Posted on 02/16/2010 10:01:48 AM PST by Star Traveler
Published by diamondpoet
December 4, 2009
What is Walmart really up to.
Walmart is one of the biggest supermarket chains in the world. As of August 31, 2008, Walmart has as many as 100 food categories:
United States 4,227 total units.
International 3,210 total units
This is a time where families needs to make every penny count, Walmart expansion of it’s Great Value brand is replacing many of the name brands, we have used for so many years.
The new improved Great Value products — which has been appearing on shelves and various sections of the store, is slowly being integrated into Walmart stores across the country, within the past few months – will provide families with affordable and possible high quality groceries. This is some sales jargon that Walmart has come up with, but what is really going on?
Walmart is the company, that is famous for their roll-back slogan, and now it would seem that they are also trying to monopolize the food industry. I am all for savings, but I prefer quality products and good taste. I grew up with many of the brand names and it is what I am accustomed to.
There are a few thing that I could settle for, that is not name brand, but when I was shopping during the Thanksgiving holiday, I was looking for McCormick’s vanilla, this is the only brand that I use to make my pies. I discovered that Walmart had completely removed McCormick’s brand and replaced it with their own brand Great Value. I rely on McCormick’s products to prepare many of my meals.
I tried using substitutes, but there is no comparison to McCormick’s Seasonings. I have never shopped anywhere other than Walmart, because I was comfortable and they basically provided most of my needs.
It would now see that I am being forces to shop somewhere else. Walmart no longer stock all the brand names that I desire. Since Walmart is trying to completely eliminate the middle-man, what type of effect will this have on many of the distributors and will this also have a spiraling effect on the economy as well?
Since so many distributors rely on Walmart’s business, will they not suffer and be forced to downsize? I can’t help but wonder is this really going to benefits the consumers or hurt us even more?
I'd believe that IF the off label brand product measured up in quality and taste but so much falls way short to pass muster with this shopper. Been there, done that and have the T-shirt to prove it. I for one want my quality and taste so I generally stick with the brand names that have proven themselves over and over. Others can keep the pennies and I'll keep the quality.
I'm with you. As usual you have a most succinct way of putting things.
I talked to a store manager about it when I couldn't find several items I had purchased there for years in the department store side. They weren't simply out of stock Walmart had stopped carrying the items period. I said do you not realize what is happening to your store? He said I know it now look around you. He asked where are the customers at? His store for a Super Store close to Christmas had few shoppers. This is not good when you consider the nearest other Big Boxmart was about 15 miles or more away.
I used to spend about $350 cash there in one whack just on the monthly groceries not counting other items I bought as well. Now I go to Ingles and they can meet or beat Wally everyday low price on food. Even soft drinks at Ingles are usually cheaper and MORE CHOICES on every food item.
Short of a major corporate shake up and a return to policies that made Walmart a success to start with I don't see them holding their market lead beyond the next five years. When they tank it will be fast. Other companies like COSTCO will see an advantage in locating in Walmart only territories and filling the void Walmart is creating. The Walmart of 7 years ago I would rate at being A- minus overall. Today's Walmart I give a generous F. Bentonville corp offices are out of touch with consumers and what they want and will or will not purchase. Trying to force consumers especially name brand shoppers like myself on most food items into buying what they do not want to start with will only lead to empty stores as someone will see opportunity and quickly fill their void.
This is real good news for the other grocery stores who are far more customer oriented. I gave up on Wally's food and as soon as a replacement store comes in my area I'll give up completely on Walmart all together. There are still some staunch die-hard Walmart defenders out there but they as well are quickly diminishing. Walmart in a decade will be at the status of the current K-mart. Meaning there but who notices them or shops there anymore? Actually K-mart may out last them in that respect as K-mart hasn't as of yet gone this low in treatment of customers.
Do other chains pull off all other name brand items and replace it only with THEIR generic brand though. That is what the writer is saying and that is what Walmart is now doing. No one would argue about generic store brands but no grocery store will stay in business long selling only store brand generic items. This is where Walmart is headed. I was in a hurry last month and shopped at Walmart for food. Many things were gone and replaced with Great Value. I finally gave up and later went to Ingles. That stunt reminded me of just why I stopped buying my groceries there to start with.
Well you said a mouthful... and you’ve summed it up very well... And it comes down to customer service, and they’ve lost it there.
It’s just too bad I got connected up with Walmart so late in their game. I’ve come in right when they’re going downhill.
They are literally missing billions of dollars in sales. If a fast turnaround item is not on your shelves you can not sell it. That is the part that isn't making any sense at all. They could sell an item like mad and still do this.
Write a letter to Bentonville and the only reply you will get as a local associate as they call their employees who can do nothing about nothing calling you and telling you what you already know. They don't carry that item any longer. Even Walmart VP's used to personally answer letters. I know because I complained to them a long time ago about one policy they had called corralling their customers inside department and a highly annoying alarm on the entrance to it. I complained as did many others I'm sure and the alarms were removed and departments were more accessible. I got a call from a VP over that very issue. Right after that the practice ended. But that was back when Walmart was a customer oriented store.
He has ushered in a lot of changes.
1) When was the last time you heard “Low Prices, Always” that phrase, the phrase that built Walmarts brand in no longer part of the WalMart lexicon.
2) If you notice, a Walmart commercial on TV looks EXACTLY like a Target commercial.
3) Wal Mart changed their logo, to resemble a Target logo.
4) Wal Mart had a 25% SKU Rationalization, which means Wal Mart dropped/deleted/stopped carrying, 25% of the items on the shelf. This means items considered duplicate items, like different brands green beans, some of those brands are dropped in favor of the National Brand and the Great Value Brand. The brands that were dropped most frequently were strong regional brands. They often had the lower price, so they were a threat to Great Value, and were a thorn in the side of the National Brands.
So by performing a 25% item reduction, Walmart eliminates it's closest price competition to Great Value, and the National Brands lose a competitor. And a strong regional brand is minimized. Affecting local economies. Not just in manufacturing jobs, but local media advertising is lost as well.
Not only that, but it was the strong regional brands that really worked well with Wal Mart. The selection available and prices at Wal Mart were the reason to shop there.
5) Wal Mart does perform stringent Quality Assurance on it's store brands, their Chips Ahoy knock off has 7% more chocolate chips than Chips Ahoy. However not all Great Value items have come under such scrutiny, some Great Value items that Wal Mart has carried for years did not have to face such scrutiny, they were basically grandfathered in, so there are some clunkers out there.
6) Wal Mart has changed it's pricing format to resemble Dollar Store pricing, no more 98 cents, 88 cents pricing. now it's $3, $2, $4 pricing. And make no mistake about it,this brings more profit to Wal Mart.
So, Wal Mart has changed, they have embarked on a strategy to eliminate their greatest identified threat, Target and Dollar Stores by emulating their them.
In doing so they have killed Low Prices, Always, prices have undoubtedly gone up, I have seen it, and I shake my head.
Couple this with the minimizing of regional brands, and the formula has changed. Instead of great selection and low prices it's Great Value, less selection, higher prices. They are strangling the Golden Goose.
Thing is, they did all this to attract the Blue State Target shoppers, and they are the people who for years have ridiculed Walmart and the people who shop there.
You know, us conservative, NASCAR, red necked Americans.
That’s quite detailed and very informative. Thanks...
This is pretty astute. About 5 years ago Walmart revamped it’s Logistics system, the way it delivered it’s products to the store.
They didn’t want to store items in the warehouse, basically they wanted to unload it off one truck from the manufacturer, and load it on to another truck going to the store.
And unless someone is watching the inventory very, very closely, it will lead to empty shelves.
And because WalMart no longer wanted to store inventory at the Warehouse, they no longer ordered in bulk, so orders that were once, say, 24 cases once a week, were now orders for 3 cases, 8 times a week, all different delivery times. I once walked out into the warehouse and saw an order for Wal Mart with 3 cases on a pallet, can you imagine, the pallet is worth more than the product.
Manufacturers who go caught up in Remix had to find another way to ship Walmart, and they did, and it is much more efficient than 3 cases of product on a pallet, but it is still at a greater cost, to which Wal Mart emphatically stated “no price increases due to Remix.”
Yeah, right.
A big difference is that you're not paying for the advertising of "name brands".
My husband buys toilet paper and paper towels at Walmart. I shop for groceries at Whole Foods, Lowes Foods and a local market that sells locally grown and produced foods.
I go to Kroger once every other week for milk. They get milk form a VA dairy in glass bottles that is not homogenized.
A big difference is that you're not paying for the advertising of "name brands".
I don't think people would disagree with you about advertising costs being a bit less on the no-name-brand items.
At the same time, you should not forget the lowered quality product, also -- that is involved in that "lower cost" factor, too... LOL...
As you've seen here, on this thread, many FReepers have noticed that lowered quality (including me), to the point where some have "banned" those products from their home -- in that it was so bad.
And yes, you'll find some products where you can't tell the difference, and other products, where you can tell the difference and it's lowered quality, but some people will take the lowered quality product for the price savings.
And then there are those who find it so bad that they wouldn't take it, if it were free... LOL...
That's why a lot of people go for name-brand products... those products "live or die" on the basis of whether people will keep buying it, so they have to be good, or else they will not be around any longer... :-)
BUT... notice that here in this thread, the issue that was being discussed was not whether no-name brands were worth it or not (it's okay if you want to mention it, but that's not what brought up the topic here).
What brought up the topic here -- was that Walmart has discontinued certain name-brand products, and has only stocked their own no-name brand -- only -- and thus, they have shoved certain of their customers "out of Walmart" and right into the hands of Walmart's competitors in order to get the name-brand product that Walmart discontinued.
That's the issue that the main article mentioned and that's the one where I said it was an extremely stupid marketing move on Walmart's behalf to shove their own customers into the hands of their competitors... :-)
Whole Foods is great.. they have good food...
Obviously you know where to go to get the best for your money... :-)
I was only commenting on the price differential. That can be quite significant.
I don’t disagree at all that WalMart has embarked on poor marketing strategies, though I’m not a big WalMart shopper anyway.
The only convenient one around me was shut down for a long period of time for a major remodeling, and once it opened up again a couple of months ago, I noticed that they vastly expanded the grocery section at the expense of other product categories.
If anything THAT was the marketing mistake that they made.
So far, I haven’t even noticed any store brand food products there, not that I’ve really looked. Maybe that’s yet to come.
What I found was the magazine and book section had shrunk to a fraction of what it was, same with the clothing sections, and so on and so forth. With a third of the store now devoted to groceries, everything else has to suffer. And that’s made it a much less useful store.
And almost every shopping cart has at least one square wheel.
If I want food, I’ll go to one of any number of supermarkets in the area. They will have a much better selection anyway and perishable products seem to be fresher than at WalMart.
I have found some store brand products that are excellent, some that are not, but you can say the same thing about name brand products.
I disagree that you can automatically expect poorer quality on a store brand. You try them once, if you like what you get, you buy again. If not, you look elsewhere.
Their brand is a white label (or white box, or white package) with hardly anything printed on it... and it’s called “Great Value”...
I would really be surprised if they did not have that in the grocery section.
bump
Oatmeal doesn’t sound good in my tuna salad.
bump
I went into my local one day for Penzoil or a quart of 10W30 or 40, None was to be had but a generic. It was that way two days later and a week later. Walmart will not stay in business operating like this.
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To add some fiber and cut cholesterol
Just a tad I guess
I add lemon juice to the tuna before adding mayo - Hellman’s Olive Oil Mayo now - cuts mucho fats and tastes great
I have not yet tried adding Quaker Oats oatmeal to tuna salad
Think of it as adding healthier bread instead of the average bread - which is loaded with carbs that put on the pounds
- I had a load of frozen booberries added to hot Quaker Oats oatmeal for breakfast - super tasting
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