Walmart

[contango]

Very true, but then again, some of the big box stores complain that the customers pick the brains of THEIR salespersons and then go online to buy.

Always possible I guess, but the last few times I've asked for help from the staff at the big box stores it was clear they didn't have much in the way of brains to pick.

The bit that always gets me is the staff who refuse to admit they don't know everything about everything. If I ask a question and they don't know the answer I'd rather they just said so and maybe got the user manual so I could look it up, than fudged and made something up that's so obviously not true it's laughable. In my view there's far more shame in fudging and making up some rubbish, than in admitting you don't know and going to find a correct answer. I don't expect staff to know every single product in huge detail, but if all they can do is check stock levels they really aren't adding any value at all.

 

[freezerman2000]

Wal*Mart, in my experience, treats their employees as little more than second class citizens. They are not paid enough relative to their work, and I even was 'let go' during my first three months (probationary period for employment), despite letting them know I had a disability. I worked harder than a lot of fellow employees, and yet I got the axe.

Sigh. Wal*Mart doesn't care about you. They only care about profits.

It depends on the individual management at the retail location...some have crappy management(sounds like you worked at one of those),others have good management like where I work...only those who call out habitually,cause discord amongst staff or those who just plain goof off are let go at at or before the end of their probie status at the Wally World where I work.
I have had no problems..in fact,I just went full time with not even 2 years under my belt..some folks have been there for 5 years and are still part time.
Wally World as a whole IMHO does care about it's associates,although not on the level as when Mr.Sam was running the show.I believe that the good in this case far outweighs the bad.

 

[freezerman2000]

Always possible I guess, but the last few times I've asked for help from the staff at the big box stores it was clear they didn't have much in the way of brains to pick.

The bit that always gets me is the staff who refuse to admit they don't know everything about everything. If I ask a question and they don't know the answer I'd rather they just said so and maybe got the user manual so I could look it up, than fudged and made something up that's so obviously not true it's laughable. In my view there's far more shame in fudging and making up some rubbish, than in admitting you don't know and going to find a correct answer. I don't expect staff to know every single product in huge detail, but if all they can do is check stock levels they really aren't adding any value at all.

If we don't have what a customer needs,I suggest that they go to a competitor or go to our online site.Makes for happy customers.

I believe that EVERYONE who works in their department needs to know all they can about the products they carry..ALL of the pros and cons..If they don't,get someone who does!

 

[catholichomeschooler]

Wal*Mart, in my experience, treats their employees as little more than second class citizens. They are not paid enough relative to their work, and I even was 'let go' during my first three months (probationary period for employment), despite letting them know I had a disability. I worked harder than a lot of fellow employees, and yet I got the axe.

Sigh. Wal*Mart doesn't care about you. They only care about profits.

The Walmart employees I know think it is a great place to work. It provides a legitimate career track for those with only high school educations and it provides good benefits.

 

[Albion]

Always possible I guess, but the last few times I've asked for help from the staff at the big box stores it was clear they didn't have much in the way of brains to pick.

Perhaps the fact that we live in different countries has something to do with it. What I was speaking of is not speculation, regardless of how I might have worded it. Only recently, it was widely reported by one of the bigger computer stores in the USA that they were not doing so well for this very reason. I could name names, but that doesn't seem necessary.

And quite a few other retailers have stated that (regardless of the quality of the sales staff) potential buyers come into their stores in order to see the available brands and models and handle the merchandise, price them out, etc. and then, after deciding on which one they prefer, go home and order it online from someone else in order to save a few dollars.

The bit that always gets me is the staff who refuse to admit they don't know everything about everything. If I ask a question and they don't know the answer I'd rather they just said so and maybe got the user manual so I could look it up, than fudged and made something up that's so obviously not true it's laughable. In my view there's far more shame in fudging and making up some rubbish, than in admitting you don't know and going to find a correct answer. I don't expect staff to know every single product in huge detail, but if all they can do is check stock levels they really aren't adding any value at all.

I haven't found this to be the case, but I suppose that doesn't matter too much.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I know a mid-sized electronic-device manufacturer in Nashville who has been trying as hard as possible to keep his line all-American. His problem is that it's harder and harder to find components built in America, and simply impossible to get a custom component (say, a circuit board of his own design) built in the US.

Yet, he hates the process of dealing with Chinese manufacturers. Unless a company is big enough to put their personnel in China, quality control is murder to maintain long distance.

And this is a fact of life that won't be undone. However fair trade policy can deal effectively with the overall impact global trade is having on the economy in general. If adequate money remains in the domestic economy American business will find a way to survive. Of course immigration policy will have to be tweaked as well as a vigorous domestic economy will attract more low-wage immigrants. And about those guaranteed student loans that allow kids to opt out of working their way through college.................

 

[bhsmte]

Okay, so I occasionally hear about people complain about how this megastore hurts small business, and I'm not denying that it does.

But, the issue I have is, when exactly is a store supposed to limit its success? Walmart, if memory serves, started out as a small business until it became the success that it is today. I am sure the people behind it worked really hard. When are they supposed to stop working as hard? What is the barrier they are not to cross?

I hope I worded that clearly enough, please let me know if I'm not making sense.

Wal Mart is not the first mega store to have hurt small business, nor will it be the last.

 

[Johnnz]

Isa 5:8 Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left
and you live alone in the land. NIV

The rich absorbing and controlling the poor. We have some modern counterparts.

John
NZ

 

[Albion]

[
The rich absorbing and controlling the poor. We have some modern counterparts.

Who'd you have in mind?

 

[Loudmouth]

Okay, so I occasionally hear about people complain about how this megastore hurts small business, and I'm not denying that it does.

But, the issue I have is, when exactly is a store supposed to limit its success?

That would be the responsibility of government regulators who set the rules for how businesses operate.

If the people of this country decide that it is worth limiting the success of Walmart and worth helping small businesses, then they elect officials who can levy taxes on Walmart based on their profit and use that money to fund small business loans and incentives for small businesses.

We could also do some basic civic duty by teaching each new generation about the abuses of past economic monopolies, and why we busted those monopolies in the past. Help people understand the economics of labor markets, and how a lack of competition in the past led to terrible working conditions. Imagine if Walmart paid workers in Walbucks that could only be spent at Walmart at extremely elevated prices? Don't laugh. That's how some American workers were paid in the past:

 

[Johnnz]

Who'd you have in mind?

Large corporations in many areas. Some have revenues greater than individual countries, and can exert over national decisions and economies, let alone their in own counties too.

John
NZ

 

[keith99]

It is a fine line to tread. I too, bemoan the loss of "Mum and Dad" specialty stores where the owners know their customers personally and can spend half an hour to give each individual tailored advice, but then I do my groceries at large chain box stores. If we're honest, I think a lot of it comes down to us wanting to have our cake and eat it too. We want the personal small scale touch, but at low prices and with the convenience of having everything in the one place that only comes from a large retailer.

The sad fact is that really, the smaller retailers are hold overs from a time when people needed to be able to access most of their day to day needs within walking distance, from a time before virtually everyone had a car and driving to a centrally located large store was practical.

In truth, the only thing stores like Walmart et al need to do, IMHO, is provide an appropriate standard of employment for their workers and pay a fair price to their suppliers. If people aren't prepared to pay extra to subsidise the personal small scale stores that 9 times out of 10 don't have everything you're looking for, well, then that connection to our pre-centralised and globalised past is going to die out. People will complain and wail about how terrible that is, but at the end of the day, if they shop at Walmart instead of Surly Joe's Little Hardware Shop (Imperial measurements ONLY!) well, money talks, as they say.

I just want to point out that I occasionally did some work that required very small drills. It was not Home Depot or Lowes where I could purchase those, but a small mom and pop store.

It is now closed. I will have problems if I start doing that work again and can't find the bits or break the few I still have (somewhere).

Need part of a hasp set? Good luck finding at a big box store. You may well end up buying a $15 set for a $1 part. Same for the pins in a door hinge by now. (well you might get lucky for a 3 1/2 inch one, but not for a 4" one).

 

[sarxweh]

Okay, so ... the issue I have is, when exactly is a store supposed to limit its success? [any big store] started out as a small business and became the success that it is today.

I am sure the people behind it worked really hard.

When are they supposed to stop working as hard? What is the barrier they are not to cross?

I hope I worded that clearly enough, please let me know if I'm not making sense.

You made a LOT of sense. Buuuuut...

No one wants to answer your actual question.

 

[sarxweh]

What is the barrier?

 

[sarxweh]

i.e. what is "success"


In the "business" realm

 

[contango]

What is the barrier?

I don't think it's possible to objectively define where such a barrier might lie. In any business you will have competitors sooner or later. The market might be big enough for multiple companies to exist in the same field but ultimately you may want to draw business away from your competitors so you can grow your own business.

Personally I think I'd be worried about where my business was going if I found myself doing whatever it took to squeeze a little more profit at every turn even if it meant a relentless drive to the bottom, squeezing staff and suppliers and providing a product of ever-lower quality so I could make a little more. But if the business has a unique selling point of being cheap, it can't do cheap by paying staff and suppliers extra and maintaining high quality. My own preference would be to sell a quality product, but if consumers prefer "cheap" above "good" the chances are the quality product would get squeezed out sooner or later.

 

[RDKirk]

What is the barrier?

There are arbitrary lines that could be drawn. In the old USSR, you could run a business as long as you did not hire anyone outside your family (how extended that could be, I don't know."

There are communal societies in the US in which you can get as big as you want as long as you don't capitalize the business--all employees are owners.

I'm not saying either of those ought to be done, just giving a couple of examples.

 

[Armoured]

I just want to point out that I occasionally did some work that required very small drills. It was not Home Depot or Lowes where I could purchase those, but a small mom and pop store.

It is now closed. I will have problems if I start doing that work again and can't find the bits or break the few I still have (somewhere).

Need part of a hasp set? Good luck finding at a big box store. You may well end up buying a $15 set for a $1 part. Same for the pins in a door hinge by now. (well you might get lucky for a 3 1/2 inch one, but not for a 4" one).

Hey, for real specialty goods, specialty stores are the only place to go, and yes, the big mono-cultural "any colour so long as it's black" type places will never fill that niche, although the internet has made finding really specific stuff much easier to find.

IMHO, there will always be a place for specific specialty stores. It's the old style general and corner store which is trying to compete against the much bigger supermarkets and wholesale suppliers that are one the way out.

 

[sarxweh]

I don't think it's possible to objectively define where such a barrier might lie.

Everyone who owns a business has an objective definition of what "success in business" means to them. That's the only way anyone works a business.

Whether you realize it or not, whether you wrote it down in a business plan or not, you still have a certain level you think of as "good enough".

I would say that the "barrier" to the financial growth of any enterprise ought to be the christian ethic (i.e. "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and rule over it")

But I realize that's a scary proposition to anyone who doesn't see the cross as the fundamental answer to "man's crisis"

But whether or not we say the barrier should be "biblical" everyone I think would agree (and on this thread has agreed) that the nature of the barrier is at least an ethical problem (right and wrong) - sort of a Mano e Mano of human rights vs business systems

I'm a carpenter and I know both I and my customers want quality, so I'll charge my customers for it when they can afford it, and I will eat the cost of the good materials if need be (in order to maintain a reputation) when the customer cant afford it.

Profit is just numbers. But its also just people. Sort of like saying Jesus is 100% man and 100% god. I know. But its true

 

[contango]

Everyone who owns a business has an objective definition of what "success in business" means to them. That's the only way anyone works a business.

Sure, but each individual person has their own answer. If you're looking for a universal answer you'll never find one.

When every business owner has their own goals there's no way to come up with a universal answer to "how much is enough". Some people want their business to generate enough money for them to get by. Others aren't happy until their competition is crushed into oblivion, even if the market is big enough to support many others.

I'm a carpenter and I know both I and my customers want quality, so I'll charge my customers for it when they can afford it, and I will eat the cost of the good materials if need be (in order to maintain a reputation) when the customer cant afford it.

That sounds very laudable. Just out of interest how do you differentiate between the customer who truly can't afford it and the customer who just doesn't feel like paying for a quality job when they can get a cheaper job done by cutting a few corners?