We have 1 Walmart in our town of over 50,000, and I thought it was just our store that closed at 11 pm. I used to work the swing shift and it was great to be able to stop by for groceries at midnight. Whenever I’m there in the evenings now there’s so many stockers working that it’s hard to get around them, so I don’t think that’s the reason.
Yes, I used to have a very erratic schedule - still do, sometimes - it was very handy to be able to drop in Walmart in the wee hours. Quiet too. Peaceful, even. Weirdo distribution does not seem to depend much on time of day for us. :-)
However, now I find that if I go in in the morning, stockers are everywhere, with many shelves still empty, and in the late afternoon / evening there are few stockers but even more spots are bare. I suppose this varies with delivery schedules (may vary at different stores?)
I also suppose there’s a “stocked” sweet spot (time), maybe around lunch time, but, I’m almost never near WM with time to go in around lunch time.
This thread is interesting—obviously a lot of folks have never worked late night or early morning shifts and wanted to run some quick errands before or after.
The real world is 24/7.