In the midst of writing a paper on the differences between Target and Wal-Mart stores, I’ve come to a big stopping point. One of the major points I’m writing about is the main difference in demographics regarding the average Target customer versus the average Wal-Mart customer. I doubt many of us would argue that Target generally attracts a slightly higher class consumer, but unfortunately anecdotal evidence won’t cut it.
I don’t think that Target being “higher class” than Wal-Mart is true in every area. I lived in South Carolina for a while, and I remember finding it odd that the customer base of the local Target was trashier than that of the Wal-Mart.
Well, Target comes from Minneapolis with a pedigree from Dayton’s stretching back over a hundred years. Wal-Mart is from Arkansas and grew out of a local store’s desire not to be crushed by large regional discount stores.
Actually, I didn’t know that last bit until I looked up Wal-Mart’s info (Minneapolis kids have the story of Target drummed into us from an early age). I don’t know the proper word for it, but most people would call it “ironic”.
The marketing regions identified in the above have very specific information related to them (income levels, professions, education levels, spending patterns, etc.). All you’ll need to do is determine the number of Wal-Marts and Targets within a given marketing region. Then see if there is a correlation (for example, you generally find more Wal-Marts in a marketing region where incomes are between 20,000-30,0000, few people have college educations, most are farmers/blue-collar workers, etc.).
Also, check out Claritas. They’re the group that helped devise the “clusters” on which Weiss’s work is based. Again, not direct Wal-Mart/Target numbers; but you can build a strong argument based on the “clusters” (because the clusters include income, education levels, professions, etc.).
Here in my nice suburban middle/upper middle class suburb we have a Wal-Mart and a Target literally next door to each other, both opened on virtually the same day.
You’d think they’d have the same shoppers, but (anecdotally and not subject to rigorous scrutiny) they do have completely different clientele.
In my area of the Minneapolis burbs the local target is in the center of the residential area. The wal-mart is more off on a highway.
I love the target in my area cause it’s not that busy, it’s clean, and the employees look like employees.
The wal-mart is always packed, it’s dirty, and both the customers and employees are trashy.
I live in a fairly “mixed” part of town.
Yep, this is generally what I’ve witnessed as well… I’m sure it has to do with prices (Wally World is usually lower priced) and the products sold (Target is more designer-ish). Now if only I could find some hard facts supporting these theories.
Well, you’re not really in an area to judge well. As I pointed out before, Target descended from Dayton’s in Minneapolis, so it’s got the home field advantage.
In more than a few network news reports, I’ve heard that Wal-Mart has a history of mistreating and exploiting their employees, (e.g. locking employees in the stores overnight, making employees work a lot of involuntary unpaid overtime, etc.). Are these reports true??
Perhaps it’s just a case of a few “bad apples” in their corporation who deserve this horrible publicity, but it DOES seem that much of their national advertising seems to be in the form of “damage control”.
If it is true and proves to be a widespread practice, perhaps people should think twice about shopping there, if that’s a sample of their labour practices. If untrue, then they’d need the support of their customers to help set the record straight.
I’ll second audilover’s comment. In Canada Wal-Mart’s customers tend to be an even mix of unemployed trashy folks and regular everyday 5-day a week working people with 2.5 kids just trying to save a few bucks here and there.
Of course, we don’t have Target here (yet), so maybe that’s part of it. I really want to visit a middle-american Wal-Mart during cheque week one month just to see if the things I keep hearing are true.
I like Target. It is clean. It is neat. They have cool stuff, such as the new metrosexual home cleaning products line Method. (My husband likes to clean using them! Whoo whoo!) The fact that the store is clean and orderly means a lot to me.
I do not really ‘like’ shopping at Wal-Mart. It is messy. The prices are great, but the inside of the store looks like a trash heap sometimes. On the plus side the employees at Wal-Mart are very good at customer service, fun to chat-up, and always willing to help.
I buy my clothes for work at Brooks Brothers, everything else at Land’s End, if that’s any help to you.
I remember when I lvied in Denver, I visited a Wal-Mart in the middle of Highlands Ranch. Highlands Ranch is a sprawling development in Douglas County, which has the highest pmedian household income of any county in the United States ($82,929 in 1999). Douglas County is uniformly middle and upper middle class; there are NO slums, no trailer parks, no pockets of poverty. The crowd at that Wal-Mart? The typical stereotype of Wal-Mart customers; trashy looking folks and plenty of mullets among the crowd. I wondered “where did they come from?”
I’ve only seen a few Wal-Mart stores where the collective clientele didn’t seem be mourning the death of The Intimidator. Clarence, New York (an upper-middle-class suburb of Buffalo), and Mayfield Heights, Ohio (bordering some very wealthy estate suburbs of Cleveland) have Wal-Mart stores where mullets are rare. Even then, the shoppers seemed more blue-collar than those shopping at nearby Target stores; older, stockier, and dowdier, with far more couples and families. At nearby Target stores, there’s more single shoppers, and they appear wealthier and more fashionable.
Maybe it’s the folksy advertising; those giving testimonials about the merits of Wal-Mart usually speak in a drawl, or have a “country” look about them. “We ahlways stahhp at the WAHL-Mahrt b’fawr gawin’ ta’ thuh’ lay-uk!” Target commercials are hip and edgy; no Nextel totin’ redneck in their right mind would be caught in such a sissified environment.
I think too you would need to look at the fact that, at least in some areas of the country, every small town (5000-10,000 people) has a walmart or super walmart while there might only be a target in a few cities.
In my small town, there is a fairly large cross section of individuals who shop at Walmart, especially as it is pretty much the only store within 50 miles that offers certain goods.
This is absolutely true here, too. I know people have said that Wal-Mart has sleazy business practices and we should boycott them, and while I agree that their business practices are plenty sleazy, the folks in Cumberland would have a hard time boycotting. Our options would be to buy our cleaning supplies at the super market (where they cost 50% more) and our health and beauty items at the drug store (where they cost 50% more), and order household furnishings (new computer desk, etc.) online. I personally would love to see a Target come in, and I suspect a lot of other folks would, too; but for now, all we’ve got is Wal-Mart.
Well, I have worked at a Walmart for the last 2 months, and so far they have stressed “Do Not Work Off the Clock” quite often. Management has even stated that working off the clock could get you fired. No doubt there has been some stores that have had this problem; Walmart has so many stores that any conceivble problem will crop up eventually. That is also probably why my Walmart has such a stringent policy on keeping track of hours worked.
It would be very difficult for someone to get locked in at night, given that there are people working at all hours of the day, every day.
Yeah, but you’re not an illegal immigrant who barely speaks English. You don’t have to worry that they’ll call INS on you if you complain about working without pay. It’s those kind of workers that Walmart is accused of working past hours.
I worked for them for seven months. They are a sleazy company. Their destruction of small businesses has been systematic from the start. They quell any and all attempts at unionizing, and as a result, Walmart workers make three dollars an hour less than workers at similar department/grocery stores. They refuse to stock the morning after pill. Their health plan does not cover same-sex domestic partners. They take out insurance policies on workers without their knowledge and then cash in on them when they die, even if that person hasn’t worked for Walmart in years (which reminds me, I have to check up on my legal rights there, they might have one on me). There is rampant sexual and verbal harassment. I myself was verbally harassed several times by managers. One time, I was called back to the office for a lecture because I’d been late to work a lot. I can’t drive because of anxiety problems, and my parents and boyfriend have lives too, they couldn’t always be there to take me right on time. I told them this. The manager in charge of the lecture said “well, if you’re too crazy to drive, then maybe you’re too crazy to work at Walmart.” There were two other managers in the room when he said this, and neither one of them said anything like “that’s not right” or “hold on, that’s offensive.”
(P.S. Sorry if this is too much of a hijack, but I just really hate this company. Those low prices have to come from somewhere, you know. Actually, I think Walmart’s demographics have to do with a cycle of poverty that they knowingly feed off of. But that’s really a topic for another thread.)
