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.
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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
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I hate to tell you this, but those people existed long before Wally World, and will continue to do so long after.
True, but instead of being spread out in many stores, they now seem to congregate in one place -- Wally World. Please note that my criticism is not simply that they are fat, but rather, that they don't seem to know it or care.
And the same can be said about any other group of people, big or small, fat or skinny.
Please note that my criticism is not simply that they are fat, but rather, that they don't seem to know it or care.
So what? They existed before WalMart and will continue to do so after WM.
It makes no nevermind to me if you don't like WM, but your reasonings are just stereotypical silliness.
Sorry I'm late to the party...I slept through most of Saturday. D@mn headcold!
You already know that I love my Wal-Mart. My weekly run is quick & easy, cost-effective and all items are "Made in the USA." :)
loved the bit about the coupons. LOL.
Sorry about the head cold - but I enyy your sleep through Saturday - I sure wish I could have done that yesterday instead of 8 hours on my feet, 4 of which were out in the cold at a Girl Scout cookie booth.........
Got any Thin Mints left? LOL!
Exactly, and ironic as heck for anyone who can recall the Wal-Mart ads of yore that claimed "we buy American first", which was a pantload even at the time.
Everyone who owned a small business in that town before Wal-Mart is now a wage slave after, wearing a blue Wal-Mart vest.
The mechanic, the pharmacist, the hardware man, the appliance and furniture store, the men's and ladies' clothing stores, and others to include now even the banker.
No disrespect to anybody, but Wal-Mart prices are the devil's prices.
LOL!!!
The Troop leader and I just spent an hour trying to scrounge up some more of them...we did not order anywhere near enough, and have far too many of others. We've got 3 weeks to figure out how to get rid of about 8 cases of cookies, or we're going to have to pony up the money. At $42 a case, that is not a proposition we are looking forward to :(
The local WalMart is really good about letting the Troops set up there, but not only is the WM in another county, it's in a different state. The GS Council is the same, but out of our "jurisdiction" for the younger girls, we have to stay within our Troop area. So we couldn't set up one there for our Troop.
What in the heck does your tag line mean? It is driving me nuts.
It's a line from Jimmy Buffett's "Cheeseburger in Paradise."
I like mine with lettuce and tomato,
Heinz57 and french fried potatoes
A big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer,
Well good gosh almighty which way do I steer.
LOL. got it.
When you have 2 eight year olds who insist on hearing every morning on their way to school, the lyrics kinda stick with you.
There are limits of large corporations turning oligopolies into monopolies. I do know that when I shop for raw materials at local hardware and lumber yards, I find the larger superstores have replaced smaller competitive stores. While some items might be offered at 2%-20% lower prices, many common items such as nuts and bolts run nearly 10x to 100x typical costs in small bulk.
In a particular search for an 3/16"-9/32" dia x 2" long machine thread bolt, with a stout head, the closest match I could find was in a prepackaged bag of two pieces at anywhere from $2.38 to $4.50 per pack. Teenuts could be bought at nearly $.70 - $2.10 each (.70 at Ace Hardware in qtys less than 20). In each of these projects i could use somewhere between 40-80 pieces, so I was looking for a 100 count or possibly 1000 count to keep the price down. Nowhere were these available in the SoCA are within 100 mile radius, at those quantities.
20 years ago, such a lack of basic supply would have been dismissed as absurd, but today, more and more supplies are being sold as commodoties in an off the shelf fashion, with less and less inventory kept on hand.
Interestingly, the same makes and models of bolts were available from a limited number of vendors such as Home Depot, Leows, Home Base, WalMart, etc. Nearly all were Chinese or foreign manufacture, while one can google and find plenty of stock in 100 to 1000 piece quantities from mid US locations from less than .02-.17 per piece as oppsed to .70 - 2.10 oer piece at these superstores.
This is only one example, but it becomes more obvious that many of our staples are coming from overseas industrial markets, packaging for an off-the-shelf market bearing less and less cognizance of simple fabrication/ manufacturing/ production status quo.
IMHO, the WalMart SuperStore does change local suburban economics, eliminating much competition and generating oligopolies at best, locally, and in many cases or particular products, local monopolies with costs able to escalate by one to two orders of magnitude, rather than 5-20%. For this reason, I find SuperWalmarts to, in effect, promote socialist agendas, regardless if intentional or not.
LOL! Totally off topic, but my husband and I went to Jimmy Buffet's restaurant near Universal Studios in Florida. We did order cheeseburgers, and they were fantastic!
Back to the topic. If I'm buying a lot of meat, I drive an extra 15 minutes to go to Meijer. Otherwise, I do most of my shopping at Wal-Mart.
theres a jimmy buffett place near us!
my asst. told me about it...it's called
cheeseburger in paradise ;)
wm is great for notions, etc, but their fabrics
are just awful! i've found they sell cheap
replicas of much better quality fabrics found
elsewhere. :(
if only the news press had a coupon section! sigh!
I very rarely buy meat in WalMart, unless I find a really good deal on something my home freezer is out of. But I only do that if I am in the grocery section anyway and decide to go look. I do like the fresh produce there, especially at this time of the year. But I don't do my grocery shopping there as a rule, as it is 15 miles as opposed to the FoodLion which is only 5.
The funny thing is, the little store where we prefer to buy meat, especially beef and pork, and coldcuts/cheese, has the absolute WORST produce anywhere around.
And with all of that said - I need to make a run to FoodLion because I'm out of horseradish for tonight's dinner.
BBL
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