Walmart observations

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
Jeff
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Jeff »

https://www.whittierdailynews.com/2020/ ... -cleaning/

I wonder how many stores have had this issue. Apparently from employee comments on facebook, many employees are positive for Covid and the store closed to disinfect the entire store. That must be an undertaking.

Side note, this store closed for a while a few years back and later reopened for unknown reasons. It was closed for like half a year.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Alpha8472 »

A deep cleaning will not help much as coronavirus is spread mostly through the air. The source is the air being breathed out by people.

They are closing because the managers or security are out sick. The store cannot function with too few employees. I do not believe for one moment that Walmart is doing a thorough cleaning. They may spray some shelves or mop the floor, but that is all.

I have friends who work for Walmart in California and many employees are calling in sick. They are very shorthanded. The stores are so short handed that some Walmart pharmacies are closing early at 6 PM. Walmart will not let employees come in with any symptoms such as fever or cough. Some employees are taking advantage of this and calling in sick just to get a free paid day off. If they test positive for COVID-19, they get workers compensation to pay for their leave of absence which can be up to 3 months. Employees are just trying to get a free vacation.

A high rate of sick employees is common to many supermarkets and big box stores these days. It is nothing unusual. It is just that it makes the news if Walmart shuts down. FoodMaxx in the San Francisco Bay Area has closed their stores various times for a coronavirus cleaning due to outbreaks.

Walmart is poorly run. They just fired a ton of people to try to make the end of year payroll numbers look good. They think that fewer employees will make the numbers better and the store manager can get a bigger bonus. Now they are shorthanded due to their own policies. Walmart needs to realize that labor is not something to skimp on. You need more cashiers and employees or else customers will go elsewhere. Customers hate long lines. You need more cashiers or you end up losing customers to other stores. You also need more employees to restock shelves and help customers. A customer who is unable to get merchandise that is locked up will go somewhere else. Walmart is losing sales due their frugal cost cutting policies.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

I have noticed the past couple weeks in my area the Wal Mart Stores seem to have fewer employees and are not stocked well at all. One location in particular which was very good, it seems, since before Thanksgiving, constantly has pallets lining the entire perimeter of the non food portions of the store's center aisles and few to no employees stocking anything. There are empty shelves all over the store. I cannot figure out what is going on. Expenses are probably out of control this year and the result is cutting labor. Some of these pallets are sitting there for a week and not being touched.

The grocery areas are still stocked similarly to how they were before.

I was in Target the other night and while the store had very ample staffing, it too was a disaster, poorly stocked and messy throughout, employees mostly standing around talking in groups of 3-5 in various parts of the store (by the entrance, by the refund counter, in the middle of the store near clothing), restroom smelled when I walked by it, there was not even anyone watching the self checkout.

I think these store employees are "over it."
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by veteran+ »

If I worked for Walmart, I would find any excuse to get paid to be off..........................LOL ;-)

Walmart's core customer base will wait almost forever in line and be okay with ZERO customer service..............just sayin......

Walmart is poorly run when it comes to human beings, otherwise retail for profit for their shareholders and executives is legendary. They train their Store Managers intensely to be "mini" corporate executive types when it comes to profit which does not include considerations for their employees and many times customers.

Those raises to about $15.00 an hour in some areas is ALL about public relations.........FULL STOP.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by bayford »

IMO, the biggest problem with Walmart this past decade is that instead of having much of a response to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Aldi, and Lidl, Walmart’s management has been trying to position Walmart as an alternative to Target or Amazon. Nobody really associates Walmart strongly with innovative shopping experiences or unique products. What made Walmart into Walmart was its low prices.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

bayford wrote: December 18th, 2020, 8:33 pm IMO, the biggest problem with Walmart this past decade is that instead of having much of a response to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Aldi, and Lidl, Walmart’s management has been trying to position Walmart as an alternative to Target or Amazon. Nobody really associates Walmart strongly with innovative shopping experiences or unique products. What made Walmart into Walmart was its low prices.
I think from a merchandising perspective they seem to run with pretty basic items when you look at their categories. Sure in food they have some "Marketside" items which are above average quality but nothing exactly gourmet per se. Their clothing is very, very basic. Their home category, same thing, everything seems quite basic. The Pioneer Woman items in home are supposedly better quality but not really my type of item.

Where they seemed to go off the road a little was with some of the websites they bought out, or trying to reach customers who are not real interested in the rather basic items they sell.

Wal Mart is a cash cow, it is simple. The days of opening 200 new supercenters a year are long past them, they are no longer in a major growth mode. But they are very very profitable. And will continue to be for quite some time.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Alpha8472 »

I went to a San Francisco Bay Area Walmart today during the middle of the day and it seems like the store is unusually empty of customers. The toilet paper and kleenex aisle was almost fully stocked. Normally the crowds would be out of control. What is going on? Are people actually obeying the stay-at-home order? This entire week has been uncrowded.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by pseudo3d »

bayford wrote: December 18th, 2020, 8:33 pm IMO, the biggest problem with Walmart this past decade is that instead of having much of a response to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Aldi, and Lidl, Walmart’s management has been trying to position Walmart as an alternative to Target or Amazon. Nobody really associates Walmart strongly with innovative shopping experiences or unique products. What made Walmart into Walmart was its low prices.
Walmart has already catered to the lowest common denominator, so it doesn't make much sense for them to alienate any more of their higher paying customers by scraping the barrel with low-margin stores, low-maintenance stores (Dollar General can work by getting rid of a lot of the overhead that Walmart can't afford to lose). Sure, DG has succeeded in a lot of rural areas, but Walmart's attempt to do something similar, Walmart Express (previously mentioned here in this thread) bombed. It might've worked if Walmart had gone through and reworked the formula/merchandise mix (as some of the companies that picked up the pieces did) but they were not interested in doing so.

Their product mix in the Supercenter stores have become one of their greatest strengths as most of what was that competition simply doesn't exist anymore and what most of the other grocery stores have, even the larger, more ambitious ones, is still incomplete and/or weak (and based on observations and other anecdotal stories, most of the "expanded" supermarkets have and have had a real hard time moving inventory). Their soft lines are pretty decent and some items even on par with department stores (nice fluffy towels!), their auto parts and hardware department still has a lot of great essentials that can't be found in most other stores (except for auto parts stores themselves), large toy department...well, the electronics department has really leaned into the "mobile" market (can't even find wired headphones with a 3.5mm jack anymore) and of course the food section is still not up to par with most supermarkets, but altogether the combined store has something that now is rare enough that they can survive on that alone.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: January 15th, 2021, 3:21 am Walmart has already catered to the lowest common denominator, so it doesn't make much sense for them to alienate any more of their higher paying customers by scraping the barrel with low-margin stores, low-maintenance stores (Dollar General can work by getting rid of a lot of the overhead that Walmart can't afford to lose). Sure, DG has succeeded in a lot of rural areas, but Walmart's attempt to do something similar, Walmart Express (previously mentioned here in this thread) bombed. It might've worked if Walmart had gone through and reworked the formula/merchandise mix (as some of the companies that picked up the pieces did) but they were not interested in doing so.

Their product mix in the Supercenter stores have become one of their greatest strengths as most of what was that competition simply doesn't exist anymore and what most of the other grocery stores have, even the larger, more ambitious ones, is still incomplete and/or weak (and based on observations and other anecdotal stories, most of the "expanded" supermarkets have and have had a real hard time moving inventory). Their soft lines are pretty decent and some items even on par with department stores (nice fluffy towels!), their auto parts and hardware department still has a lot of great essentials that can't be found in most other stores (except for auto parts stores themselves), large toy department...well, the electronics department has really leaned into the "mobile" market (can't even find wired headphones with a 3.5mm jack anymore) and of course the food section is still not up to par with most supermarkets, but altogether the combined store has something that now is rare enough that they can survive on that alone.
Wal Mart just needs to focus on selling basics at fair prices in wide assortment. This is what they do well. This is what the customer expects of them. Their logistics expertise makes it very easy for them to do this. Amazon has beat them out on technology overwhelmingly online, there is no question, but they have done a good job playing catch up and are a strong second online.

I agree Wal Mart's softlines program is not bad. Home program is good again for basic looking items that have no style or trend to them. I have been surprised with some purchases there. The physical product quality is better than what Target charges 30% more for (but it makes some folks feel better to say they bought it at Target and some of the stuff at Target may have a better styling to it if that is important) and assortment in men's clothing is larger. The "style" is boring and basic and presentation is lacking. Some basic clothing items I previously bought at Kohls, I have bought at Wal Mart over the past year. There is no difference in the quality or fit. With regards to price, Wal Mart may mark the shirt at 9.97 that Kohl's marks for $40 but if you play Kohl's promotion games it may end up cheaper at Kohl's, but Kohl's had shorter hours or was closed for a few months so that was that. But overall at Wal Mart it seems to me like their softlines categories are rather weak as far as traffic goes compared to their hardlines categories and they are much more effective at moving high volumes of hardlines goods than softlines goods.

I am curious what Wal Mart will do with the Neighborhood Markets. I think that is a low hanging fruit at this point that does not perform well and needs to be dealt with. It seems if they could figure a way to transition those into fulfillment centers for online orders, they may have something. But are they in the right locations for that? I am not so sure. The physical plant of the neighborhood market (size, structure) is quite similar to these Amazon Fresh stores...
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by cjd »

Walmart's softlines are pretty good overall. They have some good prices if you just want plain basic things like Fruit of the Loom hoodies or T-shirts, or need work wear items. I buy most of my socks and underwear there since they seem to have the best prices on 6 or 8 packs, rather than pay $20 for three pair of "designer" underwear at a dept store or nearly that at a discount retailer like Marshalls.

In the more formal clothing categories I feel like I can get a better bargain at the discount stores or clearance at dept stores. Also Walmart's athletic clothing is rather pricey IMO (especially things like licensed sports clothing which is probably marked up anyway because they have to pay the fees).

They also have a knockoff line of Columbia sportswear which doesn't look bad - I bought some shirts as gifts - but again you can find the real thing for the same price at the discounters or clearance.

I have not looked at shoes there in a while but I used to wear some of them in the past.
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