Anyone else HATE WalMart?

[DakotaGuy]

I used to spend my hard earned money at Wal-Mart then I started to read about their business dealings and they way they treat and pay their employees. I have found that they overwork for low pay and their plan for marketshare is to come into a town and lower the prices so low that no one can compete. When their competition is broke, then they can raise prices in the market area.

I think this is wrong and seems much like the business dealings of another company, Microsoft. They want to build a monopoly. I refuse to shop Wal-Mart anymore. Does the world's largest corporation really need my money? If I shop at a discount department store I would rather shop at Kmart or Sears. Wal-Mart wants Kmart and Sears to go broke, so they can raise prices. What about you? Anyone else boycott Wal-Mart?

[rjrufo]

I already do, and have been for several years.

[Mr. Anderson]

I've only been to WalMart once, and that was enough, never again. I didn't know about the issues, it was just from how the place was run. Very cluttered and sloppy - that and too many people. Uhg!

D

[daniel77]

Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
I used to spend my hard earned money at Wal-Mart then I started to read about their business dealings and they way they treat and pay their employees. I have found that they overwork for low pay and their plan for marketshare is to come into a town and lower the prices so low that no one can compete. When their competition is broke, then they can raise prices in the market area.

I think this is wrong and seems much like the business dealings of another company, Microsoft. They want to build a monopoly. I refuse to shop Wal-Mart anymore. Does the world's largest corporation really need my money? If I shop at a discount department store I would rather shop at Kmart or Sears. Wal-Mart wants Kmart and Sears to go broke, so they can raise prices. What about you? Anyone else boycott Wal-Mart?

ironically your name is abercrombieboy, yet you omit any mentioning of the horrible business practices of their company. I am a hypocrite I suppose. as i do wear some of their clothing-i like the gym collection.
getting off that digression do you know where most Abercrombie clothes are made? The Northern Marianas Islands; barely large enough to show up on a regular atlas map. They are in the pacific ocean.

[jethroted]

I hate stupid Wal-mart and their imperialistic business techniques. My problem is they are the only place around here where you can buy stuff cheap, so I sometimes have to go there to get things I need. I hate going there though. I would support a boycott.:mad:

[kettle]

In the UK they bought "ASDA" a large supermarket group. The name Wal Mart makes it seem like a pound shop, as in everything is 1 pound sterling. They have both Wal Mart and ASDA on the outside of the stores as not to scare away too many customers. I've never been inside the supermarket so I can't really judge their actual quality.:(

[DakotaGuy]

Originally posted by daniel77
ironically your name is abercrombieboy, yet you omit any mentioning of the horrible business practices of their company. I am a hypocrite I suppose. as i do wear some of their clothing-i like the gym collection.
getting off that digression do you know where most Abercrombie clothes are made? The Northern Marianas Islands; barely large enough to show up on a regular atlas map. They are in the pacific ocean.

Yes you have a point and I would agree that some of A&F business practices are not great. I don't only shop there, in fact I only buy a few of their things that I like. I also shop at other places like Eddie Bauer for a little more dressy and conservative stuff and at regular regional department stores like Herbergers or Yonkers.

What I do not like about Wal-Mart is their plan over time to become a monopoly. It has been well documented their strategy is to buy the cheapest products and seconds in volume and they actually loose money in new market areas going under everyone else in price. Once the competition leaves the market area, they then can raise the prices on the same cheap second quality merchandise and make huge profits. Wal-Mart has just about finished off their closest competition Kmart and if Kmart fails after reorganizing you will see prices on the rise! Wal-Marts next victim on their list is Sears and that is too bad, because Sears actually has good products for decent prices. What do you think Wal-Mart will do if Kmart and Sears someday go out of business...they will then be able to lower their quality futher and raise their prices, and the general public will be brainwashed into shopping there because they will think it is their only choice. Much like how Windows sells in the computer market.

[dswan34]

I spend a little bit more money and just got to Target. A much more pleasant expirience then the chaos of a wal-mart.

[Nuc]

Well I have to say that I enjoy Wal Mart a lot. We have a supercenter here in town and it's the bomb. I can say that all of there products are always in stock, cheaper, etc. I can't stand Kmart because you can't find a damn thing (As rain man would say "Kmart sucks"). Target is ok but again they don't have as much stuff or product options. All I can say is what company at once in their history hasn't had shaddy dealings.

[Vlade]

I like walmart, I can go there and get everthing I need cheeper then everywhere else

Also here are 2 REALLY good examples of there GREAT customer service (in my opinion)

1. My brother bought a Nintendo 64 controller about a year before it broke, after it broke he went to walmart to try to trade it in. He didnt have a recite, AND walmart didn't even cary the same brand anymore, but they still let him get a new controller

2. I was at walmart.com and found a Panasonic DV102 Camcorder for $380. I called up my local walmart and asked if I could come there and pick it up. I asked if it was in stock, and how much it was, they said Yes and $380. I got there and the camcorder was $600!!! I asked the manager of the photo department and he said they dont match prices of walmart.com, and the employee who told me what was wrong. I then went to the manager of the store, and he said if I could print out the page from walmart.com saying it was 380 I could get it for 380, so I did. He said that they normaly dont honor prices, and that employee was wrong telling me 380. But he stil gave it to me anyway. He didn't have to, infact most other stores wouldnt have gave it to me at the reduced price, they would have said "Im sorry, I cant give you a disscount because an employee was wrong", but walmart was nice enough to take responsibility for an employees mistake and lost 120 dollars.


As for them underpaying people, if you don't want to work for that low, quit and find a new job, nobody is forcing you to work there. And its not like they have a shortage of employees, so they must be paying enough.

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I've only been to WalMart once, and that was enough, never again. I didn't know about the issues, it was just from how the place was run. Very cluttered and sloppy - that and too many people. Uhg!
Yeah, I've noticed that too. The ones that I have been to just don't seem to be very clean.

[dricci]

I go to wherever has the lowest price for the product I want. Sometimes it's Walmart, sometimes it's not.

I don't like to regularly go to Walmart though. Not because of their business practices, but because the stores are usually overcrowded and a mess. Target is a much nicer store.

[scem0]

Walmart's ok. Never had any trouble with them.

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by dricci
Target is a much nicer store.
Yeah, I always thought that Target was a lot nicer than WalMart, too.

[alex_ant]

Abercrombieboy, you're right about Wal-Mart's anticompetitive tactics. If you think about it, though, every corporation would love to become a monopoly, and most are actively striving to get there. I don't like Wal-Mart any more than you do, but instead of blaming Wal-Mart, you have to blame the system that enables Wal-Mart to get into the position it's in. Why aren't antitrust laws being enforced and strengthened? As long as there are people like this (and there are millions and millions of them):

I like walmart, I can go there and get everthing I need cheeper then everywhere else
Retail companies like Wal-Mart will be able to get away with just about anything. Local economy be damned, convenient local transportation system be damned, smart urban planning be damned, livable wages be damned - if I can pay $.69 less for every pair of shoes I buy at Wal-Mart, they're alright in my book!

Also, most of the clothes you buy from any of those stores, no matter what they are as long as they're national chains, are likely going to be from somewhere in Asia or Latin America where the working conditions are much worse than in the US. You can't say, "Boycott the sweatshop industry!", though, because even 14 year old girls working 12 hour days at the sewing machine is probably preferable to them working 12 hour days as prostitutes (often the only alternative). That's not a justification for sweatshop labor, just an acknowledgement that there are two sides to this coin. We need to blame the system, not so much the individuals that operate within the system.

[alex_ant]

Originally posted by Vlade
As for them underpaying people, if you don't want to work for that low, quit and find a new job, nobody is forcing you to work there. And its not like they have a shortage of employees, so they must be paying enough.
The problem is that many of the people who work at Wal-Mart have families and need to eat and just barely make enough at Wal-Mart to scrape by. Quitting and remaining unemployed for anything more than a couple days is not an option, and finding another job is not an option because, for a lot of people, there are no other jobs that pay better than Wal-Mart does. Wal-Mart does very well in poor local economies where there are large job shortages, because in those situations, people will be willing to work for anything. That doesn't mean Wal-Mart pays enough. If you've got to make rent payments, car payments, and support a child or two on $6/hour, good luck ever pulling yourself out of poverty.

[void]

I refuse to shop at a store with a fat lesbian psuedo-celebrity as their mascott...

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by vjv
I refuse to shop at a store with a fat lesbian psuedo-celebrity as their mascott...

Who? Rosie O'Donnell? :confused:

[Shrek]

Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
. . .and their plan for marketshare is to come into a town and lower the prices so low that no one can compete. When their competition is broke, then they can raise prices in the market area.

Not to sound like a capitalist oppressor, but have you ever seen Wal-mart raise prices on anything? I sure haven't!

[bousozoku]

I like Wal-Mart for food. Other products they have are the same as their Sam's Club stores have and I have a membership there.

I've never seen Wal-Mart come into a town, reduce the prices unreasonably and then raise them again when the competition has gone. My parents shop there regularly and the prices are always quite good, as is the food.

I do, however, remember when living in Philly, that Woolworth closed all their five and dime stores within a couple of miles of Wal-Mart. Woolworth would have had trouble competing with anyone else anyway, but it just made Wal-Mart seem all the worse.

However, if I want a neater, cleaner store, I go to Super Target. They have higher prices normally but also better specialty items and I'm not afraid to buy their non-food items.

[TonicAngel]

Originally posted by Shrek
Not to sound like a capitalist oppressor, but have you ever seen Wal-mart raise prices on anything? I sure haven't!

Yes, I have. I unfortunely used to work there when I was desparate for money (now I'm still shuffling by for cash, but thank god not working there). I bought a dvd for $14.99 on a tuesday, the next day it was up to $21.99 and by the end of the week it was up to $25.99. If you want the best deals you have to buy movies/music the day it comes out otherwise they jack up the price the next day. Although the last month or two they've kept the same price for the first week. I usually shop at Target unless I am buying a movie, then I head to Walmart first then Target.

[void]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Who? Rosie O'Donnell? :confused: ummm yeah

[DakotaGuy]

Originally posted by Shrek
Not to sound like a capitalist oppressor, but have you ever seen Wal-mart raise prices on anything? I sure haven't!

Actually, I have seen Wal-Mart raise prices without any notice in certain markets where competition has left. We have one small city here in my state that had 2 discount stores. Wal-Mart and Kmart. The Kmart was hit by the store closing list as Kmart tries to return to profitability. Now Wal-Mart is all that is left and I have a few friends from that town that found prices started going up at that Wal-Mart after Kmart left town.

Prices are different in different market areas except for national sales or products sold on-line. If Wal-Mart has grown to be the largest corporation in the world on such low prices, imagine what they can do once they break every other mom and pop store and other chains.

So how do you make a profit when you have such low prices? You sell the cheapest product you can. They are still making a profit because they buy seconds and lower quality products. Also paying your workers very low wages helps a lot on the bottom line.

It is a free country shop where you want, but I am not working everyday to make an honest dollar and then spending that at Wal-Mart. It is a corrupt corporation that does not need my money or even care if I shop at their store because if I don't someone else will is the way they figure it.

[lmalave]

I've only been to one Walmart (in Framingham, MA), and I was unimpressed. I was expecting a huge product selection, which they do and don't have. What they do have is a diverse product mix - they sell just about everything - but in each product category they only seem to sell a few brands. I even like the KMarts here in NYC better. Sam's Club (a Walmart subsidiary) is the bomb though.

As for their business practices - I don't know how many business people you know but we live in a very competitive economy. Anything you do there's a thousand other people competing with you that would be all to happy to take your customers. Walmart can do whatever they want to compete - except pollute the environment which I'll get to later...

I've read how how Walmart treats their employees (overtime without pay, etc.), but then again I don't believe in minimum wage or anything like that. I do think that companies must follow the laws of whatever place they're in, so I would rather Walmart do the honorable thing and just lower their wages outright, rather than not pay employees wages that they are due under the law. That is definitely objectionable.

As to how they treat their suppliers, what have you heard? Sure they're probably the toughest negotiators out there, but, hey, that's capitalism! At least Walmart sticks to their word with whatever agreements they make. Most large department stores (Macy's, etc.) will cancel orders without warning, for example, leaving their suppliers with huge losses.

The most objectionable thing I've read about Walmart doing is a pattern of causing environmental damage in their store construction projects. I don't think any private company has the right to pollute the water and air that belong to everyone. I think companies should face severe penalties for pollution, and for companies like Walmart that just mock the law because they can afford to pay any fine, more creative non-monetary penalties should be devised.

But the difference is that with pollution, Walmart does not have the consent of the affected parties (which is at minimum everyone in the local community, and arguably includes a much larger area - e.g. the city, the state, the country, the planet). As for employees and suppliers, they're dealing with Walmart by consent, so any issues they have with Walmart are not my concern. Hey, this is capitalism, and in capitalism you get what you negotiate, not what you "deserve".

[lmalave]

Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
Actually, I have seen Wal-Mart raise prices without any notice in certain markets where competition has left. We have one small city here in my state that had 2 discount stores. Wal-Mart and Kmart. The Kmart was hit by the store closing list as Kmart tries to return to profitability. Now Wal-Mart is all that is left and I have a few friends from that town that found prices started going up at that Wal-Mart after Kmart left town.

Prices are different in different market areas except for national sales or products sold on-line. If Wal-Mart has grown to be the largest corporation in the world on such low prices, imagine what they can do once they break every other mom and pop store and other chains.


I studied Walmart in my MBA class. Yes, Walmart has lower prices at stores where they have more local competition, but even at stores where they have no competition, average prices are still lower than what any other store (KMart, Target, etc.) can achieve.

Keep in mind Walmart's roots as a rural store. In their early history, their stores were located almost exclusively in locations where there was no competition, so people would drive from miles and miles around just to go to the store. And guess what? Prices were still low. Walmart is certainly not in the price gouging business. Competition or not, their business model is to provide lower prices than any other store can achieve.

[jelloshotsrule]

i hate walmart about as much as i hate the factory stores that produce the clones that are america's youth:

abercrombie and fitch, american eagle, gap, banana republic, old navy, etc, etc

[daniel77]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
i hate walmart about as much as i hate the factory stores that produce the clones that are america's youth:

abercrombie and fitch, american eagle, gap, banana republic, old navy, etc, etc

grrr dont knock American Eag;e ::o

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by daniel77
grrr dont knock American Eag;e ::o

oh whoops. sorry clone. ;) any company that you pay them to advertise for is questionable in my mind.

[Moxiemike]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
i hate walmart about as much as i hate the factory stores that produce the clones that are america's youth:

abercrombie and fitch, american eagle, gap, banana republic, old navy, etc, etc

You have some backup cheers from the grandstand. Beautifully said.

:)

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by Moxiemike
You have some backup cheers from the grandstand. Beautifully said.

:)

some backup cheers and growls it seems. ha

i forgot to say starbucks. so, starbucks too

[Moxiemike]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
some backup cheers and growls it seems. ha

i forgot to say starbucks. so, starbucks too

Man. Some of the stuff I wanna do in Starbucks... man oh man.

BUt there's absolutely no reason to go to one here-- we have our share of café's, ones that are big, small, smoking, non smoking, internet, non-internet, date-style, meeting-style, read a book-style.

But man. How i'd love to streak a starbucks. That place. grr....

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by Moxiemike
But man. How i'd love to streak a starbucks. That place. grr....

thank god u didn't do that while I was in town...

although...u likely would have scared off that cutie bep at the Caterbean...he he he ;)

[MacBandit]

Your revelations on Wal-Mart are nothing new to me.

Personally though there is something much larger at stake, your local community. You need to support your local community and buy from local stores. I know that this is nearly impossible in large cities but in mid-size towns it's not that hard. If everyone spends all there money at these large national stores then the local stores will go away and all you are left with is a generic town like any other and you are suddenly dependent on these national retail.