Posted on 03/28/2013 6:29:04 AM PDT by Perdogg
Walmart is starting to look like a Soviet-era retailer. The prices are still low, but shelves are going empty for months while products sit unwrapped in storage, lines are interminable, and no one is around to help.
Bloomberg reports that in-store service problems for the world’s third-largest corporation are so bad that people are willing to pony up the extra cash to shop at stores like Target and Walgreens. Walmart’s problem, says MIT retail researcher Zeynep Ton, is a shortage of cheap labor:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...
Perhaps Wal Mart could save some bucks so as to hire more folks if they did one simple thing (per observations I and friends have had all over the country):
They never have more than two or three cashiers on duty - EVER - so sell the rest of those useless cash registers.
Only bare shelves in Arkansas are ammo.
Likewise
Problem: Shortage of cheap labor.
What could possibly be the solution?
Economics 101? Raise wages?
Nah. Raise labor supply! Immigration! Naturalization! Dream Act! Health care and food stamp costs passed to the taxpayer, because God forbid, God forbid, the Walmart shopper should pay 10 cents more for a bottle of shampoo!
ha!
There are 5 W-Ms within a 10 mile radius of my house, 3 of which are within 5 miles of me. Only 1 is well stocked.
It’s an individual store manager’s problem, they are responsible for staffing, stocking numbers. Some try to maximize profit by not having adequate staff. Better profit, higher individual bonus.
The ammo shelves are the only ones bare at the Walmart in Cedar Park.
Ding ding!
Yes they did that to me the other day when I had to go to the restroom. I would understand if they only did it when there were perishable items in the cart, but I had all non-food items so it really ticked me off.
Ding, ding, ding! we have a winner.
Yes they did that to me the other day when I had to go to the restroom. I would understand if they only did it when there were perishable items in the cart, but I had all non-food items so it really ticked me off.
Yeah, but... say you get your gubmint check, or your EBT is charged up with space credits,
and you go to a store, any store, and there’s nothing to buy...
I hate Wal-mart... Nasty people work there. If it wasn’t for Wal-mart ugly people wouldn’t have a job.
Same here in MA, bluest of the blue. No bare shelves. I can understand Wal*Mart's anxiety about unattended shopping carts. They are in the cross hairs of the unions. Union goons could fill a shopping cart with perishable frozen goods and leave is sitting in the linen aisle, or place an infernal machine (a bomb) in a shopping cart and leave it in the toy aisle. Or other forms of mischief neither of us can yet imagine.
I’ve noticed that all the stores who carry yarn have been cutting back on that section. I’ve starting going on line and ordering through the various stores’ web sites. Otherwise, I can’t get enough of one color or dye lot to do my projects.
In the 14k population town I live in, Walmart basically owned the general shopping. Then, they moved of a semi-Super store.
Since it was a new 24-hour one, I shopped there a few times in the early hours — around 3-4 a.m. That didn’t last long. At that time, they were changing out the meats section. So, no fresh meats were available.
I changed to shopping around 6 a.m. Meats section was replenished, but only 1 check-out was open. One morning, for example, I counted 8 sets of customers with full carts, all waiting on that one checker.
I changed to around 8:30 a.m. One time I noticed there there was only one set of produce bags for the entire produce section. I asked the guy who was stocking why they didn’t have more bags. He said something nonsensical about the set of bags were centrally located. [Now, I notice they do have sets of bags at the end of each counter. I guess others complained, too.]
Now, if I want something from the deli (roasted or fried chicken, for example), I know not to go in before 10 a.m.
I tend to go to Walmart maybe 3-4 times a year for ‘general’ merchandise.
==
When Walmart moved to the Superstore on the extreme edge of town, they left the former area without much of any thing. Since then, a Dollar Tree, a Dollar General Store, a Family Dollar, a Walgreens, and a ranch & farm store have moved in to fill the gap. Those stores tend to have less traffic, but they do enough to stay in business. Every dollar they get is one Walmart used to get when Walmart was basically the only store in town.
This story is Bloomberg propaganda designed to create a false impression of a labor shortage. It doesn’t seem possible with high unemployment.
If only we would give the poor immigrants amnesty, then we would have cheap workers like maybe the ones Bloomberg employs.
MIT retail researcher Zeynep Ton
Poonam Goyal, a Bloomberg Industries senior analyst
End Welfare! - and you’ll see the applications come rolling in...then again, I don’t know if I would want these people working anywhere near me...I remember in Logan WV when they opened the first WalMart down there — the employees were taking shipments off of delivery trucks - and then moving them right over to their own trucks - theft was so bad they almost went bankrupt — they had to bring in “outside” employees for months until they could hire trustworthy local employees...
I’m in IL and no big fan of Walmart but I see zero evidence any of this is true.
You want to bring me back to WalMart, stock your dang shelves with ammo. You buy everything else outside of the US. Flood the damn market with cheap ammo. Makes for good target use and it will force the market back into equilibrium.
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