is so much higher? Granted, I don’t see this being more than $100 worth of difference, but it could be a factor.
Also, maybe their shipping costs are higher because they have to use a different distributor?
Maybe they just want to make a hefty profit, and rely on people who don’t comparison-shop but rather go straight to the source assuming it’s cheaper.
Maybe their shipping staff are all union
There are other possible reasons I haven’t thought of, too.
What? You posted in the pit. You pitted me. I think Wal-Mart sucks. Again, you’re pitting me. I kindly tell you to drop the fucking Wal-Mart propaganda, because, no, they don’t have great prices, and you get all pissy because it was a bit to personal?
[Lil’ Jon]Whaaat??[/Lil’ Jon]
And finally, if you weren’t busy jacking-off all over the store on the Wal-Mart logo because you like it and you know that you liking it pisses off lefties, you might notice why the Target “shopping experience” is a bit nicer. For starters, the staff is frendlier and more knowledgable. Also, Target seems to have discovered this crazy thing called neutral-earth tones. In fact, I’m pretty sure those colors are free! Just looking at the outside and inside of a Wal-Mart store makes me want to vomit.
At least here in paradise. Why don’t you move here?
Wow, you have to read that link that lavenderlemon posted. It’s long, but wow. Forcing employees to work overtime without pay because the branches were pressured about their payroll budgets being too high. That’s crazy.
