Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
- 81
That's okay, that's all people can afford on public assistance which most of Americans will be until collapse..
That's okay, that's all people can afford on public assistance which most of Americans will be until collapse..
Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
- 81
Nah there is still plenty of places like that. Mostly in affluent areas...e.g. Rodeo Drive. For everyone else it's box stores and internet.
Nebor
Lifer
- Jun 24, 2003
- 29,582
- 12
- 76
I really had forgotten what that was like... But it's still easier to get it all from my chair rather than drive to a dozen different stores.
Thing is, it is ultimately up to the consumer, up to the community which store they choose to shop at. If a WalMart puts a small store out of business, is it WalMart's fault? The community still had every opportunity to support the small store, WalMart did *not* take that choice away from the community.
Would you ever bitch out a food pantry because a corner grocer closed shop?
That'll show'em!
Are you actually championing Walmart as a good company? Have you shopped there before? What's funny is that Walmart's prices aren't even great. "OMG, 2 cents of my spaghettios! THANK THE LORD!"
WalMart's prices are very good compared to the competition. Nearest me, WalMart's groceries are ~15% cheaper than the Jewel grocery store in town, and their clothing is better quality, better and diverse selection, and cheaper prices than the Target. It all adds up.
Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
- 81
It's a little more complex than that. It's like trying to run a NYC ferry business against Vanderbilt where he'd just lower prices until you were out of business and raise them to cover his temporary set back on transportation domination. Walmart is a monopoly compared to main street stores. Can buy cheaper. Sell cheaper indefinity until you are gone and bankrupted.
I know. I'm saying those who *choose* to shop at WalMart shoulder a lot of the responsibility in the situation.
In my town, small stores come and go. The town does a good job at promoting various events in the downtown area to help attract customers to the small shops.
The only major impact WalMart has had here was putting our KMart out of business - which you want to talk about evil companies, KMart *deserved* to go out of business. Deserved to go out long, long, long time before it actually did. Our KMart deliberately and purposefully overcharged consumers, it was known in the community, and known by the management and all employees of the store this was going on. You'd pick up 10 items off the shelves, damn near guaranteed 5 items required a price-check because the scanner ran them up at a higher price than the tag on the shelf said. And this went on for years because they were the only department store in town.
In comparison to that, WalMart is a great store to have.
The earlier comment reminisces on the times when towns had specialty stores for everything - how about reminiscing on the time when we had to price-check everything when shopping local stores!
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Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
- 81
LOL I was in a kmart once and they had swamp coolers running, no AC, was hotter than Hades, trashed/disorderly shelving and looked like a swap meet. Never again. I go to Walmart, it's my favorite store for $4 fishing poles and $2 fishing line, I'm just saying it put our local fishing mom and pop fishing store out of business and I'm not sure how healthy that is overall. Instead of many middle and upper middle class small business owners we have a few billionaires living probably offshore and those formerly selfemployed maybe on public assistance while working part time at wal mart. Complicated issue. We get better prices but at a cost.
yottabit
Golden Member
- Jun 5, 2008
- 1,365
- 229
- 116
I honestly think if I were to open up a small business, Walmart would make my life easier. Walmarts claim is only on the low margin cheap cheap cheap stuff people need. There's a difference between economy of scale and anticompetitive practices. Walmart is able to get it's prices so low because of the massive qtys they are buying and the efficiency of their infrastructure.
If I were a small business and a walmart opened up next to me, I would clearance off all my low end items, order more high end items, and put a sign up front my door that said "Come here to get GOOD (insert product name here)"
Don't try to compete with Walmart in what it is best at, and you probably won't go out of business!
Even small stores could compete by simply carrying different products than what walmart does
If you want to compete with walmart at its own game, low margin value products, then you better have the billions of dollars in capital to do it. Would it be fair if the situation was turned and small businesses with almost no investment cost (= risk) could put walmart out of business?
If I were a small business and a walmart opened up next to me, I would clearance off all my low end items, order more high end items, and put a sign up front my door that said "Come here to get GOOD (insert product name here)"
Don't try to compete with Walmart in what it is best at, and you probably won't go out of business!
Even small stores could compete by simply carrying different products than what walmart does
If you want to compete with walmart at its own game, low margin value products, then you better have the billions of dollars in capital to do it. Would it be fair if the situation was turned and small businesses with almost no investment cost (= risk) could put walmart out of business?
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,914
- 2,359
- 126
I hope so since Target pays so much better than Walmart, is run less like a slave labor shop, and certainly arent hated as much as Walmart!
heymrdj
Diamond Member
- May 28, 2007
- 3,998
- 63
- 91
Good luck convincing average americans to spend more on a product. Even if it's well known for higher quality, money talks period. Look at computer shops, even if they put together good units out of quality part, the WM serial numbered HP, Dell, and ACER units still win out in sales at walmart over the local chains. Even though the WM models are 200$ for a reason (being built off substandard parts that HP, Dell, and ACER wouldn't put in their OWN value line units), people still buy them by the hoard even over a 350$ machine built off at least quality value parts.
And those stores tend to overcharge for average items if no other competition is brought to bare in the market place. This has happened a lot of times where smaller stores would ban together in order to try to keep out a larger retail store which would reduce prices and thus reduce the cost of living for many people. In the end you either adapt in such a manner that you stand out from stores like Walmart by offering something they don't or can't offer or you go belly up.
This is how capitalism works in that it should reward those who meet the demands and needs of consumers. Those who can meet the ever changing needs of consumers will survive while those who are stagnate or can't adapt should go belly up or change to keep pace. Before Walmart you had Kmart, before them you had Woolworth's, etc.. the history of retail stores is a history of chains which found ways to provide consumers what they need at a price they are willing to pay by finding ways to reduce costs. You can even branch out and see this similar trend in other industries such as the auto-industry where a young Henry Ford found ways to reduce the cost of what once was considered a luxury item (i.e. automobile) for the wealthy and offer a product that the average American consumer wanted and could eventually afford.
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However you are missing an important point. Not everyone wants, needs or can afford a mega gaming machine worth several thousand dollars because all they are going to do is a bit a web surfing, maybe file their taxes via a tax app and a bit of word processing. For the most part this doesn't require much in terms of costly hardware.
Furthermore not everyone has a desire or ability to roll their own, etc. Thus for these people cheap pc's are more important then powerful beefy machines and Walmart is providing what they desire at a price that has enabled most people who once thought PC's as being to expensive to be worth the cost of owning one a real viable choice.
heymrdj
Diamond Member
- May 28, 2007
- 3,998
- 63
- 91
I don't mean powerful machines or build your own. I mean simple built athlon X2 machines (even core I3 is overkill), single 500GB spindle drive, a quality mainboard and quality PSU. These ones in walmart use extremely lacklust parts, the mainboards especially. These machines have warranty periods of 30-90 days. And they last it too, I've seen them die after 6months, and frequently less than a year. And they never get repaired either, because a single replacement part costs more than the entire software subsidized system. They just get thrown away and replaced by another piece of crap. I wouldn't have as much of an issue with it if it wasn't soo fricken wasteful. It all just ends up in a landfill, even if it was just something small like a fried hard drive (tier 7 seagates) or blown cap on a mainboard.
You are ignoring my point.
They are selling to a segment of people who probably can't afford a "great" pc or a over priced Apple computer. This segment of the population (poor people) have very little knowledge or ability to fix or build their own pc's and probably can't afford to pay someone else to do the same. They are the ones Walmart is providing goods too. In order words Walmart is filling a niche in the market that most retail chains or local places are not catering too and are providing people who normally wouldn't purchase a pc the ability to have one.
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heymrdj
Diamond Member
- May 28, 2007
- 3,998
- 63
- 91
I understand that you're not seeing my point. My point is that is the *majority* of people. Businesses have a minimum amount of people required for them to stay afloat. Walmart pc's take so much of that business that the small ones can't stay afloat. The same goes for grociers. Yes there are people that want the niche. The problem is the people in the niche are so few and far between, most of these niche businesses can't stay afloat.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,862
- 84
- 91
if ur a small business ur selling to a niche anyways...or by definition.
computer stores are a poor example, their advantage over a dell went to nothing, cheap computer store pc was ugly generic cased garbage money saving product which people used to tolerate when pc's cost several times what they do now, high end, well many build their own instead. low margin like that just doesn't compete with the big dogs. on the other hand walmart doesn't actually compete with dell ..their selection is too pitiful to even make a dent. walmart selection/quality is its weakness, if a small business can't figure out a way to compete with that well thats their problem.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,914
- 2,359
- 126
It seems like you are going down the "its not fair" route of reasoning when discussing competition in the free market. Of which in reality this sort of reasoning does not have any real bearing on the out come of who gets to fulfilling the needs of consumers. In the end it is up to each individual business/business person to figure out the what, where, when and how they of being able to fulfill the demands in the market and what their role in the market should be in a manner which allows them to operate at a profit. The nature of a free market is that it is a competition between bidders on both sides (sellers and buyers) of the figurative economic aisle.
Because as history has demonstrated time and time again it is those who can best offer their customers what they are looking for (At a price they both consider to be reasonable) who eventually wins the day regardless of what one or another may considers to be "fair" in regards to pricing or out right competition.
Thus eventually one day even Walmart will eventually fall behind the curve just like companies such as Sears and Montgomery Wards both fell behind the curve as the consumer shopping trend of mail ordering fell out favor due to the invention of the automobile and a young James Cash Penny started meeting the demands of consumers by opening up department stores in cities that provide goods closer, faster and cheaper to the average consumer.
heymrdj
Diamond Member
- May 28, 2007
- 3,998
- 63
- 91
I wasn't discussing the fairness in anything. I was just explaining to yottabit why 65% of smb's fail within 10 years. You *think* there are enough niche people to support a plan, but in the end price is the only thing that matters to people.
I agree price matters but niche roles can be more then enough to fill the the demands of a businesses if they known their market and can control their costs like say for example Apple who in the face of the PC industry behemoths such as IBM (who used to be the biggest name in computing), Dell, HP, etc have filled in roles (merging aspects of their OS and cell phones, tablets, etc) that have kept them afloat despite having miniscule market share in desktop area of the market.
Edit: In addition companies like Costco, Target, Trader Joes, Fresh and Easy etc all have found their methods and niches when competing against Walmart.
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Lemon law
Lifer
- Nov 6, 2005
- 20,984
- 3
- 0
I somewhat regard this as a failed thread because it does not take into account past Walmart behavior, back in the bad ole days when Walmart was a new and struggling company.
Now that Walmart is an established brand, to a large extent, Walmart no longer engages in the same reprehensible business practices that screwed so many rural areas previously. And dragged the Walmart name down into the dirt making it American public enemy number one to many rural areas. And got Walmart stores banned from many communities.
In short, times change, and so has Walmart. As Walmart is now an established brand that can offer consumers almost everywhere lower prices because Walmart simply operates more efficiently on a nationwide scale.
But in the early days, Walmart did not and could not operate that way, nor could they go head to head with established competitors like K-mart who already stores in most larger markets.
So Walmart would open stores in small niche Southern markets, as they drove all existing conventional Mom and Pop type stores out of business by cutting prices. As Walmart already had their superior business model of doing their own trucking from their own regional warehouses. Had Walmart simply kept their marginally profitable stores still open in such niche markets, Walmart would not have acquired the rotten reputation that offends so many still today. But as soon as early Walmart store became less than very profitable, Walmart would close the store, and suddenly, a rural community that had set of Mom and Pop stores before, would find itself driving 50 miles to buy anything at any price.
But from that rotten beginning, Walmart acquired the economy of scale and efficiencies needed to drive K-mart and similar competitors out of business. As many communities still ask, is a Walmart store good for the long survival of any community?
Now that Walmart is an established brand, to a large extent, Walmart no longer engages in the same reprehensible business practices that screwed so many rural areas previously. And dragged the Walmart name down into the dirt making it American public enemy number one to many rural areas. And got Walmart stores banned from many communities.
In short, times change, and so has Walmart. As Walmart is now an established brand that can offer consumers almost everywhere lower prices because Walmart simply operates more efficiently on a nationwide scale.
But in the early days, Walmart did not and could not operate that way, nor could they go head to head with established competitors like K-mart who already stores in most larger markets.
So Walmart would open stores in small niche Southern markets, as they drove all existing conventional Mom and Pop type stores out of business by cutting prices. As Walmart already had their superior business model of doing their own trucking from their own regional warehouses. Had Walmart simply kept their marginally profitable stores still open in such niche markets, Walmart would not have acquired the rotten reputation that offends so many still today. But as soon as early Walmart store became less than very profitable, Walmart would close the store, and suddenly, a rural community that had set of Mom and Pop stores before, would find itself driving 50 miles to buy anything at any price.
But from that rotten beginning, Walmart acquired the economy of scale and efficiencies needed to drive K-mart and similar competitors out of business. As many communities still ask, is a Walmart store good for the long survival of any community?
Wal-mart is not that different from sears or target or walgreens or whatever. You think Walmart is any different from say JCPENNEY? They just sell different kinds of Chinese junk. Dont kid yourself!
UberNeuman
Lifer
- Nov 4, 1999
- 16,937
- 3,087
- 126
ah, yes - Walmart - bringing a Chinese sense of running a business to America.... Hallefuckinlujah....
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