How to replace Walamrt

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I shop at Lowe’s and Home Depot. Lowes has the better service and for the most part product selection so I prefer Lowes.
(Not hard to beat Home Depot’s “service”.
I did notice that Lowes has signs that are in American and Mexican now.
Keep it up and it will be mandatory before long.
 
I have a different view of Wal-Mart. They have been the single biggest stimulator of the economy in my area.

Before the Wal-Mart moved in near me there was a barber shop, package store, gas station and a Chinese restaurant. After all the doom and gloom about how Wal-Mart was going to drive these small businesses under we now have 5 years latter;

The same gas station with a new building with 12 pumps instead of 2 and the convenience store portion you could almost do your weekly grocery shopping in. The barber shop moved into a bigger shop when a new building was built across the street and now has 3 chairs going instead of the one. The package store built a new building and is three times bigger than it was before and also houses a breakfast cafe, take-out place, karate studio and indoor golf. The Chinese restaurant is still going strong and a sports bar has opened adjacent to the Wal-Mart. There is now a full size grocery store, several sub/pizza places and two donut shops. Within a 1/2 mile another strip mall that was dying was redone and now houses a gym, medical practice, laundry and another sub/pizza place. There are now three free standing banks and a fourth that operates out of the grocery store as does a pharmacy.

This is not unusual the two other Wal-Marts in my area built stores in totally undeveloped areas and now they are thriving shopping areas. The one where Wal Mart built a super store and Sam's Club side by side now has an entire boutique shopping mall across the street and has 6 restaurants and a hotel in the complex. The local in door mall was all but closed when Wal Mart moved in as one of the anchor stores. The mall is now thriving and Sears and Macy's have expanded as the other two anchors.

The Wal Mart near me allows a local car club to have a cruise every Friday night that attracts between 500 and 700 cars. They give the club approximately $100 worth of car care products every week for the club to give away and they provide free of charge all the burgers, dogs and soda plus the grills gas and people to cook. All the money collected goes to the clubs charities. They also match dollar for dollar all the money raised in the 50/50 raffle. Last year the club/Wal Mart gave $22,000 to the local children's fund. Virtually every week end some organization is having a car wash, cake sale or other fund raiser on the property. Two years ago the adult child of one of the Wal Mart workers was in an accident and did not have health care. The worker always helped out at the cruise so the car club and Wal Mart got together to raise some money to help defray some of the costs. Wal Mart donated $2 for every dollar raised during the 4 weeks the fund raiser was put on by the car club. About $15,000 was raised for this person.

As far as I am concerned Wal Mart has done nothing but good for the local economy. They have created demand for all sorts of other business that were not in the area and give back a significant amount to the community. I shop regularly at Wal Mart for certain items as does my wife.

To me at Wal Mart, customer service means no hassles when i return some thing and they have the most liberal return policy going. I also do not want to stand in line waiting at a register, that is something they struggle with as do most large stores in my area but with the addtion of self check out stations it is less of an issue and I plan my trip and stay away Saturday mornings when it's the worest.

I alwasy hear stories about how they treat there employees badly but virtually every department store or mall shop is always looking for help and the Wal Mart near me always seems to have the same faces so it can't be to bad or folks would leave.

The first post was complaining about Wal Mart not carrying what folks want. If you ever look at business magazines Wal Mart is all ways looked upon as world class on supply chain management. If Wal Mart stops carrying something it's because people don't buy it, it's a fact of life and don't blame the store. If they didn't keep things on the shelf that enough folks want they would go out of business.
 
Same thing happens here. Walmart moves into a shopping center and everybody and his brother moves in around them. Then 5 years later Walmart moves down the street a ways to a new location and everyone else tags along leaving the original shopping center for vandels. In other words they may boom a location only to kill it. I've read stories of where they moved in and sales didn't meet the mark so they left and everyone else did too.
By the way... I did find Wesleys Bleech-White 1 gallon refill size at the Carquest autoparts store. 2 in hand and 2 more comming. :)
This is the 3rd time Carquest came through for me when no one else could.
 
I would agree with dcg 333, It probably depends on the management. Our local Wal-Mart donates alot to local charitys, we hold car shows in their parking lot. My wife works in another town that has two Wal-Marts, most everyone she works with drives the extra miles and goes to the one in my town. I think it is how they are managed.
 
The problem with Walmart is what they do to their vendors. Anyone who has watched documentaries on them knows what I am thinking about.

It's nice that they donate goods and food for cruise nites, but think about it from their perspective. Why would they do this ? Cheap advertising and building their business. The reason why other businesses grow around them ? Simple - because of the amount of people going into their stores, it's an attraction for people and other businesses tag on to it.

Nobody is gonna run Walmart out of business - if that happens it will be because they mis-manage their business somehow.

I personally don't like Walmart much, because of the way the stores are organized - they are a mess to deal with, and the parking lots are always busy.
 
When Wal-Mart opens a store, it MAY generate business.
But it is appears to be the service or retail industry, not manufacturing.
(At least American).
And that is a problem anyway I can see it.
We all will just sell each other things for a living.
(You want French fries with that?)
 
66dartgt said:
The problem with Walmart is what they do to their vendors. Anyone who has watched documentaries on them knows what I am thinking about.
Click to expand...

I have only seen one show about Wal Mart. A few of the things I found interesting about that interview was;

1. They talked about their vendors and they interviewed a number of them. The largest was Proctor & Gamble the CEO stated that they were a very very tough customer but Wal Mart has forced them to become much more efficient and profitable company.
The only real negative thing that was stated was they tend to suck up all the capacity of small companies and if they decide to stop selling the product the companies have gone out of business.
That is not a Wal Mart only issue. The company I work for sucks up about 80-90% of the capacity of a local machine shop. If we were to take our business else where they would either go out of business or a very large percentage of the workers would be laid off.

2. They have tried to expand into Europe and Asia and have not been successful at all. The whole Wal Mart store philosophy just doesn't work in those countries.

3. In the big scheme of things they only have a 2% share of the worlds retail market. Bigger in the US of course but they certainly don't dictate the world retail market.
 
The strong arming of venders bothers me. One town away, Walmart came in maybe 10 years ago just after K-Mart was on its way out. As stated many area convenience businesses popped up and guess what? K-Mart out and Walmart wants to move 500 yards down the street in the.... Old K-Mart building. The former Walmart building stayed vacant for many years and the 2 gas stations boarded up, the Lumber Center closed down, Two breakfast joints locked their doors and even a car dealership cleared out after the move of only a couple hundred yards. Can that all really be connected to where Walmart decides to take up real estate?
As always leave it to me to add in the comic relief. Enjoy the link:
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/big_box_mart
 
I wouldn't have any issues with Walmart if I could just find one damn product made in the USA!!!! Personally I only shop there as a last resort. I sure wish manufacturing would come back home......even if it did mean higher prices.
 
True statements regarding the efficiencies that are forced on Walmart's vendors. Virtually all manufacturing is moving this direction. The big three, appliances, chemicals, steel etc.

What this does, is move manufacturing into Mexico or the far east for production cost reasons. The drivers are: cheap labor, unrestrictive pollution laws (= cheaper production equipment), tax incentives, low cost raw materials, shorter logistics to those cheaper raw materials, and a growing demand for the same finished products in those regions. Probably some other reasons I am not thinking of as well.

I don't have the answers to this issue. I suppose what will change this is the demand for improved quality of life in the far east, Mexico, and India. Once their wages rise high enough, the manufacturers will set up shop in the next low cost region of the world in order to take advantage of the costs there.

It's not coming back here.
 
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