shopping at walmart

[E30 Wagen]

Above is an illustration of a part of my hometown (gs = gas station). Guess which store was there first.

Meijer is like the local equivilent of a walmart with stores in states that surround Michigan as well.

As a result of Walmart moving in to town, an extra stoplight had to be installed and more "Michigan turn" lanes had to be added. Now traffic sucks around that area. Our city leaders wanted it to bring in more business and economic growth. It took like 4 years for the store to be approved for construction. They had to comply with extra tough standards due to the land it was built on and they had to make sure the building's exterior looked extra nice due to some building codes.

Now, if I was walmart, I would seriously say, "why bother? There is already a Meijer across the fucking street. There is no demand for another store in this area. Moreover, we are spending shit loads of money and time to get the building approved. maybe we should go look for a different place to build a store."

Well, it happened anyway, and now we have two major grocery store and general merchandise stores right across the street from each other.

Fuck walmart and fuck the idiots who think we need more of them.

[rwh11385]

Sam Walton does not determine that - you have free choice to shop wherever you like.

O Rly?

"The effects of monopsony also can be difficult to pin down. But again we have easy illustrations ready to hand, in the surprising recent tribulations of two iconic American firms—Coca-Cola and Kraft. Coca-Cola is the quintessential seller of a product based on a “secret formula.” Recently, though, Wal-Mart decided that it did not approve of the artificial sweetener Coca-Cola planned to use in a new line of diet colas. In a response that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, Coca-Cola yielded to the will of an outside firm and designed a second product to meet Wal-Mart's decree."

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/07/0081115

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/03/business/walmart.php

[rwh11385]

heeter, can you explain unfair competition to me? i am pretty sure i understand it, but i don't buy it. as long as you are not breaking the law then it cannot be unfair.

As much as I am usually laissez-faire, I don't feel that having a single powerful company controlling the industry is fair. Sure there are many many smaller retailers around, but Walmart has exclusive dealings that others cannot get which gives them an unfair edge.

There is competition but Walmart does its best to make them much weaker, not able to pull weight and get its deals, and drive out local competition it can attack with predatory pricing.

To show Walmart's strength compared to competition, from link below:
"For our purposes, a few facts will suffice—that one in every five retail sales in America is recorded at Wal-Mart's cash registers; that the firm's revenue nearly equals that of the next six retailers combined; that for many goods, Wal-Mart accounts for upward of 30 percent of U.S. sales, and plans to more than double its sales within the next five years."

How can this be good for a consumer who values mid-priced quality goods? A single force is pushing all substitute or competitive stores to go cheaper and lower quality. I feel the need for a balancing force, or two, or three, but Walmart isn't about to let that happen.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/07/0081115

"Breaking the chain: The antitrust case against Wal-Mart"

"But what should concern us today even more is a mirror image of monopoly called “monopsony.” Monopsony arises when a firm captures the ability to dictate price to its suppliers, because the suppliers have no real choice other than to deal with that buyer"

"The idea that Wal-Mart's power actually subverts the functioning of the free market will seem shocking to some. ... One of the basic premises of the free-market system is that actors are free to buy from or sell to a variety of other actors. In the case of Wal-Mart, no one can deny that every single firm that supplies the retailer is, technically, free not to do so. But is this true in the real world? After all, once a firm comes to depend on selling through Wal-Mart's system, just how conceivable is the idea of walking away? Producers own and maintain machines, employ skilled workers, lease land and buildings. Even with careful planning, most would find the sudden surrender of 20 percent or more of their revenue to be extremely disruptive, if not suicidal."

"If a single business deal illuminates the degree to which Wal-Mart has centralized control over America's consumer economy, it was last year's takeover of Gillette by Procter & Gamble. Gillette would seem one of the last firms likely to find itself unable to protect its pricing power; its 70 percent share of global razor sales gives it some weight at the negotiating table. Yet the Boston-based firm discovered that it could no longer keep its profit margins safely out of the grasp of the Arkansas retailer. And so was conceived the largest in a long list of buyouts due at least in part to Wal-Mart's power, including Newell's takeover of Rubbermaid, Kellogg's purchase of Keebler, and Kraft's buyout of Nabisco. And of course there is the long list of firms that have ended up dead or in Chapter 11 reorganization at least partly because of their dealings with Wal-Mart. Some are small fry, like Vlasic Foods. Others were once powers, like Pillowtex. Some were beloved brands, like Schwinn."

"Antitrust enforcement against the A&P and other big firms like Sears prevented any twentieth-century American retailer from ever growing nearly as powerful as Wal-Mart is today. But since the Reagan Administration, the only effective constraints on Wal-Mart have been set by investors and revenue flow. Even during the 1990s, when the Clinton Administration targeted a few companies for abusing their pricing power, the Arkansas-based retailer somehow managed to avoid any action. It is unclear whether this was in any way due to the close relationship between the Clinton family and Wal-Mart, on whose board Hillary Clinton served for many years. But even as Staples and McCormick & Co. were sued, a firm with vastly more power over the American economy was left entirely free to extend its domain in whatever direction and to whatever extent it wished. In fact, in one of the highest-profile antitrust cases of the 1990s, an FTC suit against Toys R Us for colluding with toy manufacturers, Wal-Mart emerged as one of the biggest winners."

"The producers that dominated the American economy for most of the twentieth century were geared to build more and to introduce new, to protect their capital investments against overly predatory investors, to raise price faster than cost, to show some degree of loyalty to workers and outside suppliers and communities. Wal-Mart and a growing number of today's dominant firms, by contrast, are programmed to cut cost faster than price, to slow the introduction of new technologies and techniques, to dictate downward the wages and profits of the millions of people and smaller firms who make and grow what they sell, to break down entire lines of production in the name of efficiency. The effects of this change are clear: We see them in the collapsing profit margins of the firms caught in Wal-Mart's system. We see them in the fact that of Wal-Mart's top ten suppliers in 1994, four have sought bankruptcy protection."

[Sean]

But hey, don't look at is as a bad thing. It's like a circus freak show you don't have to pay to go into.


..

That's how I look at it. :D

[mrsleeve]

.

Meijer is like the local equivilent of a walmart with stores in states that surround Michigan as well.

As a result of Walmart moving in to town, an extra stoplight had to be installed and more "Michigan turn" lanes had to be added. Now traffic sucks around that area. Our city leaders wanted it to bring in more business and economic growth. It took like 4 years for the store to be approved for construction. They had to comply with extra tough standards due to the land it was built on and they had to make sure the building's exterior looked extra nice due to some building codes.


Fuck walmart and fuck the idiots who think we need more of them.

There is a big diference between Walmart an Meijer's All sale's dollars in a walmart are wired each night to Arkansas. Meijer's is a Mi company (founded by Fred Meijer) an is based out of Grand Rapids The money spent in Mi stays there!!

2 Meijers employees are union an full timers enjoy heath, dental, life an a small pension benefits and also get compensated for their OT plus make a bit more per hour than walmart help. The benefits used to extend to part timers too (22 hours a week) but now that walmart has been marking a huge push in Mi in the last 12 years. Meijers has had to cut back the number of employees, cut their hours to keep from paying the benefits, stopped extending them to the part timers, all to keep in business with walmart competition.


Now you tell me how thats good for the economy. Walmart has driven down the wages an benefits of 10's of thousands of workers nation wide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[E30 Wagen]

There is a big diference between Walmart an Meijer's All sale's dollars in a walmart are wired each night to Alabama. Meijer's is a Mi company (founded by Fred Meijer) an is based out of Grand Rapids The money spent in Mi stays there!!

2 Meijers employees are union an full timers enjoy heath, dental, life an a small pension benefits and also get compensated for their OT plus make a bit more per hour than walmart help. The benefits used to extend to part timers too (22 hours a week) but now that walmart has been marking a huge push in Mi in the last 12 years. Meijers has had to cut back the number of employees, cut their hours to keep from paying the benefits, stopped extending them to the part timers, all to keep in business with walmart competition.


Now you tell me how thats good for the economy. Walmart has driven down the wages an benefits of 10's of thousands of workers nation wide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And just to clarify, I meant that Meijer was like the equivilent in that their stores are about thes same size they sell basically the same things and offer the same services. I didn't at all mean to imply that their business practices are the same.

Anybody who defends Walmart...

I'm still blown away by what happened in my town. You'll be driving along that main highway and you'll see a Meijer, and then fifteen seconds later a Walmart. Seriously, does anybody else see something wrong with that picture?

[e30sd]

There is a big diference between Walmart an Meijer's All sale's dollars in a walmart are wired each night to Alabama. Meijer's is a Mi company (founded by Fred Meijer) an is based out of Grand Rapids The money spent in Mi stays there!!

2 Meijers employees are union an full timers enjoy heath, dental, life an a small pension benefits and also get compensated for their OT plus make a bit more per hour than walmart help. The benefits used to extend to part timers too (22 hours a week) but now that walmart has been marking a huge push in Mi in the last 12 years. Meijers has had to cut back the number of employees, cut their hours to keep from paying the benefits, stopped extending them to the part timers, all to keep in business with walmart competition.


Now you tell me how thats good for the economy. Walmart has driven down the wages an benefits of 10's of thousands of workers nation wide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

alabama or arkansas?

[1991 318is]

Thank you Walmart, for making Microsoft look like pussies when it comes to competition in the market place.

[mrsleeve]

alabama or arkansas?

your right is Arkansas

Edit: Fixed in the orginal

and ETA I was not implying that they have similar practices I was just pointing out some fundamental differences. I am trying to stay out of this thread because I have a huge soap box with walmart and can go on for hours.

[Pinepig]

My favorite thing to buy in Walmart is Winchester white box ammo. I love looking at the libtards faces as I buy a load of ammo for a trip to the pit. The convo with the counter guy goes something like this.

You have and WWB in .223 bulk packs

Yep, how many would you like

All of them

Got any .45 down there while your stacking those up

How many

Why did you even ask, all of them, Thanks man.

Suzy soccer mom is giving me the " oh shit he's gonna kill everybody" look while I'm heading to the register. Fuck em

[hugh jass]

My favorite thing to buy in Walmart is Winchester white box ammo. I love looking at the libtards faces as I buy a load of ammo for a trip to the pit. The convo with the counter guy goes something like this.

You have and WWB in .223 bulk packs

Yep, how many would you like

All of them

Got any .45 down there while your stacking those up

How many

Why did you even ask, all of them, Thanks man.

Suzy soccer mom is giving me the " oh shit he's gonna kill everybody" look while I'm heading to the register. Fuck em

do you jerk off to gun mags pennypig?

[myinfernalbmw]

My favorite thing to buy in Walmart is Winchester white box ammo. I love looking at the libtards faces as I buy a load of ammo for a trip to the pit. The convo with the counter guy goes something like this.

You have and WWB in .223 bulk packs

Yep, how many would you like

All of them

Got any .45 down there while your stacking those up

How many

Why did you even ask, all of them, Thanks man.

Suzy soccer mom is giving me the " oh shit he's gonna kill everybody" look while I'm heading to the register. Fuck em

Shit up here they don't sell handgun ammo at walmart because they feel that it promotes violence, from what i was told. I thought it was ironic that they did however sell 7.62x39 mm ammo which if i am not mistaken only fits into one particular make of firearm. I thought an AK-47 had a worse reputation for violence than handguns in the eyes of the liberals.

[Tree18is]

Lol

Not just your walmarts. Not sure how south you live, but I'm in Texas, You pretty much need a passport to walk in one. All you see are big pregnant Mexicans screaming gibberish to their 15 kids running around everywhere. It seems clean though.

LOL, its like a cult thing out here in texas, you have no where else to go!
NO WHERE! I miss my california days where they are fuckn few and far between and you have VONS and rite aid for everything you need.

[1991 318is]

There's a little hope for Texas still. Austin is still trying to stay weird and keep Walmarts out. They also have limited the maximum size of commercial buildings targeting Super Walmarts in particular. The city slogan is tongue in cheek "Keep Austin Weird" It means support local businesses, artists, and traditions as opposed to chain stores, cookie cutter strip malls, the same fast food places, etc. The good ol' boys say, "Tree huggers and queers - that's all they got up there!" They just don't get it. When the Southern Baptists up in Waco want to get away for a lost weekend, they come to Austin and pretend they're Methodists.

[Pinepig]

do you jerk off to gun mags pennypig?

Can't say Ive even had one ( a gun mag ) in years. And it's Pinepig, slang for Park Ranger. I don't go fucking up your name pointing out you can get a small american car up your ass now do I.

You do now that Freud though that a fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity, not that I'm saying that's you but if the shoe fits......