Went to Walmart the other night...

[Lux Interior]

If you don't see a Person-of-WalMart when you are there, then it's you.

:biggrin:

[freeradical]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
You can do better than Walmart* daily prices if you spend a little time reading weekly ads.

The reason food stores put items on sale in weekly fliers is to get you to buy the expensive complementary goods that you'll need if you buy the marked down item.

For example, a supermarket will deeply discount an already inexpensive brand of hot dogs. If you buy they hot dogs, you'll need the expensive buns to go with them. Next to the buns, the store will put some expensive gourmet brand of mustard on display...

[$tevie]

The thing that nobody here seems to be considering is that for some people "ethical" decisions are simply not affordable. While I am shocked at how Walmart expects me to subsidize their employees with food stamps and health assistance, I don't see how a lower income family of, say, four could afford Safeway or Giant these days. Food prices are through the roof and like it or not, you can save some serious money grocery shopping at Walmart. Which I don't, but then again I'm not trying to raise a family.

[graylocks]

$tevie wrote:
The thing that nobody here seems to be considering is that for some people "ethical" decisions are simply not affordable.

yep.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Anybody ever hear of the term Company Store in the Company Town? It can be tough to afford to shop at stores in other cities after Walmart* puts all the local stores out of business.

[john dough]

When Wal-Mart opened in my area, a mom + pop store that was locally owned and run by some very nice people was driven to close (they were within 3 blocks of that store and a majority of the customers started shopping at the WM - according to the owner). That store was around for 15 years and everyone knew the family that ran it, and since then (about 2 years ago), the old store is still vacant.

Every dollar that you spend at WM helps close local businesses and hurts your local economy. Smaller stores cannot compete on price as they buy hundreds to thousands of times as much product (or more) and lock vendors into prices that no other retailer has the power to do so. They play dirty and threaten vendors to get what they want, as in this instance: http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

I would rather pay a little more at my locally owned store as the money goes to people in my community, not to some WM heir that has more money than they will ever spend in a hundred lifetimes. I don't care what sort of deals WM offers, they are never getting one penny from our family.

Check out this story on how WM hurts your local eco-system as well: http://www.american-buddha.com/walmart.scr47.htm

[john dough]

$tevie wrote:
The thing that nobody here seems to be considering is that for some people "ethical" decisions are simply not affordable. While I am shocked at how Walmart expects me to subsidize their employees with food stamps and health assistance, I don't see how a lower income family of, say, four could afford Safeway or Giant these days. Food prices are through the roof and like it or not, you can save some serious money grocery shopping at Walmart. Which I don't, but then again I'm not trying to raise a family.

While this may not be true in all areas, there ARE co-ops where you can save a ton of money, eat healthy, keep money in your community, all the while avoiding WM. I go here: http://www.utahcoop.org/ and I get 2-3 bags of organic fruit & vegetables for $30-$40, enough for me and my wife for a week; for a family of 4, it would run about $45-$55 or so. We do not eat meat but they sell affordable product from local farms and the meat is as clean as it gets (nowadays, at least).

I know this is not unique to where I live (there are similar places in San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, Boise, and Las Vegas) so seek them out. Co-Ops are run by local folk that employ local people and buy from local farmers; all things you want, right?

There are always options to WM and if enough people realized this and shopped locally, we would all be better off.

[C(-)ris]

We get all our fruits, vegetables, and a lot of our meat and eggs from the local farmers markets and co-ops. However, good luck finding normal grocery items there. Even if you did the price is astronomical on anything other than the co-op staples.

[graylocks]

john dough wrote:
When Wal-Mart opened in my area, a mom + pop store that was locally owned and run by some very nice people was driven to close (they were within 3 blocks of that store and a majority of the customers started shopping at the WM - according to the owner). That store was around for 15 years and everyone knew the family that ran it, and since then (about 2 years ago), the old store is still vacant.

there's a tendency to romanticize mom + Pop stores. remember, mom and pop may have done okay but they often did not employ hundreds of people, pay much more than minimum wage, or provide health insurance and other benefits.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

$tevie wrote:
The thing that nobody here seems to be considering is that for some people "ethical" decisions are simply not affordable. While I am shocked at how Walmart expects me to subsidize their employees with food stamps and health assistance, I don't see how a lower income family of, say, four could afford Safeway or Giant these days. Food prices are through the roof and like it or not, you can save some serious money grocery shopping at Walmart. Which I don't, but then again I'm not trying to raise a family.

My sister falls into that category. I have never spoken one word to her about how deplorable a company Walmart is - she doesn't need to be burdened with my opinion on the matter when she's busy just surviving.