[keyser]

Walmart is the 3rd largest employer in the world - behind the Chinese Red Army and the Indian State railway company. Supporting local business is great, but you're putting food on more peoples plates if you shop at Walmart.

It's just not very good food!

[JACOBY]

Why is it ya can buy a pair of basic wrangler jeans at walmart for 15.00 bucks but yet go to macys or j.c.pennys or sears and they want 30.00. Where do I shop walmart I'm not rich

[eddie1960]

This is simply not true:

I shop BestBuy--just went there this past Saturday to get an iPhone for one of my younger son's Xmas gifts--and I sauntered around the rest of the store while my wife was doing the iPhone business and finalizing the contract.

And everyone I talked to knew exactly what they were talking about. And hell--my wife wants this dance thing for Wii called Sumba (spelling?), and without even blinking, the kid told me immediately that they have it for XBox and PlayStation 3, but the Wii units sell out as soon as they come in. with the last one being sold the day before. (They're only shipped like 6 units at a time.)

You simply can't make some blanket statement that BestBuy employees don't know their business. Maybe in Canada, but not the U.S.

It's real easy to put people down--as so many here are doing about WalMart employees as well. But I bet most of us couldn't last 5 days in a job like that, having to learn all the things there are to learn about so many products and new products every day with new technologies.

Please stop thinking that you, we and others are so much smarter than these folks, because believe me, we aren't.

When we say that, we come across as a lot dumber.

I worked for Best buy and spent 25 years in the consumer electronics business Ira, I've been in best buy US as well. I stand buy my statement. in general I would rather deal with an small specialist independent if I was going to make a major purchase. the staff is almost always more knowledgeable. You may well have a good BB near you they do exist, but I have been in a large number of big box stores over the years (and worked for one as a manager for several as well as having worked at the independent level) If i wanted to buy an audio system not a chance i would go to a best buy or a future shop (one of their other chains here in Canada where I worked) unless I knew exactly what I wanted. It was the bane of my existence to get salespeople to sell and demo audio gear properly for example. Not all the salespeople were bad, and there are exceptions in all chains.
on the other hand for gaming and cell phones they do an excellent job. but to be realistic all big box regardless of the name on the door are in the business of moving boxes and warranties, not solution selling which is where indies excel. indies up here are also very aggressive on price as they realize they have to compete, but they do make the effort to differentiate themselves through product selection and service.
I don't know if it still exists but Best buy did have a chain they bought that did excel at audio sales - Magnolia Hi-Fi, if they are still around likely they provide excellent service they always did (and I know there was some experimenting with store within a store concepts putting a smallish magnolia within a best buy to offer a different level of product and service.
I realise I am not the core customer, however I also realize that outside the US in any case there is a big movement towards shopping local particularly when it comes to food, and it is a much larger market than .01%. It has many environmental benefits, in addition to health benefits as food that is allowed to reach a ripe state naturally and travel a shorter distance to market is better for you. More expensive yes, but healthier as well. As for shopping local and providing employment etc, when I buy a locally made product from a locally owned shop every penny i spend stays within my community, when i buy an imported product at a big multinational chain about 10% of that money stays within my community, the profits leave the country completely for the parent country of the corporation, the product cost component leave the country for the country of manufacture (frequently in the case of clothes a country with very poor human rights and labour records. So feel free to buy your cheap underwear at walmart/Kmart/etc just be aware somewhere there is a child who probably works 12+ hours a day for maybe a dollar US if they are lucky so you can have cheap underwear. Personally I can live with less in my life and do what I can to change things buy effecting change through my spending patterns, and I know it makes little difference to big corporations whether or not I buy from them, however the more people that move towards this ethic the more change will be affected. every journey starts with a small step
sorry If I'm ranting but this is near and dear to me. I don't expect to change peoples habit by ranting, and if I wasn't in a position to do so financially I likely would not be able to shop this way (though I did take an almost 50% pay drop when I left retail management to focus on my life rather than my job.)
Consumerism runs rampant whether I like it or not, but I don't have to be part of the problem
Just an old very left wing punks opinion of course

[magkelly]

I agree with the jeans comment above. I recently dropped a fair amount of weight and my jeans were just hanging on me so I went to look at buying some jeans. Every store I went to locally except for Walmart and Target the minimum for a pair of non-fancy jeans was $30-50. Walmart and Target had jeans for $12 and $15 respectively and looking at them I'd have to say for the money they were actually better jeans than the more expensive ones I saw.

I can buy two pairs of jeans there for what one pair costs elsewhere. So why would I buy at my local clothing boutiques? Yeah, I want to support local stores, but not to the extent that my food and clothing budget doubles or even triples compare to what it costs me to go to Walmart.

There are a lot of things I won't buy at Walmart. Fresh meat and most vegetables, those are not Walmart's best items, but they sell cereals that cost $2 a box, and it's the same cereal that can cost $4-5 elsewhere in my community. Ditto soup, a $3 can of soup elsewhere is $1.29 at Walmart.

It's a simple question of economics and the paycheck only stretching so far that really accounts for Walmart being the behemoth it is, shrug.

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Last edited by magkelly; 12-15-2010 at 06:04 AM.

[Parallax]

Walmart is the 3rd largest employer in the world - behind the Chinese Red Army and the Indian State railway company. Supporting local business is great, but you're putting food on more peoples plates if you shop at Walmart.

It's just not very good food!

How do you figure that? It takes fewer people to run one large store than multiple small ones. If it didn't, Walmart would have multiple small, specialty stores. There would be a lot more people employed if the merchandise from any given Walmart store was retailed form multiple stores. That's why they build big stores.

[eddie1960]

How do you figure that? It takes fewer people to run one large store than multiple small ones. If it didn't, Walmart would have multiple small, specialty stores. There would be a lot more people employed if the merchandise from any given Walmart store was retailed form multiple stores. That's why they build big stores.

+1 for simple economics of it
add in purchasing local goods and you employ more people locally, save carbon costs of shipping and keep the profits in your community which has many benefits (not the least of which is the tax revenue stays with your own gov't as well providing better local services
from a food standpoint I buy little processed food so it is practical for me to shop local. I put up preserves during the seasons and eat local a lot of the year. I still buy imported items, not everything is available locally (lemons and flour for instance), fortunately there are some very good local wines now as well. Now I don't have kids either so I don't have the issue of them wanting everything they see advertised and that their friends have
and cloth that is used for local clothes of course is not likely from here - though some will be. I also use recycled goods/cloths, i'm a thrift store addict and have found many good things in them (including most of my manual lenses)
we've recently decided to redecorate our living room, the old sofa will go to a local shop for re upholstery and some basic restyling to make it work within the design, the two other chairs that we will use i picked up old ones and am having them recovered for less than the cost of a new knockoff of the design. everyone in the chain benefiting form this job this winter will be a local shop owner trades person. having seen the prices the big chains charge for the same type of purchases I will be saving in the order of 40% of the retail costs. Supporting local business need not be expensive, supporting high end specialty shops of course can be. As for jeans I buy mine at a retailer in the burbs, one man shop and on all the jeans i was looking at hes was lower priced than any other retailer was even on sale. his prices are like that every day and he is a local merchant even if the cloths aren't (not many Canadian jean companies and the ones i've tried don't fit me the way i like so i find a compromise.
After having spent 25 years in the electronics industry i now purchase for a living, I'm quite good at cost benefit analysis due to this and where i work has a green environmental policy that i helped write. We find our clients are looking to see how we impact the environment and make sure we have the options available for them. A large percentage take a good deal of the offers. Easy of course when they aren't spending their own money but company money
much harder i agree to implement it in your personal life. It becomes a matter of informed choices and what your personal beliefs are
I have spent a fair bit of time in Europe and they are much further along this road than we are in north america

[Ratmagiclady]

Why is it ya can buy a pair of basic wrangler jeans at walmart for 15.00 bucks but yet go to macys or j.c.pennys or sears and they want 30.00. Where do I shop walmart I'm not rich

The thing is, with Wal-Mart, it's not always actually the same jeans or such anymore, even if the name's the same. (Finding decent jeans has been a long-running pet peeve of mine, ...Penney's has sales at times, though. Much to my dismay, they finally came out with some cut and color like I like and of course they're pre-distressed to look exactly like the stuff I'm considering too threadbare for dignity. I'm guessing someone in marketing is going, 'Hey, they're all wearing these beat up jeans cause we haven't made decent ones in so long, they must like the look. They must want more! Let's replicate it in cheaper, pre-distressed fabric! It's not like the stuff's not going to unravel in a couple months, anyway... )

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Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 12-14-2010 at 02:26 PM.

[eddie1960]

The thing is, with Wal-Mart, it's not always actually the same jeans or such anymore, even if the name's the same. (Finding decent jeans has been a long-running pet peeve of mine, ...Penney's has sales at times, though. Much to my dismay, they finally came out with some cut and color like I like and of course they're pre-distressed to look exactly like the stuff I'm considering too threadbare for dignity. I'm guessing someone in marketing is going, 'Hey, they're all wearing these beat up jeans cause we haven't made decent ones in so long, they must like the look. They must want more! Let's replicate it in cheaper, pre-distressed fabric! )

and levis (my preferred brand) has put out various qualities, they have some low end lines that don't stand up as well, even the 501 long my favourite jean (and again since I lost 45 pounds) are no longer as heavy duty a denim as they once were, cripes they were comfortable without being washed unlike the ones i remember taking 6-7 washes just to soften up a little. not much chance they will last as long, but they fit just right for me.
never found another jean style i liked the fit on
and i don't get the pre-distressed thing either my jeans will look distressed soon enough thanks

[Ratmagiclady]

and levis (my preferred brand) has put out various qualities, they have some low end lines that don't stand up as well, even the 501 long my favourite jean (and again since I lost 45 pounds) are no longer as heavy duty a denim as they once were, cripes they were comfortable without being washed unlike the ones i remember taking 6-7 washes just to soften up a little. not much chance they will last as long, but they fit just right for me.
never found another jean style i liked the fit on
and i don't get the pre-distressed thing either my jeans will look distressed soon enough thanks

Yeah, it's kind of a travesty, they want people to buy over and over, try getting anything for women with real pockets, ...even thrift stores have a glut of the incessant show-your-navel fashion-that-would-not-die.

Eh, anyway, if I can/must buy something new, you want it to be right, and last a while. Can't afford, really, to repeat purchases all the time like that.

But, I'm having massive consumer anxiety, it's been tight so long it's hard to convince myself I actually saved enough to buy the prezzies I just did.

[boriscleto]

30 days without Wally World? Not much of a challenge. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a Wal-Mart in the last 10 years.

[Wheatfield]

How do you figure that? It takes fewer people to run one large store than multiple small ones. If it didn't, Walmart would have multiple small, specialty stores. There would be a lot more people employed if the merchandise from any given Walmart store was retailed form multiple stores. That's why they build big stores.

Wal-Mart employs around 2.1 million worldwide.
Walmartstores.com: Fact Sheets
I worked for them for almost 9 years, including some time as a manager.
I have nothing bad to say about them.
Mind you, Canadian labour laws may be more restrictive, I suspect American labour laws allow for a higher degree of exploitation of workers (another plus for living in Canada).

[GeneV]

Here Walmart employs hundreds of people who wouldn't even have a p/t job. They aren't the best employer in some ways but still these people are working and making some paycheck. Walmart food prices are 1/3 lower when the local stores are cheerfully charging an arm and a leg for the same items, despite the fact that the extremely bad economy in this area has many unemployed people who never have had to go there before on food stamps just to be able to eat.
.

Maybe not. Statistics are that Walmart kills more jobs than it creates. Their model extracts the most out of everyone and at the least cost. This model, as it is practiced all over the country by various stores, may be one reason why employment does not rebound. At least Walmart has cashiers. They are practically gone from Lowes or Home Depot.

[GeneV]

How do you figure that? It takes fewer people to run one large store than multiple small ones. If it didn't, Walmart would have multiple small, specialty stores. There would be a lot more people employed if the merchandise from any given Walmart store was retailed form multiple stores. That's why they build big stores.

Exactly. Not to mention more poorly paid. Again, studies show over and over that big box stores kill more jobs than they create. It is an illusion of job creation because they are all in one place.

What is more likely to be the death of the big box is the internet. I find you actually get better service in many areas from someone available by phone or email than at many large stores.

[jct us101]

however I also realize that outside the US in any case there is a big movement towards shopping local particularly when it comes to food, and it is a much larger market than .01%.

That is so not true.

[eddie1960]

30 days without Wally World? Not much of a challenge. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a Wal-Mart in the last 10 years.

So can I and all of them would have been competitive shops when i was still in the retail business