10-29-2015, 08:00 PM
Quote:America was getting too Walmart-ized, and I was wondering when we'd ever see the turning point.
Outside of a very rare occasion, I avoid WalMart like the plague. We have a Target where I pay more- am greeted downright pleasantly by those that work there and walk up to a cashier who is ready to ring me up right away. No Costco in my town, can't speak on it(not going to buy a membership for a store I'd need to drive an hour to get to).
Quote:They also pay average full time employees $13-$15/hour which IMO is really GOOD for stocking shelves or checking people out.
For a cashier yeah, for stockers, at least overnight, that is actually fairly poor. Hannafords(same corporation as Food Lion) in my town starts part time overnight stockers at $13.50 with no experience- average full time experienced crew members are in the $20/hr range(one of my younger cousins just got a job there a few months ago, was talking to him about it the other day). To be fair, the productivity standards are almost three times higher at Hananfords and quite honestly, two years experience at Wal Mart doing the *exact same job* counts as a *negative* versus someone with *NO* experience(Wal Mart experience in general is considered a negative at most places of employment).
Quote:but all the pre-packaged stuff from Apple Jacks to XBones is the same stuff you buy anywhere else
You might be surprised to learn that isn't always the case. Frequently their package sizes are actually smaller- unit cost they are still almost always cheaper, but they are fairly clever in offering SKUs you can't directly compare to the competition(nor are the competition even allowed access to them to be competitive). This is a buying power issue, but let's say even a multi billion dollar distributor can't give the companies enough to get the same SKU. Fuck squeezing out the little guy, Wal Mart squeezes out multi billion dollar corporate conglomerates.