Recruiting Picking up a Little…?

I wasn’t really going to go there. There was a time not so long ago when i despised Walmart and the way they strong-armed local governments to get unfair tax breaks and the way they strong-armed businesses to lower overhead (read: move production overseas) in order to be on a Walmart shelf. I applaud Rubbermaid for telling them to take a hike when they saw that the product made solely for the Walmart shelves was vastly inferior to the US made product placed on other shelves. I wish other companies would see the same invisible hand and provide for the consumer instead of for the middle man. But oh well.

I’m past all that. There’s little for me at Walmart in terms of product. I would rather hit up the local mom and pop for something homemade (and already assembled) for 10% more and three times the durability. After all is said and done, I spend 40% on the same product over time as I do at Walmart. Those things on which they can compete with storefronts (electronics, media… did I say electronics?), I have this handy dandy little thingy I like call a computer on which I can beat their prices by vast amounts. Besides, the model variations they carry have no value to me after I do extensive research. It bothers the hell out of my wife, and you might not be surprised, but I do extensive research when I make big dollar purchases. Walmart does not carry those same models, and that’s because their product is first inferior and second varied in order to deny consumers who come in for “same price” guarnantees. I broke a decade long hiatus from shopping at Walmart a couple years ago because I saw they had something I really wanted (and had researched). The item was sold out everywhere else, and when I got there they had it marked up 20% over what they listed. I showed them a Best Buy ad, and the sales child moved seamlessly into a “that’s not the same model” speech. I walked away after ten words.

Then there’s parking, walking four miles to get a product and waiting half an hour for one of four check-out clerks to let you pay for product. And I think I’ve only been asked twice (while looking at XBox games in the case) if I can be helped with anything… including six or seven visits to customer service… naturally, to return defective Christmas or birthday gifts, which has only happened otherwise at Target… once.

In the end, I think Afghan nailed it. There’s nothing special about Walmart’s grocery. In fact, they’re pretty substandard. Within a quarter mile of this location, you have several grocers who provide vastly superior product. Some of them do so at comparable prices. Market of Choice is across the street, and half their product won’t be found on a Walmart shelf. I imagine it will be just like walking into a Walgreens or Rite-Aid, which isn’t a bad model if you think about it. You’re not going there for your staples or anything special. You’re going there to buy the things you would buy at a gas station… and toilet paper, only the prices are realistic.

If anyone wants to talk about how Walmart steals from the public through taxation inequality, I’d be glad to discuss that in the forums. But that would take posts and sourcing longer than this commentary… by ten.