Look, I watched it happen to my wife's home town in the midwest. WalMart came in with a small store and sold below their cost (which is illegal, BTW), undercutting all of the family-owned stores in the downtown area. Nice, decent department stores and hardware stores that had been the backbone of the downtown area for dozens and dozens of years. Stores where people had worked entire careers or even generations of careers. Then, once WalMart got its foothold, they built a bigger store with more square footage and started putting even more small businesses out of business. Now those people that were making several dollars per hour above the minimum wage (plus benefits in many cases) were forced to seek new employment once their store closed. Some of them ended up at WalMart, without benefits, and living off of the taxpayer via welfare and taxpayer funded health care.
Too many of you think you are saving $1 when you go into a WalMart. You're not. You're just paying for it somewhere else.
Mark
What an ignorant and condescending comment (I'm not even going to delve into the racial subtext of the statement).
Boy, some of these comments exemplify the worst stereotypes of an "Apple Fanboi".
All those great stores that overcharged people for decades and decades they are sorely missed. If they existed today they would still be charging higher prices than the walmart there. Nobody forced people to shop at Wal-mart.
Also I don't know where you got the idea that it is against the law to sell things below cost.
Every grocery store and retailer in the country does it on a regular basis.
I completely agree. I wouldn't go within 30 miles of these stores on June 24th. Anyone remember the videos of crazy Walmart shoppers rushing the stores during the holidays?
I wouldnt want to be at the store where someone gets SHOT over a phone.
McDonald's doesn't move into a community, undercut all of the existing businesses by selling products at a loss UNTIL those existing businesses go out of business (taking the good, middle-income jobs with them), and then jacking the prices up when they have "control" of the town.
Mark
Great news, Edith! Now we can get one of them new iPhones when we stop by wal-mart for our chewin' tobacky. Yee haw!
This is really entertaining to read comments of hardcore Apple fanboys on VERY high horses
On top of that, I would actually say you can buy an inferior product just cuase it is at walmart. Walmart uses their buying power to also convince manufacturers to cheapen products for them so they can sell it cheaper (looks not so different on the outset but not made as well). Granted, I think an iphone is going to be an iphone no matter where you buy it (I doubt Apple would care about buying power more than image they would get by having a bunch of inferior product since their whole selling gimmick is based on quality). But other stuff like TVs and stuff, yeah, what appears to be the same model as another one sold at another store can be inferior as it will have cheaper components special for walmart.
The state of Washington (USA) has to pay out millions of dollars a year for Wallmart employees that don't make enough and need food stamp assistance. Once this stops I will THINK about buying things from them. Until then, no way. Pay better, livable wages first.
If I order online, does it come to my house on the 24th? Because what I saw was that it will ship when stock is "available"?
All arguments aside, I would really like to know! Or does NOBODY really know the answer to that question?
No one is forcing people to work at Walmart for those wages. That's the beauty of freemarkets. If they want better pay, they are just as free as anyone else to better themselves. How about Washington stop paying out assistance? Thus making people work harder to pull themselves up, instead of being content making what they make at Walmart and subsidized by government assistance.
Below living standard wages, corporate sponsored classes teaching employees how to apply for government benefits to make up for their short fall in income. Terrible benefits, and lousy working conditions.
Costco is where I shop.
I can agree with Apple wanting to put their products into as many hands as possible. I am curious to know if their is any data out there that shows exactly how many iPhones Wal-Mart has sold for Apple.
I would like to see that also.
Apple ships your product and has the carrier hold the product so that it should arrive on the 24th.
Do you have this in writing anywhere? All I can find on Apple's website is that "Youll get free shipping as soon as your iPhone is available." but that doesn't really make me think I'll get it ON the 24th.
If it was guaranteed on the 24th, why wouldn't everyone just do that instead of waiting in huge lines for hours???