I take exception to this. I do want decent coffee- how dare you suggest otherwise!
Your point is well-taken though: most people don’t. It isn’t like Starbucks is any cheaper than a regular coffee bar… $4 for a freaking cappucino, in a paper cup ? You’ve got to be kidding.
So, is this devaluation and lowest common denominator attitude in big business (lowest price vs. quality; generic, homogenous, odd lots, etc…) endemic to American Cultureor is the opposite true? Are we influencing Wal Mart and other “big business” or are they influencing and manipulating us? Are big chains really offering what the consumer wants? -or are they limiting choices and controlling consumers with the “company store” ploy?
I tend to distrust business when profit takes precedence over people.
Well, before this degenerates into the usual Hardcore Capitalists shrieking at everyone else…
I hate them, hate spending money there…but if anything else was open after 11pm, I wouldn’t go there.
I like WalMarts prices and hours…
…But I don’t appreciate the results of their tactics. And the Fast Company piece only touches on it.
Nothing they do should be outlawed, etc. But, in this free market, I can decide on how to spend my money. I choose not to spend it there for most of my wares.
Hate them. Seldom shop there anymore. There are too many other businesses that treat their customers better, treat their employees better, offer better service, actually clean the store every so often (local super center here is always very dirty), and are faster to shop at. Usually, I’ll happily pay a few dollars more for that.
I shop at my local Super WalMart reasonably often – perhaps once a week. I don’t do my major grocery shopping because, while the prices are fairly good the prices at the military commisary are better overall. I stop by the WalMart on my errand rounds. Why? Price and convenience. I’m going to be heading there shortly as a matter of fact. My shopping list for today: milk, ice cream, a printer ink cartridge, braid and beaded fringe to trim my library valances and thread to sew the same valances. Before the Super WalMart came to town this list would have meant visiting 3 different stores, all of them farther away from me than the WalMart is. I also get my hair and my daughter’s hair cut at this same WalMart (for $10.00). I really like one stylist there and she does as good a job on our hair as any more pricey stylist I’ve ever visited. Again, price and personal convenience.
Curiously, I’m about to be front line on this issue.
On Wednesday I’m moving two states over to take over operations for a firm. Simple enough, right?
One of the issues I’ll be wrestling with is the fact that they have a fairly successful line of specialty books that Wal-Mart was their biggest customer for. When Wal-Mart asked them for a better deal again this year they told them to stuff it.
I think I can find alternative outlets for the books and screw Wal-Mart and the horse they rode in on.
Watch me work, people.
I shop at Wal-Mart. I try not to when I can. And I feel dirty about it.
An impending trip to Wal-Mart fills me with anxiety and I have to take a tranq to get me through it usually. I get lost, the other customers scare me, I have trouble finding what I need and I wonder if some poor checkout clerk will get fired tomorrow because there is a rumor going around that she is gay/non-christian/or whatever.
And there, in fewer than 20 words, is a sad tale of modern America.
A much sadder tale.
What, may i ask, is that supposed to mean?
Well, let’s see. You bash jesleigh for spending free time at the local Wal Mart, whereas you spend your free time in cyber space. I’m not here to criticize, just making a point.
I have been in at least seven different W-Ms, and all of them were dirty, badly-lit, claustrophobic, downright nasty places to shop. The one here in Niagara Falls is a pigsty, to put it bluntly. The one and only time I went in there, there was a massive spill of…something…down on one of the aisles. Call me picky, but I’d rather spend a few cents more at the Target, where I can reasonably expect not to have to step over foul-smelling substances smeared all over the floor.
What scares me more is that the supercenters sell food…in those cruddy places? No thank you.
I went to WalMart once, a few weeks before Christmas. The place was like hell before the decorator came in. Dirty, dingy, aisles too narrow, stock scattered all over the place. Sure it’s cheaper, but so is the dumpster back of McDonalds. I was happy they didn’t even stock what I was looking for, so I didn’t have to spend my money there.
King Friday, would you buy something made with slave labor because it was cheaper? Not that WalMart uses slave labor, not yet, but remember the case of the illegal immigrants who did the cleanup. Yes, theoretically they were employed by a contractor, but we’ll see how much the execs knew when the case comes up. Add to that the many documented instances of time card abuse, how they lock people into stores over night, and on and on, you get a pretty nasty picture.
If going to WalMart means you have enough for food, I can see it - but if fewer people went, more people would have money for food, wouldn’t they?
Yea, you’re right. Wal Mart is the only store that I’ve ever seen or heard of that had something spilled on the floor. I guess when you have to think of a way to insult the most successful retail store in the world, you have to reach. I was in a McDonalds once and someone dropped a pack of ketchup on the floor. I’m never going there again!
Good luck, JC!
I don’t think you can quite compare Wal-mart and Starbucks. Sure, all the Starbuck’s locations are identical, except for differences dictated by the shape of the business space. And there is a higher echelon of coffeeshops that is under threat from Starbucks. But at least Starbucks offers a reasonable selection, and their coffee is still better in quality than standard grocery store coffee, or the coffee served in most restaurants.
Starbucks offers a reasonable selection of bland, overpriced stuff, yes.
If the quality of Starbucks’ coffee was influencing the coffees available in restaurants and grocery stores, then I’d be happy. It isn’t though. I’m not going to a Starbucks to grab a mocha then going to Denny’s, or whatever. The quality of coffee in places where it’s inferior isn’t going to improve.
That said, I don’t think of Starbucks as inherently evil or anything. The hegemonization of America’s coffee is a side effect of their business model rather than an explicit goal.
Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. The invisible hand at work. If enough people feel like you or the company that ** Jonathan Chance ** works for, then Wal-Mart will change or go under. It is that easy.
However, that Fast Company article is sensationalistic and misleading. They take what boils down to a STUPID business decision on Vlasic’s part, and spin it into a sob story about how evil old Wal-Mart is screwing the pickle maker.
First of all, if you spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand., then you don’t go and position yourself as a bargain pickle! That’s one of the first things they teach you in business school- unless you can compete on price, don’t. That Hunn guy or his superiors at Vlasic should get shit-canned. He should have known better, or his superiors should have.
Second of all, nobody forced Vlasic to do anything. They made a dumb decision, and now they’re whining about it. It’s not Wal-Mart’s fault that they can’t keep up with them. Wal-Mart doesn’t owe them squat, and they don’t owe Wal-Mart squat either. Both companies are in business for one and ONLY ONE reason: to make money for stockholders. Wal-Mart just happens to be extraordinarily hard-nosed about it.
Ah, i think i see the problem here–your reading comprehension skills.
Let’s have a look at my post, shall we?
A relatively cursory examination of these sentences should indicate that i was not bashing jesleigh “for spending free time at the local Wal Mart.” I was lamenting the fact that “Wal-Mart is about the only place to shop and kill time” in the town where jesleigh lives.
Get it now?