Walmart observations

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

Post by storewanderer »

I know of two people who I would have described as "never Wal Mart" people until the COVID hit earlier this year. Then, they started to use Wal Mart's pick-up service. One of them previously shopped at Raleys, and the other previously shopped at Smiths. So, both stores that have their own pick-up services. So I was curious, why did they go to Wal Mart?

The one who shopped at Smiths said they went to Smiths website and had trouble with it so they went to Wal Mart's website and have been ordering there ever since. The one who shopped at Raleys said their Raleys did not have a pick up service (that is not true- they do have a pick up service in that location- however it is hidden at the rear of the store by the receiving dock so you cannot see it unless you drive out back) but the Wal Mart near their house did (the Wal Mart pick up location is very visible from the main road and as you drive into the parking lot, which houses various other businesses).

The interesting thing with Wal Mart is their logistics system is so good, they are able to be much more successful at fulfilling these orders successfully even if there is an empty shelf on the sales floor. If it is in the back room they will go into the back room and get someone to dig a pallet out to get the product to fulfill the order. These regular grocers when they are fulfilling a pick-up order, if the shelf is empty, sorry, item is out of stock. And in the case of Kroger where they have a speed rating for how fast they pull orders how many items per hour, it almost feels like there is a disincentive for the employee to go the extra mile to try and find an item that isn't in its shelf location. Not even checking the back to see if it is there since that is someone else's job who works some different shift to restock shelves. Wal Mart may not excel at the physical act of customer service but they excel at logistics, which in turn accomplishes the ultimate goal of actually getting the customer the product successfully. Wal Mart also has more bodies in the store so there is more likely to be available staff to "look in the back room" during the day for items while allowing the person on the sales floor to keep picking orders.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

BillyGr wrote: November 27th, 2020, 3:50 pm Where the Neighborhood Market was built was a smaller property (with a few other small storefronts) on a triangle of land that splits two main roadways, so they may have just figured that was a good spot but didn't have room for a full Superstore.
Wal-Mart might have made it there if they had taken the whole parcel and built a "mini" supercenter there. One of their most interesting locations I ever saw was in Edinboro Pa. probably close to 15 years ago or so. I actually was looking for a Giant Eagle which I couldn't find and happened to come upon this store located in a medium sized strip center more or less in the middle of nowhere. The sign said supercenter but all the while I'm looking at the footprint of the place and thinking there's no way no how they could cram a full grocery in there. I entered the store and saw that somehow they managed to do it in a conventional sized unit. A store of that size could've fit on that property. I also think if that store had faced State St./Route 5 instead of Balltown Road it would've offered more visibility. Even though it was right along a main highway, it was kind of easy to miss if you were on State St. headed into Schenectady. Billy, help me out here and correct me if I'm wrong, but does that plaza even have an entrance off State St. or is it just Balltown Road? I say it doesn't but I don't get down into that area too much. I just think this location was something they rolled the dice on and it came up snake eyes.
Last edited by TW-Upstate NY on November 29th, 2020, 8:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: November 28th, 2020, 5:48 pm One of their most interesting locations I ever saw was in Edinboro Pa. probably close to 15 years ago or so. I actually was looking for a Giant Eagle which I couldn't find and happened to come upon this store located in a medium sized strip center more or less in the middle of nowhere. The sign said supercenter but all the while I'm looking at the footprint of the place and thinking there's no way no how they could cram a full grocery in there. I entered the store and saw that somehow they managed to do it in a conventional sized unit.
There is a Wal Mart Supercenter in Globe, AZ that crammed the "Supercenter" into a normal sized store as well.

There is also a tiny Wal Mart Supercenter in Orangevale, CA which opened in its current footprint of about 90k square feet.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by veteran+ »

This all reads like a commercial for Walmart.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


Oh well................enjoy!

;)
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: November 29th, 2020, 6:39 am This all reads like a commercial for Walmart.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


Oh well................enjoy!

;)
Wal Mart is winning. At least in this 32nd inning. Defining an inning as each year they have operated supercenters. And it isn't simply because they ran a lousy operation but were undercutting everyone else and had a wage advantage like it was from the 1st-18th innings. There are other reasons they are winning now. As we have all seen over the years things can change quickly. Kroger put up a really good fight from about 2007-2016 and seemed like they were making significant progress on stemming Wal Mart's growth in grocery, but the past few years Kroger has completely screwed up and rather than continuing to take share away from Wal Mart as the were previously doing, they are treading water (at best- I think the situation is worse- but they may be treading water).
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: November 29th, 2020, 3:38 pm
Wal Mart is winning. At least in this 32nd inning. Defining an inning as each year they have operated supercenters. And it isn't simply because they ran a lousy operation but were undercutting everyone else and had a wage advantage like it was from the 1st-18th innings. There are other reasons they are winning now. As we have all seen over the years things can change quickly. Kroger put up a really good fight from about 2007-2016 and seemed like they were making significant progress on stemming Wal Mart's growth in grocery, but the past few years Kroger has completely screwed up and rather than continuing to take share away from Wal Mart as the were previously doing, they are treading water (at best- I think the situation is worse- but they may be treading water).
The Kroger Marketplace stores were one of the biggest victims of Kroger's shift in strategy. They started to get more and more Fred Meyer-like (and thus supercenter-like) with changes like scrapping the Ashley Furniture stuff and adding apparel, and were standing up against H-E-B in Houston while putting Safeway/Albertsons at a distinct disadvantage in other markets (AZ, CO).
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by BillyGr »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: November 28th, 2020, 5:48 pm
BillyGr wrote: November 27th, 2020, 3:50 pm Where the Neighborhood Market was built was a smaller property (with a few other small storefronts) on a triangle of land that splits two main roadways, so they may have just figured that was a good spot but didn't have room for a full Superstore.
Wal-Mart might have made it there if they had taken the whole parcel and built a "mini" supercenter there. One of their most interesting locations I ever saw was in Edinboro Pa. probably close to 15 years ago or so. I actually was looking for a Giant Eagle which I couldn't find and happened to come upon this store located in a medium sized strip center more or less in the middle of nowhere. The sign said supercenter but all the while I'm looking at the footprint of the place and thinking there's no way no how they could cram a full grocery in there. I entered the store and saw that somehow they managed to do it in a conventional sized unit. A store of that size could've fit on that property. I also think if that store had faced State St./Route 5 instead of Balltown Road it would've offered more visibility. Even though it was right along a main highway, it was kind of easy to miss if you were on State St. headed into Schenectady. Billy, help me out here and correct me if I'm wrong, but does that plaza even have an entrance off State St. or is it just Balltown Road? I say it doesn't but I don't get down into that area too much. I just think this location was something they rolled the dice on and it came up snake eyes.
It does have entries on both sides (the one time I was in there I had come from Balltown and went out onto State St. to head to my next destination), and actually the Walmart store doesn't really face either road.
The front faces into the property (basically towards the "point" of the two roads, but with other buildings obscuring it from there), with the two sides visible from the streets. Though the Price Chopper in the old mall property is kind of the same way (one side faces Balltown Road), while the Target/Lowe's are in the back but face out to the street.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by veteran+ »

storewanderer wrote: November 29th, 2020, 3:38 pm
veteran+ wrote: November 29th, 2020, 6:39 am This all reads like a commercial for Walmart.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


Oh well................enjoy!

;)
Wal Mart is winning. At least in this 32nd inning. Defining an inning as each year they have operated supercenters. And it isn't simply because they ran a lousy operation but were undercutting everyone else and had a wage advantage like it was from the 1st-18th innings. There are other reasons they are winning now. As we have all seen over the years things can change quickly. Kroger put up a really good fight from about 2007-2016 and seemed like they were making significant progress on stemming Wal Mart's growth in grocery, but the past few years Kroger has completely screwed up and rather than continuing to take share away from Wal Mart as the were previously doing, they are treading water (at best- I think the situation is worse- but they may be treading water).
I agree that they are winning.

Meanwhile employees continue to lose.

Competition continues to lose (some of it their own fault).

Consumers continue to lose for HUGE reasons they cannot fathom, long term.

Peoples from other nations continue to be exploited so Americans can enjoy low prices (long term.........low prices are not free).
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by buckguy »

I don't know that they are winning anything. They're non-food sales have grown very little in the last 15 years, even with adding higher end electronics. The online retailers they bought tanked after the acquisition because their bases didn't want to buy from Walmart.

Their e-commerce is growing but I doubt that they are outperforming the field (haven't seen anyone make that comparison). Logistics is their strength but long-term growth requires other talents that they lack--staffing and motivating employees, customer service when things go badly. Amazon is a horrible place to work, but they know how to interact with customers and they knew when their own delivery systems weren't working out very well.

They have a bunch of smaller stores of varying size in the DC area, which were proposed before Wall Street pushed them into doing more (and they ultimately pushed back). They have food. Given that Walmart hasn't grown much since they added groceries, it's not surprising. Their model has always been volume. Target has always gone for margins and key demographics---their customers overlap, but the stores are based on different models. Target is much more able to adapt to different circumstances--they seem to be doing fine with their smaller stores, which have gone into urban areas, inner ring suburbs and resorts and to varying degrees, they include food.

Walmart, in the early 2000s, seemed to me to be like Sears in the 80s. A mature chain with little room to grow. Sears had brief, surprising success increasing their base by upgrading women's clothing, but otherwise they remained stuck in a kind of middle road position. Their brick & mortart was solid, while their catalog was in decline. It was costly but relatively easy to lose the catalog. Walmart--back in the 80s was taking advantage of KMart's stumbles (they sold lots of poor quality house brand merchandise) and the growing decline of regional and semi-national discounters. They offered very good service, best prices on name brand merchandise, and generally well kept stores. When I next lived in their territory, the pricing was no longer that extraordinary, the service was non-existent and the stores were inconsistent. They had saturated the markets where they did best (exurban areas with cheap land) and the degraded customer experience along with the rise of Target pretty much meant they would never grab a large chunk of the middle class ever again. The stagnation of their stores, the demand from the Waltons and institutional investors means that they need to constantly increase profits---I'm surprised the last of the overseas operations weren't sold long ago---perhaps there simply weren't buyers. If the stores continue to stagnate (or worse decline) and they manage to at least keep most of their customer base online, they will be where Sears was when they phased out the catalog, except the positions will be switched--stores as the problem, mail order as the growth area. Except phasing out stores is more difficult---some could become fulfillment centers but they wouldn't need all that square footage. Some would close. But who will want the space? Retail is overbuilt in the US. Big box retail is saturated and some sectors, like Toys have vanished. They'd also have to figure out what to do with Sam's which has a few good quarters recently but has basically been a failure for years. Costco might want a few; some might work for order fulfillment, but otherwise that's a lot of dead real estate. the future for Walmart is not bright--they're highly centralized merchandising model and their dislike of addressing people skills pretty much will continue to to box them in.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by pseudo3d »

Walmart's biggest problem is its too pigeonholed in its store and customer base, with its customer base usually portrayed (and often is) as the worst of what both rural and urban areas have to offer, with apathetic (and understaffed) employees. Even if they make some changes that make it less of a pain to shop at, including improving self-checkouts (it's been a while since I went to Walmart so I don't know) and making some improvements to the food area, it's still generally a dreadful place that is never fun to go to, even before COVID.

This reputation extends to their online storefronts, which tend to get "poisoned" by Walmart's association. Their corporate culture as a whole needs to change if they want to disassociate with their reputation.
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