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I agree with you to some extent.

Walmart can be a good place to purchase some items, especially for those people who live in areas with limited shopping possibilities.

I can only judge Walmart by my experience with them. I live in an area that has no shortage of places to shop, from dollar stores to high end jewelers, designer shops and malls. Because of the wide ranging competition here, I don't see Walmart as a very good shopping experience. The quality of many of their goods is very low and more expensive than the big dollar stores.

Most Walmarts around here do not sell groceries but I have noticed that their beverage and snack foods are priced about the same as many grocery stores. If you are willing to wait for sales, you can usually buy stuff cheaper at supermarkets than in the Walmarts around here. Shoprite, Pathmark, A & P, Kings etc. are always running sales to outdo the competition. There are also lots of Costco and Sam's Club stores for people who like that sort of thing.

In things like electronics, Walmart tends to sell real junk. It's ok to buy a beater TV or stereo there but they don't have much of a selection if you want something a little better. DVD's are usually priced cheaper at Target (except for Walmart's $5 bin which generally consists of the worst movies ever made.

You can buy better clothes almost anywhere, although you are going to have to pay more (unless you hit one of the killer sales at Kohls etc.).

As for customer service, it is hard to find anyone at Walmart who can answer anything but the most basic questions. Sometimes you really want to talk to a knowledgable salesperson before you buy. My experience is that those folks are few and far between at Walmart. I don't even want to get started on the long lines at checkout.

Like you, I can only judge Wal-Mart by my experiences with them...which when taken as a whole have been pretty good.

Shortly after we bought this place my husband started getting really fed up with the small places selling lawn tractors - they were either used and over priced or new and REALLY over priced.

We happened to be in Wal-Mart and hubby decided to take a look at the tractors there. The gentleman in the garden center was not only pleasant, but extremely knowlegeable about the products. We left there not only purchasing all the other household needs, but a lawn tractor (American made).....but we had a problem - we had no way of getting that tractor home, and Wal-Mart doesn't deliver. The gentleman from the garden center happened to live in the next town over from us and offered to bring it to us when he got off work in about an hour.

When he showed up with the tractor, he refused to take any money from us. When I argued with him that he was doing it as a favor and on his own time he said, yes it was a favor but his manager felt it was a great thing to do and kept him on the clock and he was going to be paid until he got home.

To me, that was great customer service, public relations and employee relations.