Walmart observations

[storewanderer]

WinCo seems to do better in markets where they seemed to have more of an established presence prior to Walmart's entry into grocery.

They were supposed to be a force to be reckoned with in the Phoenix market (with dozens of sites purchased) but lost interest after opening only 7 stores between 2012 - 2015.

What I have observed is Wal Mart drives down WinCo on price and WinCo also will drive down Wal Mart on price. In markets where both are present and competing against each other it is great. Add in Kroger and WinCo will get very aggressive on price and it can be a lot of fun. Have also seen some fun price activity between WinCo and Food Maxx in CA; funny how Save Mart will play ball on price with Food Maxx in CA.

In markets where you just have one or the other, pricing is noticeably worse.

Las Vegas is another market where WinCo hasn't done much. I think this is more WinCo's strategy. They are not trying to saturate a market or blanket a market with stores. I don't think WinCo ever promised Phoenix a large number of stores; that was more of a rumor a lot of developers or analysts were running around with. I don't think they are a marketshare leader in any market, but they always have some of the highest volume stores in a given market. They are trying to open as many stores as they feel can do the volume they want to do. They have little to no debt and expand as fast as they can pay for the expansion.

I don't like WinCo much. Terrible service in the South Reno location. Bad enough to make me not want to even go there. It has worse service than Wal Mart. The store and its products are okay I guess. They are great at being in stock. I won't buy anything prepared in the store; some produce after very careful examination is as far as I go on that front. I go hoping I can get through the self checkout and not need any "assistance" - hate to bug the rude employee sitting on a stool in front of self checkout. One young employee used to be dozing off up there and asking that one for help was always a joke as it was like that one could not do anything on the system; haven't seen that one in a while. The other night they had a guy who was actually walking around the self checkouts watching people and was friendly; that is about a 1 in 20 experience.

[Super S]

The problem with Winco is that they do not have a pharmacy or a large over the counter medication section. You can find a better selection at Walmart in addition to vitamins. There is also a better selection of garden products, plants, sporting goods, clothing, and auto parts. The toy section at Walmart is much better.

Well, WinCo is a grocery store, not a general merchandise store. That isn't even a fair comparison.

[Alpha8472]

I always wondered why Winco did not have a pharmacy or a large over the counter medication section. They have the room. A pharmacy would bring in more customers.

[storewanderer]

I always wondered why Winco did not have a pharmacy or a large over the counter medication section. They have the room. A pharmacy would bring in more customers.

WinCo added more Drug/HBA in the past couple years. Even though it is a single aisle, it has high shelves and is packed with SKUs. It isn't the selection of Wal Mart but it is comparable to say, Raleys, Save Mart, or Safeway at least.

I think WinCo knows many of its shoppers also cross shop Wal Mart, etc. Likely a cost benefit analysis and consideration of what health plans the majority of WinCo customers may be under having low reimbursements, etc.

There also seems to be a bit of a thing about the box store format having pharmacies. Save Mart kept pharmacy in a couple of initial conventional stores converted to Food Maxx but pulled pharmacy out in later conversions (such as the two in NV). Kroger even closed pharmacies in its Food 4 Less/FoodsCo locations very quietly a number of years ago at least in CA, not sure if it is different in IL (only one in NorCal was Salinas- was in the front corner where cheese/yogurt aisle ends and got walled off).

[jamcool]

Looking at SamSpade's post on the Roth's sale, Walmart is no better than #5 market share in Metro Portland.
If Walmart does start to collapse like Kmart 10-20 years from now, I wouldn't be surprised if Portland is exited first, along with the Boston area.

I don't blame you.
I haven't been to a Walmart in almost 2 years. Their stores are dirty and sad places to shop in. I buy a lot of store brand products, and I am not a fan of their Great Value brand. The Walmart employees I have dealt with are usually unfriendly.

As I've mentioned before, I split my grocery shopping between Albertsons and Sprouts. Sprouts for produce and organic products, Albertsons for everything else.

With the lack of stores in the Portland market, Walmart is a nearly a non factor. However, Walmart struggles to compete with WinCo. The price conscience shopper is going to WinCo and not Walmart in Portland. WinCo generally beats them on prices, is better stocked and the stores are cleaner.and better maintained.

WinCo seems to do better in markets where they seemed to have more of an established presence prior to Walmart's entry into grocery.

They were supposed to be a force to be reckoned with in the Phoenix market (with dozens of sites purchased) but lost interest after opening only 7 stores between 2012 - 2015.

The problem with WinCo in Phoenix is that they don’t take credit cards like the other chains do (which is a problem in an area with snowbirds). Also Phoenix shoppers prefer full service grocers-and the “superstores” over the warehouse format (WinCo’s predecessor-Waremart- operated here unsuccessfully for a few years in the 70s, and Food 4 Less and Megafoods didn’t do much better)

[veteran+]

Wow, I did not realize Winco did not take credit cards! That's a BIG mistake.

Though warehouse and bulk food shopping has never been my thing, the few times I visited Winco in Cali, stores were in great shape and employees were helpful and friendly.......................but very busy bees.

If I HAD to shop at a store like this I would travel farther out to them, to avoid the Food4Less type of store.

[Super S]

Wow, I did not realize Winco did not take credit cards! That's a BIG mistake.

Though warehouse and bulk food shopping has never been my thing, the few times I visited Winco in Cali, stores were in great shape and employees were helpful and friendly.......................but very busy bees.

If I HAD to shop at a store like this I would travel farther out to them, to avoid the Food4Less type of store.

WinCo at one point didn't even take debit cards. If I remember correctly, this changed around the time the store in Longview opened. They do take debit but not credit.

Moving back to Walmart....I have been shifting some shopping there as I have been noticing more out of stocks on specific frozen items I buy at WinCo somewhat regularly. Also, due to changes in the local water supply over the last few years, I buy a few gallons of drinking water every visit. WinCo had a limit of 2 for the longest time (and this was not always posted and I sometimes found out while being scolded at the register) while Walmart never had a limit. WinCo generally has better prices though. Walmart is HIGH on some things such as produce and dairy. Even Fred Meyer has cheaper prices (non-card) for milk.

[storewanderer]

I am noticing around Reno/Sparks multiple Wal Mart locations have the dreaded "MGR: TBD" on the receipt again the past few weeks. I find this troubling they have stores with no manager, so close to the holidays.

It also seems these "MGR: TBD" stores are in the worst possible shape. The store I went into tonight- I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it. I have no idea how many pallets there were in there. I was getting confused and lost just walking through the place. Literally disoriented not knowing what part of the store I was in (front, back, etc.). Of course the items I was trying to buy were not in stock, but I wasn't real surprised. In some cases I could not access areas I wanted to access due to the situation with the pallets seemingly everywhere.

[Alpha8472]

Walmart store managers make a ton of money. However, in the past year or so the pressure on the managers from those above them has risen to extreme levels. The store managers are under pressure to cut hours, reduce shoplifting (shrink), and it is really causing stress. It is getting to the point that many managers are quitting. It is shocking as the job pays a lot of money, but the stress from dealing with district managers and the corporate office is out of control.

The store managers can follow orders and cut hours and fire long time loyal employees to reduce payroll cost. However, they will be hated by the employees. It is getting personal. They are firing their own loyal coworkers that have kept the stores organized and made sure that the store is restocked. Those people in the receiving area are quitting like crazy as their own coworkers are let go for the smallest attendance problems. The few receiving and unloading people are stressed out due the workload and they are quitting left and right. This is happening at many stores. The managers at so many stores are quitting rather than betray their own coworkers and friends. They are leaving for other jobs at other chains where they get paid a little bit less, but those other chains do not have the extreme stress of Walmart. Walmart pushed store managers to fire people, reduce payroll, and costs. There comes a point when you realize that you are not a store manager and instead are a corporate tyrant. You follow the orders of corporate and fire people and ruin people's lives.

This is what Walmart has become. It is an oppressive company that just pays attention to the bottom line. Payroll is too high, fire any employee for any little reason. Understaff stores to improve profits, then the few employees remaining get worked to the bone and quit. Then the store has to hire new inexperienced employees who take forever to train and do a terrible job due to their inexperience. Then they get burned out and quit due to the low pay. It is a vicious cycle. No one wants to work for this company anymore. People all over are talking about the labor shortage. This is not the time to make employees hate their jobs. You need employees to want to stay at a company, otherwise they will quit. There are other companies that pay better and treat their employees better.

Walmart needs to understand that loyal employees are the backbone of the company. When store managers are quitting left and right, this is no longer a company anyone wants to work for. Walmart has created a recipe for failure. The stores aisles are filled with merchandise that is not restocked due to not enough employees. The merchandise is piling up in the back of the store and in the aisles, because people are quitting left and right. The store has no manager and no direction.

Enough is enough. Walmart needs to stop with the metrics about payroll costs and cutting employee hours. They need to increase staffing so that the merchandise can get restocked. They need more employee hours so that merchandise can be unloaded from the trucks and put on the floor. The stores need more cashier hours so that the lines are not insanely out of control and customers have to wait 35 minutes in line just to check out. Next, the stores need more employees on the floor to restock the shelves and those employees need to have to keys to the locked cabinets so that customers can actually buy the merchandise that is locked behind glass doors. Also, instead of firing the janitors, they need to bring back the janitors. One janitor for an entire store during the day is not enough. If you have wet spills on the floor and no one to clean it up, the customers will fall and sue the store. The lawsuits will cost much more than trying to save a few dollars on the payroll of a janitor. Some stores do not have any janitors at night at all. Seriously, how can a store operate like this. Dirty stores, food spills, bugs, rodent problems, clogged plumbing, etc. This is all preventable if someone would just hire a few more janitors.

[cjd]

I just want to say be very careful at the Walmart self checkouts.

I had not been to Walmart for a while. But tonight I went. I had only about 5 things to buy. I scanned two small items (a container of mints and box of toaster strudels) and then tried to scan a bottle of soda. The system locked up and said I needed approval to continue (for a bottle of soda??!)

When I finally got someone to come over I told them it wouldn't scan. They scanned their ID card in and the system showed footage of me scanning the first two items and putting them in the bag. I had one item in each hand in the footage.

So it basically accused me of stealing, why I do not know. They took the two items it showed on the camera out of the bag and wanted to know where they were on the list I pointed to both of them on the list of items. I had scanned both of them. They scanned one of them to look at the price and then cleared it. They said everything was fine.

I've never heard of this happening and don't know what it was about. But I'd advise you to be very very careful at these checkouts because apparently they've added some kind of camera artificial intelligence or something similar to the setup that is monitoring footage for stealing. And apparently it doesn't just trigger when people are truly shoplifting.

It was a very scary feeling being what amounts to being accused of shoplifting by a self checkout. Never stolen anything in my life, don't plan to, certainly don't need to.

I did a Google search and found a few headlines from late 2021 (November/December) to 2022 about this. I didn't read through the articles but apparently this sort of "accused of shoplifting" thing has been happening.

I still don't know what triggered this as everything in the bags was on the list. I hadn't "accidentally" not scanned anything.