Is Wal-Mart finally hitting a Brick Wall?

[erdogs]

Sorry, but I can't root for an American company to go belly up, as thousands of people will lose their jobs. Too many people focus on the profits of a company, without realizing how much good they do for the average citizen. We are now a service and technology country, as manufacturing has become less of a commodity due to technological advances. Is anyone here actually rooting for Wal-Mart to go under?

[Spartan]

My problem is not so much with the company itself so much as it is with the way they design their stores. Business is business- you have to adapt to a changing environment. But the Walkmart mentality of seas of parking in crappy suburban retail complexes is one that has to go. Once Walkmart embraces a more urban friendly design at all stores (which they do in some places), then I will be satisfied with them. This is true of all big bixes though, not just Walkmart (which is the biggest culprit IMO).

[tamias6]

Wal-Mart does employ allot of Americans. In fact it's one of the largest employers in the country. But of all the Jobs Wally-World offers, how many of them outside of their Bentonville H.Q. and high level Managerial positions are high quality meaningful jobs? When Wal-Mart marches into a town and crushes local competitors it also knocks out high paying job positions offered by the local competitors leaving only low paying menial work for locals to apply for.

Also let's not forget that Wal-Marts high pressure on its vendors have forced many to seek lower production costs overseas thus American jobs are lost to outsourcing and foreign labor.

Low paying crap jobs are just as bad for this country as outright job losses.

Sorry, but I can't root for an American company to go belly up, as thousands of people will lose their jobs. Too many people focus on the profits of a company, without realizing how much good they do for the average citizen. We are now a service and technology country, as manufacturing has become less of a commodity due to technological advances. Is anyone here actually rooting for Wal-Mart to go under?

[tombarnes]

I just finished reading Big Box Swindle by Stacy Mitchell. The book raises a lot of the questions mentioned here. I think the tradeoff in lost jobs if WalMart goes under would be compensated by gains elsewhere. The retail market is relatively finite in almost any place, unless the number of prospective shoppers is growing dramatically. There is only so much that a given population will buy. If WalMart magically disappears, its services will be offered by someone else. The costs of big-box retailing are not merely totted up as cost-savings at the register. The true costs are meted out in the greater cost of suburban expansion- roads, police services etc..

The end of the Age of WalMart is a cheerful thought, but I'll venture that it isn't just around the corner.

[tamias6]

Opps. More egg in Wally-World's face.

Tyson recalls beef sold at Wal-Mart

[smeagolsfree]

I am not surprised at the sagging sales figures. I live in a small town outside Nashville and they built a Super Center here and I hate going there. I was sort of happy when they said they were going to build a new one, but after opening it has been a nightmare. No cashiers, bad produce, expired meat, messy aisles, no consistency of product lines and employees that just didn

[suburban george3]

I don

[MadVlad]

The problem with Wal-Mart is, and always will be, the lack of help in the stores. I despise going into Wal-Mart (I might go into one about once a year in a pinch) because anytime I need help, I have to walk 5 departments over to find someone that knows nothing about what I need, calls another person that also knows nothing about what I need, who in turn shrugs. Wal-Mart gets what they pay for with their employees... not much, some because it isn't worth it to them to try hard for no pay, and some because they are way too thinly spread to be experts about anything....

[tamias6]

Crap service, messy stores, and expired products boils down to one thing. Complaisance. Wal-MArt knows they hold monopolies in a great number of markets they dominate. Without competition to kick them in the pants every once in a while, why bother serving customers with quality products and clean well kepts stores?

Smeagolsfree, if your ever find yourself in Michigan. I recomend visiting a Meijer store. Its how a supercenter should be laid out.

[Recchia]

I had to buy storage bins in Walmart last night and I had to laugh when the debit card pad asked me "was your store clean today?" NO! Then it asks "did your cashier greet you today?" NO! I sure enjoyed pressing those buttons.

[smeagolsfree]

Glad I am not the only one here with problems.

Thanks for the news about the Meijer stores. Maybe they would like to put a few Wal-Marts out of business in the Nashville area. It seems to me with all the growth down, here there would be room for a few more big box stores.

[ncwebguy]

Over the weekend my wife wanted Biz bleach, and Wal-Mart was the only place around here she knows carries it.

We went to one store, saw that it was out, and asked someone pulling pallettes (boxes of product to be put on stores) if there was any in the back. He disappeared for a few minutes, then came back and said he didn't know. For all of Wal-mart's logistics, anticipating customer demand, etc., three people couldn't tell us if they had a certain product in the store. So we left empty handed and angry.

The next day we tried a super center open a couple of years now. It was nice when it first opened, but I had not been back after i stopped shopping at all wal-marts a year and a half ago. Now the place was a zoo. Trash in the parking lot, carts everywhere, taking up parking spaces since people were too lazy to return them to the store or a designated (and overflowing) cart return area.

We only wanted the Biz, so we luckily didn't need a cart. If we did, we would have had to grab one from the parking lot, since the huge cart storage area was empty. No one had collected carts for hours, if not all day.

As we entered, we heard the fire door alarm going off right near customer service. We thought nothing of it, since some kid probably pressed the door to see what it would do. We went to get the Biz, which luckily was in stock, and hurried to get out. Five minutes later, the alarm was still going off. There were maybe eight registers open, with four of of those being "self checkout". The self checkout lines were "20 items or less (edit -- their words, it should be fewer)" but over half the customers had more than 20 items. We had one. Half the self check out lines were not open/turned on, and the scales had not been inspected since the store opened in 2005 (I'm not sure how often they need to be inspected).

I checked the other half of the store to see if the lines were any better, but there were only two (part of the eight total) self-check out lines back to back, creating one longer line. Someone started pulling customers who only had a few items, but only from one self checkout line, making that one move quicker while we stood and waited. After 20 minutes, the fire alarm was never turned off. If there was an actual fire, no one would have left unless they saw the fire itself. I would think that is a code violation of some sort, but employees seemed to act as if it was normal.

Needless to say, we're never going back. On the way out, my wife wondered why so many people put up with that, and i said it was because they put no money value on their time. They don't mind waiting forever to save a few cents on bannanas and diapers, especially since they only make a few dollars above minimum wage, if that.

Wal-mart thinks it has won. They act as a monopoly because they can. The lower earnings is directly due to the fact that their customer base stops buying stuff when gas prices go up. Wal-mart might work to keep gas prices down to keep their numbers up. Wal-mart and their customers seem to be happy with their antagonistic relationship, so I'll let them have each other.

[Lowerdeck]

I'd like to see a war: Wal-Mart vs. OPEC. Now that would be fun.

[MZT]

It's easy to bash Wal*Mart, but I can say 3 good things.

They are open 24 hours.

You don't need a separate "savings" card.

They do build stores in low income parts of town that other retailers shun.

Nevertheless, I only shop there when I already have an errand that took me into that shopping center.

[Gusterfell]

I'd like to see a war: Wal-Mart vs. OPEC. Now that would be fun.

[tamias6]

At the rate megacorporations have gained political power in recent years, it is only a matter of time until we see wars in their names.

[ncwebguy]

It's easy to bash Wal*Mart, but I can say 3 good things.

They are open 24 hours.

You don't need a separate "savings" card.

They do build stores in low income parts of town that other retailers shun.

Nevertheless, I only shop there when I already have an errand that took me into that shopping center.

[tamias6]

This is what I call a store wide liquidation.

Apparently when this Wally World somewhere on the east cost got nailed by a storm surge, the wall of water smashed into the front of the supercenter head on, obliterated the interior, and scattered the store's contents all over the area behind the building.

I guess mother nature is getting fed up with the evil smiley face too.