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Why Walmart is getting my business
Munki
Member CommonPosts: 2,128
Today I was pricing out a wii. I'm moving out of my dorm soon and me and my g/f decided to get an appartment finally. So it was unanamous. Its time to get a week so when people come over we can do something other than play "watch me play COD4 or WoW."
I looked around at prices, EB was a little more expensive, Futureshop... London Drugs didnt even have the wii and generally the prices were about the same with walmart being a little cheaper.
I usually hate walmart, I avoid it like the plague. Generally Id prefer to support smaller business but in the console market that doesnt really exist.
So I went to EB to see when their truck came in, they pissed around an answer. Went around, generally the same idea. I went to walmart the manager just looked at me, said the date and walked away.
This is when it hit me. It used to be id goto other stores because they had customer service. They would help me, they'd put one aside or help me get a good deal. Thats why I went to them. Id pay the extra couple bucks for a nice friendly experience. Walmart was a free for all but they had the lowest price.
It seems to me that far to many retailers are trying to out-walmart Walmart.
They have never pretended to have customer service. They want to stock up on minimum wage junkies and deliver the cheapest price with minimal customer interaction. When I goto walmart I expect nobody in the electronics section to have any clue wtf is there. I just want my item and to gtfo.
When I goto a specialy store, I expect them to tell me about any good deals. Figure out what I need. Sure many nail me with a few accesories so they make a profit, but atleast they are accessories id use.
That doesnt seem to be the case. EB/Gamestop just care about getting me the product, getting me to preorder some game that will be out between now and 2 years from now and sign up for some newsletter/used game deal.
Whats making them better than walmart? In my opinion almost nothing now... You cant out-walmart Walmart.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Comments
I've seen the same thing here in the US. None of the "Big Box" stores [Best Buy, Circuit City, even to some extent CompUSA] hire based on product knowledge, they hire for a warm body. Smaller software stores like EB/Gamestop are pretty much the same. The local EB DOES have a 45-ish manager that knows about older hardware and about games genres that he enjoys, but the kids stocking the shelves or ringing up purchases only know "if it says 360, it'll work in a 360. I don't know about computer games". I'm not saying that the PC is dead, but it surely lacks support from the software stores...
Just a comment to Munki: It's uncool to put your name other people's work - unless you are the author of "Calvin & Hobbes" [whose name escapes me atm]. Cool to use it as a sig, not cool to put your name on it.
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
I know that , especially in todays economic downturns, price is whats important. Still, I cannot get over the "Scuz' factor everytime I enter Walmart. For me, Ill go with the little guys or online, its only like $2 difference.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
When it comes to consoles, I actually go to a local store down the street. A husband and wife own the store and their kids work it when they aren't in school. Good deals too. Sure, I have 2 Walmarts in town (and they want to put in a third), as well as EB, but this family lives for videogames, so they have my business.
I'm not here to complete my forum PVP dailies.
While Wal-Mart more often than not has lower prices, and I will admit I have been lured by them; I would rather spend an extra bit of money and know that I am not feeding and supporting the beast.
If only EB-Games sold underwear in 20 packs...
Sorry, I'm not trendy / high class enough to hate Wal-Mart and I shop there quite a bit.
Reality of Wal-Mart pt. 1
Reality of Wal-Mart pt.2
Reality of Wal-Mart pt. 3
I now return you to you regularly scheduled, unreasoning hatred of capitalism....
i love visiting my mom in florida and going to walmart with her. we dont have one close enough here in new york. when i buy my house this year in florida, walmart for all the snacks/dvds/kitchen widgets. 24 hours, aisle after aisle of bliss.
chips, dips chains & whips.
Well, I live in Canada as well, and happen to work at a Wal*Mart in Ontario (Part time).
The reason you see so few of people like me ("Customer Service Specialists") is that Wal*Mart tries to keep as few people as possible on the sales floor as to mazimize profit and minimize expense.
What some people don't realize is that if you ask me a question, then become impatient because i am not able to assist you at that moment, it is because i am probably doing a price check, escorting another customer to a product, and helping another customer decide what to buy all at the same time. Some people don't realize (and i don't really expect them to) that we are often overwhelmed with helping customers in many areas of the store because Wal*Mart short staffs the floor constantly.
Also, when you ask us to "check the back", if we actually looked everywhere, it would probably take us 2-3 hours. There is absolutely NO organization/sectioning of back room stock in most Wal*Marts. We get skids of mixed product, it is stocked overnight, and whatever won't fit on the shelves is placed on one of many obscure, un-labeled shelves making it nearly impossible to effectively search for a product in the back stock room.
However, in a more intimate sales environment such as EBgames or FutureShop or BestBuy, they often have alot of people to provide assistance to the customers in a smaller area. There is often no excuse for their seeming incompetence apart from laziness.
(This is not targetted at anyone, just speaking from my experience)
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My build: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850, Asus P5GC-MX/1333 Motherboard, 4gb G.SKILL DDR2 667MHz RAM, Core 2 Duo e7200 CPU, 250gb Western Digital SATA Harddrive, Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit.
I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart despite the fact that it is ridiculously convenient. I just feel too much like a redneck when I do it. I get shivers all over.
Northeast for the win!!!!!!
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart despite the fact that it is ridiculously convenient. I just feel too much like a redneck when I do it. I get shivers all over.
Northeast for the win!!!!!!
Cryomatrix
I'd have to say that's a pretty retarded reason if that's your sole reason for not shopping there.P.S. The Wal-Mart greeter chicks are freakin' HAWT...amirite?
On the contrary, I refuse to shop at Walmart simply because it is inconvenient. Walmart is in a perpetual state of chaos, caused by the overcrowding hordes of mullet fanatics and women with 5 unbehaved children whom don't wear shoes, as well as the utter lack of personnel to assist the customer or perform register duties in an efficient manner and "bargains" that only serve to save the consumer a few dollars while simultaneously driving decent, competing stores out of business.
Fuck Walmart.
I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart despite the fact that it is ridiculously convenient. I just feel too much like a redneck when I do it. I get shivers all over.
Northeast for the win!!!!!!
Cryomatrix
I always shop at Wal-Mart because it is rediculously convenient. In fact, I go out of my way to shop there because I like being around regular people instead of snobbish elites.
Also from the northeast.
Vemoi
I used to go to Wal-Mart every week or so. Now I shop at Fred-Meyers. I think once they made the Wal-Mart here a Super Wal-Mart it just became to big and annoying to shop in. Not to mention Fred-Meyers is cheaper and has better selection here.
You know you've played too much Pok
I was straight-up told by my manager that he hires on personality, not on knowledge. His reasoning was "if we have you around the stuff, you'll eventually learn it. But you can't teach personality." Which sounds nice, but like you said, they're just trying to out-Walmart Walmart. We were encouraged to learn corporate structure and to sell as much as possible with a smile on our face. Customers weren't really respected, they were lured into a symbiotic relationship.
So now I work at my local college campus doing tech support. People are much nicer, and it's good to know my skills are getting used and appreciated, rather than being an agent of sales for the corporation.
_____________________________________
"Io rido, e rider mio non passa dentro;
Io ardo, e l'arsion mia non par di fore."
-Machiavelli
I've been to Walmart only twice, two different stores. Neither seemed particularly clean. Luckily, all I wanted were batteries and a broom.
I also agree, price is what is important and Wal-Mart hasn't been quite as EVIL as they have commonly been, it seems that with not many people wanting to buy stuff they have "cheapness" and a rising customer service. I hate to say it but the store of world-domination is slowly but steadily getting my business
Ive utterly stopped going to Wal Mart about five years ago; and here are a few reasons why i cant stand it:
1. They have this knack with screwing their employees and the communit. Employees just won a multi million dollar class action lawsuit because many of them were "encouraged" to work off the clock to maximize profits.
Also, a town in PA got pulverize by a mudslide three years ago from Wal Mart's shi**y zoning expertise. They literally brought down and entire section of a mountin, poulverizing many buildings in the town. Then they had the nerve to sue the town because the town changed their minds about hosting a wal mart. Thankfully, Wal Mart was still citied for zoning violations and were forced to leave
2. The customer service or lack thereof. I have lived from Pennsylvania down to Florida. From Virginia all the way to the West of Kansas and 90% of all the employees are the same. They actually try to avoid you (Ive seen them make eye contact and pretend they didnt see you and scuddle quickly into another isle hoping you wont say anything). Also, they have this unique ability to communicate with one word syllables. Yes, No, Maybe, uhhh, hmmm, mmhmm (shoulders shrugged). Some of them makes the state employees of the DMV look like customer service patrons for the local spa.
3. The only reason why their prices are so low is because they have tax deals with the government. That as well as a public wanting crap goods causes the spawn of Wal MArts like friggin Mc Donalds. Ive seen many towns that will have a Wal Mart and then 2 miles away, another one, and so one and so forth.
4. Dirty. Dirty, Dirt. I have NEVER walked into a Wal mart where I havent felt like I was walking into a Mexican Flea Market....wait...only once....when one Wal Mart had its grandopening and just opened. But in three weeks, that store was trashed too.
If I walk in a Wal Mart I feel like Ill get SARs at anytime, lol
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I don't shop at Walmart no more. I bought a game there, and a couple pieces of software. It was a bad move cause the key was already used. Not in one of them but all of them. Also got a few boxed products, and they were missing 1 key thing. The problem with unmotivated employees is that they do this kinda stuff. There return policy doesn't account for employee theft.