Posted on 02/21/2010 11:45:36 AM PST by Captain Peter Blood
My local WalMart shut down for a period of time while it was being remodeled. It reopened recently, presumably under the new plan.
They vastly expanded the food section to the detriment of everything else. It’s still not as good as a real supermarket, but now it really sucks for non-food products.
I’m glad there’s still a K-mart in the area.
Boy are you going to get a bunch of noise from the jackasses on this forum.
As an increasingly less frequent Wal-Mart shopper, here’s some feedback:
1. Merchandise isn’t restocked very well. I’ll often see the same empty shelf space over the course of several visits.
2. It’s pretty darned hard to find someone to help you in some departments. This is pretty annoying in the electronics department where you keep things like flash drives and video games locked up.
3. What’s the point of having self-checkout of half the things are broken all the time?
4. To end on a positive note, I’ve noticed that my local Wal-Mart is no longer clogging every available square inch of floor space with crap, particularly in the front of the store by cash-wrap. THANK you for that.
Very few non-Mexican Americans are employed at our local Texas Walmart. It’s gone mexican. Mexican level quality and speaks like Mexico, too.
There was a huge turnover where everyone else disappeared once Mexican managers showed up a couple of years ago. I think it turned into a race based family affair. Liberals would call it diversity and Jorge Bush would call it Mexicans “doin’ the work (now unemployed) Americans don’t want to do. It’s like a cheap international travel experience w/o the drug dealers dipping folks in acid!
Since I am not a Mexican and don’t live in Mexico, I switched to Target.
I just hate it when their stupid theft beeper goes off when I am exiting and the greeter practically pulls a gun on you. Its always where the checkout clerk didn’t properly scan your merchandise.
I try to use self-scan checkouts so I don’t have to talk to people.
Ditto! re the loss of fabric and some crafts. You’d think, in this day of ‘green’ everything, they would encourage crafts and making your own clothes. Guess not. Fabric stores are becoming rare too. Wonder where all that fabric went?
You are so right! The employees are just the worst. They act like a smile would break their face. They advertise ad matching but I have found it is such a hassle that I don’t do it. The clerk always has to call an assistant manager and they act like they have the most important job on the planet and like you are trying to cheat them.
Another good answer re. kids would have been:” I PAID for mine myself, how about you?”
This was my experience in my sole shopping trip I have made at a Wal-Mart. There was more merchandise it seemed on the floor than on the shelves. I have never shopped at Wal-Mart since.
You can’t count on them to stock items you need. The stocking decisions seem to indicate that decisions are made by people who know little about the products. Flow and cost are valid issues but should be balanced by customer service, people often need items that may not be fast movers.
I have three Walmarts near me. None are as busy as they used to be.
This is my biggest complaint with my local non-Super Center Walmart. Since it's so close to my house, I've been in there many times over the past year looking for a basic household item (e.g. hoseclamps, video game accessory, Christmas lights, oil filter, simple mounting hardware, etc.) and came back out with nothing. These are all things I swear I used to be able to find there, but no longer.
Seems like they never have what I'm looking for anymore. I attribute this to my local store's adoption of a greatly expanded food section, crowding out other merchandise areas of the store. I don't know who decides what they stock & don't, but they're a moron. Especially since I'd rather go to a full-selection grocery store for food, vs. Walmart, I don't see much reason to go to Walmart anymore unless it's for a REALLY common item I've seen there before, since they probably won't have it anyway.
That being said, my local store is very clean and organized and the employees are pleasant. I wouldn't notice reduced service, since I avoid "service" and sales people in stores like the plague.
Variation in Walmart "quality" is huge, since every Walmart is basically a reflection of the local community it's located in. In the larger metropolitan area I live in, there are nice ones & horrible, dirty ones. The latter are typically in older, more urban, or lower income areas. Since the vast majority of employees and management that work there are drawn from the local community, it makes sense that each Walmart will reflect the people who live around it. Centralized attempts at quality control would be pointless.
Your Wal Mart sounds like my closest Wal Mart (30mi away). And this one still has a fabric dept. If I go to the Valley where there is a Super Wal Mart (or whatever they are called) I find it much less to my liking. People are not helpful, friendly, and store kinda messy.
Parking lot smells like urine... like in a third-world country. Really gross!!!
Never been when there hasn’t been lines. Seems strange. So many registers, yet none of them are ever open. (went to Sam’s once and there were nearly 20 people in line and one register open. I finally just left my cart of stuff and went home and never returned.)
I also noticed the poorly stocked shelves. That’s depressing. And stores getting messier.
Produce was always substandard. I rarely bought there.
Now I avoid the place. It’s like shopping in Mexico and worth paying a little more at Target for a cleaner, better shopping experience.
To cope with the recession, businesses have been squeezing their costs harder than ever before. This makes for often ill-founded management initiatives to save on personnel costs. Since the recession will linger for some time to come, do not expect to see this trend to ease until it noticeably impairs customer satisfaction relative to competitors.
Other than the knock down cat fight in the express checkout line, and waiting 20 minutes to find out they only have .25 cal and 357 Sig, everything's been OK
Yeah, more layers of management and less local autonomy is sure to work out great :). Seems like I've seen recent news articles where Walmart sales have been down in the last quarter, whereas a year ago (same recession) they were doing much better. "Reorganization" at work?
This new organization reflects basic socialist trends at work. As someone mentioned above, sounds like they must have a higher percentage of far-left Ivy Leaguers at corporate, screwing things up in an attempt to "get control." More layers of management in an organization that was already working efficiently is NEVER a good idea. FAIL! Neither is more central control. Yeah, that has worked out so well for public school systems and other government controlled hierarchies where central planning is the order of the day.
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