Went to Walmart the other night...

[Black]

At the risk of repeating what others have said-- prices and selection are not the reasons one would conscientiously avoid shopping at Wal-Mart.

[jdc]

rgG wrote:
Not just mom and pop businesses.
Because of their unethical business practices, they have also helped to put US manufacturing businesses out of business. Businesses that had been around for decades and employed hundreds, if not thousands of people.

This.

We do 90% of our food shopping at Target. The Wallymart across the street from it is really bad -- I fear for my life just driving past the front of it -- and the Target is really clean. Go figure. Targets Prices are way cheaper than any supermarket, but on-par with Wally. We have checked.

We have a super wally close that isnt bad, but still dirty. Im always surprised that when I do visit at 11PM or later their are always people with their small kids. Ugh. Every time I walk in I think its what the rest of the world must think of the USA -- everything huge and to the excess.

I have yet to try one of their smaller "grocery" type stores...?

[Ca Bob]

The US needs to update its laws that make unionization so difficult to accomplish. Theoretically it is not legal for employers such as Walmart to suppress efforts by workers to organize, but in practice employers will fire people on the least suspicion. If Walmart workers were provided a chance to vote on unionization, and the labor organizers had a fair chance to explain the expected results, the work force would vote in a union overwhelmingly. The result might be to even the playing field between Walmart and its competitors.

Another issue that we don't talk about much is the price advantage that comes from using near-slave labor in places that don't enforce environmental protection laws. There is a process going on between the US and Europe that promises to unify a lot of the trade rules, and this may ultimately provide some environmental and worker protections even in areas that are not signatories to the pact, because the import rules will specify some of these limitations.

Another useful approach would be for the NLRB to enforce rules against suppression of organizing efforts, and to do so rapidly. This, as much as anything else, would help the working class.

[JoeM]

billb wrote:
[quote=rgG]
[quote=N-OS X-tasy!]
The issue with Walmart has never been their prices or the variety of the products they carry.

The issue with Walmart has always been how poorly they compensate their employees and the destructive impact their rock-bottom pricing has had on mom-and-pop businesses in a given location.

Not just mom and pop businesses.
Because of their unethical business practices, they have also helped to put US manufacturing businesses out of business. Businesses that had been around for decades and employed hundreds, if not thousands of people.

When Sam Walton was around, Wal-Mart was run in an ethical way. After he died, they changed course completely. :agree: I don't shop there.miley-signs006:

[jdc]

Sorry, but Unions are *not* the answer.

[bazookaman]

freeradical wrote:
I can't think of any good reason to pay the higher price.

When the alternative is going to WalMart I pay the higher price.

[SDGuy]

Black wrote:
...prices and selection are not the reasons one would conscientiously avoid shopping at Wal-Mart.

Ahhh...you must be referring to something like this...

[RgrF]

:agree:

bazookaman wrote:
[quote=freeradical]
I can't think of any good reason to pay the higher price.

When the alternative is going to WalMart I pay the higher price.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

You can do better than Walmart* daily prices if you spend a little time reading weekly ads. Their sales are designed to get you in the store and then buy the more expensive national brand. Up until six months ago (about the last time I remember seeing a study published) Walmart* stores have been found to cheat almost twice as often than any other retailer on sale prices by having items scan at a higher price than the sale price. This results in customers thinking they got good prices when they were actually charged higher prices.

[(vikm)]

Don't forget the other reason some don't shop at WalMart... they wanna feel superior and act as if it's beneath them. The whole, "look at the fat, poor, inbred slobs that shop at WalMart. Why aren't they as cool as me?"

If someone has a principled reason such as treatment of workers or how it affects local mom and pops, I get that. Hell, I actually applaud it. There needs to be more principled people in our society.

Coincidentally, recently I was out of town and near a WalMart (there isn't one where I live) and I nearly did a FB check-in just to tweak any bitch3s I know that may have been appalled by the mere thought of someone shopping there.