The end of the Walmart Era

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Jim Cramer on Mad Money said it best: "Walmart needs an image change. I feel so poor and depressed when I walk in their stores."

This same thing happened to KMart, and look where they are now. Target is the up and coming store: decent stuff, good prices, clean cheery stores. Walmart's bad PR recently hasn't done much for their shopping base either.

KMart did very well for a long time. but they rested on their laurels and walmart kicked their asses.

but retail was so different back then. no internet, sears and JCPenny were HUGE back then.

things have changed a lot.


target has an interesting market strategy that has worked pretty well. target is for the middle class bargain shoppers. smart idea.

 

[crab]

Melissa Morris says Best Buy won her loyalty by gladly accepting a notebook-PC return and having trained sales clerks. "I go to a store that specializes or has associates there that know about it," she says.

hahaha

 

[Dunbar]

The first part of the OP's post is correct, Walmart's same store sales growth has slowed to 1.3% from an average 5.2% rate over the past ten years. You can't expect to keep building 150-200 new supercenters a year forever. They also are having less success using their huge market share to demand lower prices from suppliers. But make no mistake, they are still a huge force in the retailing world with revenues 4 1/2 times that of Target.

If you don't like Wal Mart than don't shop there. I shop there because their prices, especially on groceries, are so much cheaper than everybody else. I don't like the smaller selection of products or the longer wait at checkout. I also avoid the place on the weekends due to the crowds. But hey, you can't have it all, lower prices have to come at some cost to the "shopping experience".

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
:thumbsup:I don't shop at Walmart either. I think your description of the store/customers/employees is fairly accurate.

It's not suprising that someone who doesn't shop at walmart has no idea what it's like inside one.

I've been in plenty of them, and none were like the OP described.

OWNED.


Sounds to me people hate Wal Mart because it melted their precious Union, and people get all bitchy when something like that happens.

All the union does is leech off of everybody, and create artificial labor shortages if they're not leeching enough money. This goes for Vons, Ralphs, anywhere.

Either way, the Wal Mart I go to, has everything I want. They have some nice Ginger ale, I always get that.

Originally posted by: waggy
if they can get into big cities (thats going to be hard. many are trying to ban them)

Monopolies like the unions are always trying to ban competition.

 

[Modelworks]

I don't use walmart either.
Haven't been in one in over a year.
I don't like there business practices.
I'll take my cash elsewhere.


Walmart doesn't have to keep expanding to stay in business.
They will just keep trying to force manufacturers to lower there quality so that they can sell it cheaper.

Applause to snapper for telling walmart to shove it.
http://fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapper.html

 

[Pepsi90919]

you just live in a redneck town.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
you just live in a redneck town.

hell i live in a redneck area. The walmarts are still not that way.

maybe a higher class of rednecks? hmm

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

mugs made a good statement - they have the whole damn world left to them. Just because they have most of the US covered doesn't mean it's saturated, they've only conquered a portion of what they plan to.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Text

This doesn't really surprise me. While Walmart likely isn't going anywhere, their business model is based on rapid expansion. At this point, the market is saturated and there's no where to expand. I don't know if this is just plain an inevitable outcome, or terrible management. However, their management certainly doesn't seem in touch with reality based on some of their decisions lately. I don't know much about their complete and utter failure in Germany, but I do know that Walmart attempted to sell an upscale clothing line and ended up with a pile of unsold merchandise big enough to fill the grand canyon. What were they thinking? Walmart makes its name synonymous with cheap shit...throws some expensive clothes on the shelves and expects people to fall all over themselves to get them?

Without getting into the macro level of it, I'll just say this. I hate that fucking store. Not even thinking about their bad business practices, its just that the only one near me is a nightmare of epic proportions. Just as a consumer, its not a good deal. Is stuff much cheaper there? I don't even really know or care.

All I know is this:
Half the aisles in the store can't fit more then one cart down them...forcing some one to back up. The employees are useless, but thats pretty much par. There's always huge lines and like 2 registers open, so its impossible for me to just run in and grab one item. Everything I want is (apparently) out of stock (again). It smells bad, but I can't really place what the terrible odor is. I always have to park 5 miles from the store. And its always full of bad smelling people with nascar hats that are to fat to fit down the aforementioned aisles.

The store is just to much work to shop at. Obviously, if its that full they must be doing something right. But I have to wonder if drawing every welfare bum in the tri-state area to buy stuff at razor think margins is really a viable business model.

steel toe, electrical hazzard rated work boots $24.99 FTW!

target doesnt sell work boots. (too blue collar for their upscale client target?)

bates/red wing/wolverine/etc are >$100

inexpensive is good! competition is good! please dont go the way of mongomery wards :brokenheart:

 

[Jeff7]

All things are cyclical. Walmart is no exception.

Originally posted by: crab

Melissa Morris says Best Buy won her loyalty by gladly accepting a notebook-PC return and having trained sales clerks. "I go to a store that specializes or has associates there that know about it," she says.

hahaha

Ah yes, those wonderful Best Buy salesmen, they sure do know their stuff. "Stuff" of course refers to, "selling to clueless customers and making them think that the forcible reaming is in fact a good thing."

Originally posted by: Dunbar
The first part of the OP's post is correct, Walmart's same store sales growth has slowed to 1.3% from an average 5.2% rate over the past ten years. You can't expect to keep building 150-200 new supercenters a year forever. They also are having less success using their huge market share to demand lower prices from suppliers. But make no mistake, they are still a huge force in the retailing world with revenues 4 1/2 times that of Target.

If you don't like Wal Mart than don't shop there. I shop there because their prices, especially on groceries, are so much cheaper than everybody else. I don't like the smaller selection of products or the longer wait at checkout. I also avoid the place on the weekends due to the crowds. But hey, you can't have it all, lower prices have to come at some cost to the "shopping experience".

I don't especially care for Walmart (partly because I used to work there), but that's the interesting thing I find: towns or cities say, "We hate Walmart, we don't want you here." Well you know what, if that was really true, the store will get little business, it will be insufficiently profitable, and corporate HQ will close it down. Problem solved. But too often, it's a vocal few who don't want it - the community then votes with their dollars (and ignorant susceptibility to marketing tactics) to make the Walmart store profitable.

I tend to shop at Kmart (Walmart Lite?) because they're closer. But it's only a Big Kmart store; if they don't have what I need, then I'll head to the Walmart Supercenter. I don't shop at Walmart often though, probably less than 3x per year anymore.

 

[randym431]

Prices at Wally World have been creeping up a lot in the past year or so. They are no longer the lowest priced place. Now, you have to watch your ad's and can usually get better savings by purchasing at other stores too, like target. Depends on the week and deals offered. But worth shopping around.

What I like about Wally World is here at least they have some of the nicest employees. They treat you like family, joke with you and best of all they have no problems bashing wally world too in front of you. Like we all hate out jobs, right? They are the new mom and pop stores, just a lot bigger.

And for us that work strange hours and shop at 2am, Wally World fills our needs (if you can stand the noise of those floor waxing machines following you around). I use to do maybe 95% of my shopping at Wally World, now its more like 75% due to their higher prices. Even their $2 cookies went up to $2.50 I noticed and their name brand .52 cent yogert shot up to .68 cents this summer and is still at that price. Hyvee, a local 24/7 grocery store has sales all the time @ .40 cents for the same brand yogert. And Hyvee also now has Sara Lee bread @ 1.00 where Wally World is over $2.

It pays to shop around.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: Dunbar
The first part of the OP's post is correct, Walmart's same store sales growth has slowed to 1.3% from an average 5.2% rate over the past ten years. You can't expect to keep building 150-200 new supercenters a year forever. They also are having less success using their huge market share to demand lower prices from suppliers. But make no mistake, they are still a huge force in the retailing world with revenues 4 1/2 times that of Target.

If you don't like Wal Mart than don't shop there. I shop there because their prices, especially on groceries, are so much cheaper than everybody else. I don't like the smaller selection of products or the longer wait at checkout. I also avoid the place on the weekends due to the crowds. But hey, you can't have it all, lower prices have to come at some cost to the "shopping experience".

there are no superwalmarts in northern va/dc area

i want inexpensive gorceries damn it! :|

 

[Dunbar]

Originally posted by: randym431
I noticed and their name brand .52 cent yogert shot up to .68 cents this summer and is still at that price. Hyvee, a local 24/7 grocery store has sales all the time @ .40 cents for the same brand yogert. And Hyvee also now has Sara Lee bread @ 1.00 where Wally World is over $2.

Probably has a lot to do with commodity prices going up, especially high fructose corn syrup (due to ethanol madates.) But anyways, I'm not that cheap that I'll go somewhere to save 50 cents or a dollar on one item. What I always hated about shopping at Von's was that if what you needed wasn't on sale you had to wait (or pay very high prices.) At Walmart the prices are always the same (for the most part) so you know that you're getting. I refuse to go to multiple stores to get my grocery shopping done, my time is worth something.

 

[Nik]

Friend of mine is king-shit over everything coin-operated inside very Walmart in the world. He says they'll be fine.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: JEDI
steel toe, electrical hazzard rated work boots $24.99 FTW!

target doesnt sell work boots. (too blue collar for their upscale client target?)

bates/red wing/wolverine/etc are >$100

inexpensive is good! competition is good! please dont go the way of mongomery wards :brokenheart:

There was a study a while back that showed that the average Target customer makes $10k more per year than the average Walmart customer. So you're probably right, Walmart appeals to the work boots crowd and Target doesn't. You'll also find a lot of nicer foods at Target, even in their store brand - i.e. "gourmet" sodas with real sugar instead of HFCS, kettle cooked chips that are comparable to the chips they have at Quiznos. Those are just a couple examples. I haven't noticed stuff like that at Wal-mart.

Target can't compete with Walmart head on, so it tries to differentiate itself by selling a better product, not a cheaper product. Their flashlight section is another example - when Wal-mart's top of the line flashlight was a Maglite, Target was bringing in Inovas.

Not surprisingly, knives are one category where Walmart beats Target. Walmart has Spyderco knives while Target sells Eddie Bauer and Gerber (Walmart also sells Gerber). Not really surprising considering the demographic differences. Walmart also has a much bigger fishing supply section.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: JEDI
steel toe, electrical hazzard rated work boots $24.99 FTW!

target doesnt sell work boots. (too blue collar for their upscale client target?)

bates/red wing/wolverine/etc are >$100

inexpensive is good! competition is good! please dont go the way of mongomery wards :brokenheart:

There was a study a while back that showed that the average Target customer makes $10k more per year than the average Walmart customer. So you're probably right, Walmart appeals to the work boots crowd and Target doesn't. You'll also find a lot of nicer foods at Target, even in their store brand - i.e. "gourmet" sodas with real sugar instead of HFCS, kettle cooked chips that are comparable to the chips they have at Quiznos. Those are just a couple examples. I haven't noticed stuff like that at Wal-mart.

Target can't compete with Walmart head on, so it tries to differentiate itself by selling a better product, not a cheaper product. Their flashlight section is another example - when Wal-mart's top of the line flashlight was a Maglite, Target was bringing in Inovas.

Not surprisingly, knives are one category where Walmart beats Target. Walmart has Spyderco knives while Target sells Eddie Bauer and Gerber (Walmart also sells Gerber). Not really surprising considering the demographic differences. Walmart also has a much bigger fishing supply section.

Well said. :thumbsup:

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: Kaelyn
I loathe this crappy organization and what it does to small business owners in a community.
Some very nice people who had small business that I grew up going to with my Mom and then shopped at later myself... were forced to pack up shop and leave their stores because Wal-Mart basically bought everything right out from under them. It's not so much that these people had to move their business, but the way Wal-Mart handled it. They were given 15 day notices to vacate and none of the people I knew could find a place to move their shop to so quickly. So they were not able to sustain or continue their once thriving small businesses.

I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart in almost 7 years and I will never shop in one again. I hope they eventually choke, and drown. :evil: Die Wal-Mart, Die.

Having lived in a small town, a lot of small business owners needed to be driven out of business. I bought a refrigerator when I lived in a small town. The small town store wanted twice as much for the same model as Lowes just 25 miles away. A lot of these small business owners jack up the prices and then appeal to townspeople to support local businesses. In the town I lived in almost everything was ridiculously over priced at the mom and pop shops. Why should people support businesses that are local for ripping them off?

What is funny is the small stores that decided to become more competitive not only survived, but thrived in that town. Wal-Mart only killed the ones who refused to put a better business model in place and quit ripping folks off.

So that's how radio shack continues to exist!

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: mugs
There was a study a while back that showed that the average Target customer makes $10k more per year than the average Walmart customer. So you're probably right, Walmart appeals to the work boots crowd and Target doesn't. You'll also find a lot of nicer foods at Target, even in their store brand - i.e. "gourmet" sodas with real sugar instead of HFCS, kettle cooked chips that are comparable to the chips they have at Quiznos. Those are just a couple examples. I haven't noticed stuff like that at Wal-mart.

That's interesting... maybe that's why the Walmart experience varies so much. They have those sodas and kettle chips at the Walmart I frequent.

 

[Thegonagle]

Hometown pride! Target > Walmart. Except at 1:00 AM, when it takes just 12 minutes to drive to the 24-hour Walmart. (And where is your 24-hour store, Target? That's right! Nowhere!)

 

[AnitaPeterson]

That's what they deserve for refusing to carry cheap HD-DVD units this holiday season!

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: mugs
kettle cooked chips that are comparable to the chips they have at Quiznos.

since when were the lays at quiznos the pinnacle of chips?

 

[Svnla]

I said it before and I will say it again, shop at wherever that fits your taste/budget.

Like Target, go there. Like Walmart, go there. That is the beaty of "Choices", you are free to vote with your wallet. No one is making you to shop at the places you don't like.

Last week, I picked WM for their Campbell soup and TG for their home central AC 3M filter because it was the best price.

<<<---------strongly believe in get the best bang out of the buck, be damm if it is WM/TG/KM/whatever/whoever.

 

[allisolm]

At this point, the market is saturated and there's no where to expand.

Oh, I think they've found a way to expand and a place to do it.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap...cialnews/D8S1GPVO0.htm

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: mugs
kettle cooked chips that are comparable to the chips they have at Quiznos.

since when were the lays at quiznos the pinnacle of chips?

I didn't call them the pinnacle of chips. :roll: Yes, they're made by Frito-Lay. But if you can't tell that they're intended to be a premium brand, you're blind.

Do you disagree with my point that Target tries to differentiate itself by selling a higher grade of products in addition to the same cheap stuff that Walmart sells, or are you just nitpicking?

And yes, Walmart is reacting to competition from Target by starting to carry similar products. In the case of flashlights, it took them 6 months to a year to catch up though.

 

[Beev]

I used to work for Walmart. The way they treat their employees makes me sick.