Posted on 08/15/2013 5:14:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If discount every-day necessities can’t tempt shoppers into stores, it’s a clear signal that consumers feel stifled by a tough economy at home and overseas.
That’s the picture provided this morning by Wal-Mart’s latest quarterly report. The world’s largest retailer cut its annual profit and revenue outlook and reported second-quarter figures that missed expectations.
Wal-Mart, operating 10,800 stores across 27 countries, is seen as an economic bellwether because it’s a go-to spot for so many households, where they shop for groceries, home supplies and gasoline. Nonexistent wage gains and a sluggish recovery are hampering spending in America and Europe, while slowing growth in developing companies keep the emerging middle classes there from spending much, too. Listen to Wal-Mart CFO Charles Holley: “”The retail environment remains challenging in the U.S. and our international markets, as customers are cautious in their spending.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I love Dollar Tree
” They are just under-stocked more often than not.”
I keep hearing this idea expressed on this thread. Look at this from another perspective. If they always had plenty of what you wanted on every shelf, they would probably be heavy on inventory. Carrying costs on inventory affects an organization’s bottom line which translates into higher per unit prices for you, the consumer.
Would you be happier if they always had exactly what you wanted but the price was higher? No, you (or some particular female) would probably carp about how Wal Mart has raised its prices.
If you are a smart shopper Walmart is NOT the place to shop and people are starting to catch on .
You can do much better by shopping sales at most grocery stores and plan your meals according to seasonal sales rather than shopping Walmart for their everyday low prices and not have to put with Walmarts terrible service and obnoxious cashiers .
(especially true if you live in a small town since Walmart charges MUCH higher prices in their small town locations than they do in bigger cities)
really? that has not been my experience at all, to wit, Gillette foamy shave cream, $1.72, for that last 4 years. same item at the unionized stop and shop $3.39.
lock of the century...
if walmart was not a good deal for middle class people, the Marxist mayors like boston’s tom menino, would not be trying so hard to keep them out.
I actually cook a lot from scratch too and put away stuff from the garden .
If you use sugar - there are coupons for it and the cheapest time of the year to purchase it is around Thanksgiving (stores run it as a lost leader and there are always printable coupons on coupons.com that time of year) (last November I bought my years worth of sugar for around $1 a bag )
Olive oil - coupons pop up all the time on coupons.com and stores have really good sales multiple times a year .
You would be surprised at how many basic staples do go on sale and have coupons for them.
I’ve been shopping at Walmart since the early 90s. Perhaps I have not been clear in what I was getting at. Back in the day Walmart re-stocked quickly. They were very well run & clean. They ran like a well oiled machine....these days not so much. I understand that it’s no smart to over-stock a store, but in my past experience with this company they were much more responsive to keeping things on the shelf. There’s no excuse to go weeks without items.
Example: I get these great Walmart all meat pizzas for under $9. They have been off the shelves going on 3 weeks in a resort area in the summer. There’s just no damn excuse for that. It’s killing their food business. Never seen this when the old man Sam was alive. This is about mismanagement. I could go on, but IMO the store has gone downhill, and I’m a fan of the business.
Real maple syrup is the only conservative choice. Fake maple syrup is phony.
Yes really but to do so you need to watch those sales. Shaving cream , shampoo , body wash and soaps , tooth paste and tooth brushes are quite often lost leaders at drug stores like CVS , Walgreens ,Rite Aid . These things can quite frequently be picked up for free or almost free after sale or coupon.
The secret to knocking huge percentages of your grocery bill is to watch for those sales on the items you use regularly and stock up on them when they are at their cheapest that way you don't have those same items coming off your bill every week or month.
Great place to find deals from the drug store is http://www.couponaholic.net/ The girl that runs the blog watches all three major drug store chains for sales and she puts up a link to printable coupons if they are available for printing at the time of the sale.
The information is out there if you take the few minutes to look it up before shopping.
“Walmart has become lazy. Back in the day they were almost never out of stock....these days they are missing items for weeks on end.”
I think the unstocked shelves are on purpose. We have that here. Walmart is emulating Home Depot that way, falling victim to the bean counter fallacy of inventory “velocity”, completely failing to understand the common sense notion that you can’t sell ‘em if you don’t got ‘em.
Freepers are harping on the fact that Walmart is no cheaper than their local grocery stores. And that’s probably true to a large extent now, but only BECAUSE Walmart forced the grocery stores to compete with Walmart’s pricing in order to stay in business.
When Walmart first moved to our community, they were WAY cheaper than the local grocery stores. As a result, the local grocery stores looked emptier than desert islands for quite a number of years until they finally wised up and lowered their prices. When they did that, people started flocking back in droves, myself included, as I find myself shopping for groceries less and less at Walmart.
But our local Walmarts still have better pricing in many departments, including the automotive department which beats the tar out of Autozone, for example. Also, our local Walmart pharmacy is WAY better in terms of customer service compared to ALL or our local Walgreen’s pharmacies, whose motto I’ve finally decided must be, “If we can fuch it up, we will.”
BINGO
and that is why their market share is dropping
We now go to Aldi’s a lot. They’re limited in their selection, but what they do have is VERY inexpensive and usually high quality. In staples, they can’t be beat, such as $1.69 gallons of milk, $1.89 butter and $0.59 for a dozen eggs.
True enough. I just go there less & less these days.
Gee, thanks. I shop at Walmart. It has the best prices in our area, and the people who work at our Walmart are quite nice.
Walmart is making me mad at how they are sucking up to liberals and food nazis. If they keep it up, I may have to shop elsewhere.
Sam Walton did more to help the poor by making food and othe products more affordable than all the government programs every hatched.
Agreed - and there’s nothing like producing your own. We normally make 70 gallons a year and give a lot away to neighbors and family.
Walmart got really lazy with their pricing when they started offering “price matching”. Figured they didn’t have to run as many sales, and that most customers would be too lazy to ask for a price match. That philosophy is biting them. They were right that most customers didn’t bother with the price match, but those same customers apparently noticed that, overall, things were cheaper elsewhere.
I was in a Wal-Mart yesterday. Ahead of me in the checkout lane was a guy wearing a shirt from a major supermarket chain.
He was shopping at Wal-Mart instead of the store he worked in.
You've seen all those "people of Wal-Mart" pictures, and you believe every Wal-Mart is crawling with those creatures. You never actually see them, but you know they're there. Somewhere.
Walmartians ping!
Voting with my dollars when possible between elections. Your business donates to the democratic socialists..... I shop elsewhere if possible.
Starve the beast.... Stay safe !
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