I agree, it’s an extremely unpleasant experience. And you’re right, they sacrifice quality on “their stuff”. The way I get around that, is that I never get their stuff. I’ll only pick up a couple of items here or there, which is “name-brand” and that I know is quality, in and of itself, from another manufacturer. And the fact that it is SEALED is important, too, considering the kind of people who work there.
You can just get their loss-leaders and take Walmart’s money that way, on name-brand stuff — and NEVER EVER buy a grocery cart of stuff from Walmart “just because you’re there”. I would never reward Walmart that way.
Even on the name brand stuff you tend to sacrifice either quality or quantity. A lot of the name brands “special” WalMart versions to get in under the price line. I know Levis and Vlassic both sacrificed quality, and Boston Market stuff at WM is smaller. Pretty much the only stuff I get at WM is stuff I want cheap and don’t care about the rest. Being an aquarium owner I need lots of 3 gallon (”car wash” according to their website) buckets, but I only use them once a month so they don’t need to be good, but when it was time to buy a dozen of them I preferred not to spend more on the buckets than the aquarium. Thus $1 (back then, $2 when some had worn out and I needed more) WM buckets were perfect. Got my bluray player there, but only because the Best Buy next door was out of stock, and I did a bunch of research to make sure it wasn’t a WM only (crappy) version but actually the same one.