Posted on 02/17/2007 1:06:21 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
Nope, in our household that is not the equivalent of Payton Manning saying after the Superbowl that he’s going to Disney World. It has nothing to do with Disney World. It has everything to do with Sam Walton.
Sam Walton’s creation, WalMart, initially flew below the radar of Wall Street and the national press. It did so in part because of its business model. Beginning in Bentonville, Arkansas, its stores were located in small towns, where no one in his right mind would deliberately locate a chain of stores. And by doing that, and succeeding at that, WalMart created the largest, most successful business in the history of the human race.
But that’s not what I came to talk about. I’m looking at this from the other end of the scale, as a retail customer.
There are two Super WalMarts within easy driving distance of our home. The “Supers” are the newer, larger ones with full grocery departments and pharmacies built in. One is in Clayton, Georgia; the other is in Sylva, North Carolina. Which one we go to depends on whether we intent to buy a tank of gas – NC gas taxes are the highest in the region at 17 cents a gallon – or whether we intent to have lunch during the trip – a Sonic “soda” shop is across the street from the one in Sylva.
We live in a very small town, Highlands, North Carolina, population about 1,000. It has two and a half grocery stores, a couple gas stations, etc.. Everything for sale here has to come up an hour’s drive on winding mountain roads from any direction. Everything here costs more. So we do our occasional shopping here, but “go off the mountain” for major shopping.
That means a trip to Wally-World First, we buy an Atlanta Journal-Constitution for its coupons, and throw the rest away as journalistic trash. Then, we head off to WalMart for a two-cart raid on all its departments. What we do illustrate why Sam Walton was right.
At the beginning of my checkered career, I worked for a company that produced brochures for the Rouse Company, which was then developing the first closed mall shopping centers in the US. At the heart of each brochure was a map showing hundreds of thousands of potential customers within a 20-minute, or 40-minute, drive of the location of the mall. What Sam Walton realized was that folks would come from an even longer distance, and buy even more stuff per trip, if you gave them the opportunity and incentive to do that.
We spend about $500 to $600 a trip. That multiplies out to roughly $6,600 per year. Multiply us by the 100 million Americans who regularly shop at Wally-World, and the key to its billion-dollar success is apparent.
Why do people come to Wally-World? For the same reason that millions of people come to McDonalds. The name on the door is the guarantee you will get a decent product at the lowest possible price. Always. Only in Wally-World, you find not just a handful of products, but tens of thousands of products.
So, why is WalMart under attack in some jurisdictions? The enemies come from two different camps. One is the steadily dwindling union movement which wants to get its hands in the pockets of the most successful business in history. The other enemies are those who neither understand nor respect a free-market economy. They think, against all evidence, that life gets better when the government runs things. WalMart is the primary example that they could not be more wrong.
If WalMart was so bad for communities, why would most communities welcome and appreciate a new WalMart? If WalMart was so bad to its employees, why would people line up around the block for a chance to work there, whenever they open a new store? If WalMart was such a failure for ordinary citizens, why would millions of us be planning our shopping habits around our visits to Wally-World?
Success speaks for itself. Only those who resent success, or seek to mooch off it, falsely deny it.
- 30 -
About the Author: John Armor is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, who may again be a candidate for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
- 30 -
We'll get over that way ..................one of these days.
OK - now I really have to get ot the store.
BBL
When you live where I do, there is no elsewhere..........
So Walmart is providing a public service for you then, right?(Keeping the undesirables out of your sight and out of your stores.)
let us know when you do and it's a date! :)
i'm n ot headed anywhere today. it's snowing
like crazy out there...again. might be another
plow day for pat :)
no elsewhere? you have got to be kidding. :(
no small specialty or quilt shops? those are
real treasures :)
Since I am subsidizing Wally World's existance in my community by paying a share of the taxes that Wally World is not required to pay, I ought to have some say over the type of people that Wally World allows through its doors. (Of course I am only kidding.)
No elsewhere, unless I want to drive 50+ miles and I don't sew enough to find that appealing. I have all the fabric I need for the curtains I'm making, and I'm teaching myself the basics of machine quilting, but it's not something I see myself doing much of in the future. I'm only figuring it out to make a pillow for Jax to match a fleece blanket she and I are going to finish tomorrow.
I'll just go back to cross stitch....I have enough floss and patterns to last me for years, and I never bought fabric for that in WalMart.
Bingo !
It is government intervention in the act of anti-American "Free Trade" (which in reality are one-sided) bills that have allowed Wal-Mart to prosper at the expense of the American worker. Since then Wal-Mart has succeeded in driving it's entire manufacturing base overseas.
"Buy America" indeed. There's more than one way to be a traitor.
Shopping in a Wal-Mart in Northwest Arkansas (home of Wal-Mart) is like being in a third world country.
He also visited every store in the chain every so often and would greet each worker by name. I knew folks who worked there 20 years or more and would tell me how different things were when Sam was alive.
The kids seem to be morally bankrupt.
Same applies to our Wal-Mart. The meat is TERRIBLE. My wife does all of the grocery shopping except for red meat. I always go out to a local grocery store for our steaks and burgers. Theirs is so much better. The only thing wal-mart meat is good for is hamburger helper. I heard the reason they quit cutting their meat locally and went with prepackaging is their butchers threatened to unionize.
In Fayetteville, AR you can also make a medical appointment now.
But you would be crazy to get an oil change at a Wal-Mart.
The cat's probably an illegal.
That is, since the transportation costs are the same--regardless of quality--they eat a higher percentage of the lower-quality items. I recall Rush posing this question to listeners back in the late 80s or early 90s and was surprised at how few people understood it.
Or, in the words of Thomas Eleri: "If you're going to ship shrimp to Iowa, why bother with anything less than the best? That's why the small towns have the smartest people... if you're going out into the middle of nowhere, leave the dummies in the city!" ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.