Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

I've read and heard stuff about how we shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart with various reasons why....

Here's some of the reasons I've heard about why I should not shop at Wal-Mart:

- they treat employees poorly
- they are responsible for poor working conditions and child labor/sweat shops in 3rd world and developing countries
- they have destroyed American towns and commerce (mom-n-pop shops)
- they represent everything that is ugly about America

What are your thoughts?

Do you shop at Wal mart??
Is there anything that would stop you from shopping there ?

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

shhh stMark everyone is to sleep

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

I understand that your gift registry will be at Wal-Mart when you get married. Is this true?

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

A Necessary Evil...

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Now, that's not nice.....I've seen some nice looking people in Walmart.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

I dont' really "enjoy" shopping there, BUT, as a cake decorator the prices for my ingredients are much cheaper and when you are doing a wedding cake and groom's cake for 200 people......well 'nuff said.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Do you shop at Sam's since you have to have it in bulk?

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

:toofunny

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Most of the super walmarts I have been in have been dirty, trashy, stuff all over, cardboard boxes. I try not to go to Walmart just because I feel like I am in an open market in Mexico.

Once in a while they have a good orange or two, they sell fishing licenses, windshield washer fluid and deoderant...thats about it.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

I shop there because it is significantly cheaper, especially for groceries. If I was independently wealthy, maybe I could shop and be socially conscious, but since I'm not, I go for the lowest price.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Did you alert the authorities? or were these nice looking people taking a field trip?

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

:toofunny

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Have you seen the new upscale ones? They built the very first one here in Highland Village, Tx. They are super nice and clean.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Hate it! Our town already has two supercenters, and I was so proud when we fought back and rejected a third one.

I never go there unless it's absolutely unavoidable. I shop at Target and Kroger which shows that I'm not necessarily looking out for Mom&Pops, but I just hate the atmosphere in Wal-Mart. When I leave Target or Kroger I'm happy and pleased with my shopping experience, but when I leave Wal-Mart I usually want to shoot someone.

I think I did a blog post about Wal-Mart last December sometime, but I can't access blogger at work, so I can't put up a link.

ETA: StMark, could you PLEASE fix your typo in this thread title? It's driving me batty.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

my wife does shop in our local Walmarts. I shop there for camping supplies and occassionally for oil change or light automotive supplies.

I can not find agreement with any of the listed concerns. Walmart is one of the only 'under 12.00/hr' employers that have a benefits package and a real track for vertical movement from the employee ranks.

the one point I am greived by relates to:
- they are responsible for poor working conditions and child labor/sweat shops in 3rd world and developing countries

BY NO MEANS are they RESPONSIBLE, but they are a SIGNIFICANT ENABLER of the autrocities that the Chinese central government extorts from their weakest citizens. If our middle-class moms could be fully aware of the circumstances surrounding the workers who produce the products they consume, I think more of the economic boom funding the Chinese empire's expansion, would reach the families that do the work.

Is Walmart to blame for where they buy their merchandise? I do not think so. They have built an entire corporate mantra on "buy for less". I believe the corpporate buyers do have vast, untapped influence, but unitl the American conventional wisdom links the environment of the producers with the purchaser's decision-making, why would Walmart stir up contention?

It would be a foolish mode for a 'for-profit' corporation to find itself in....as moral crusaders where their own customers are fully disengaged.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

One of my brother's in law supposedly said that only poor fat people shop at WalMart. I ain't poor nor am I fat but I do shop there on occasion but not one of my favorites.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Mark, some of your posts are very thought provoking and others are just down right provoking!! :toofunny

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

After my father died when I was 13 and my mom was 42 she went back to night school and got her GED. Later she went on to college and earned her Bachelors degree.

However she lived in a small Louisiana town without many job opportunties. She took a job at Wal Mart and absolutely loved it. She made many friends in the co-workers there and saw many people in the community she knew as they shopped.

Wal Mart was one of the few employers in that small town to offer comprehensive benefits. Great health care and an optional long term disability insurance package for just $15 per month which thankfully she took.

When my mom was about 59 she suffered a stroke while visiting me. Her Wal Mart health insurance was fabulous and took care of the finest care and rehab with no questions asked.

That long term disability insurance plan they had offered for just fifteen bucks a month also paid my mom what she would have earned working for the next six years until she was 65 and eligible for her Social Security retirement.

Contrast that with a few years later when her healthcare was medicare that she supplemented by signing up for an HMO. When she had a major stroke that left her almost completely paralyzed, unable to speak, and tube fed, this rotton HMO called the hospital multiple times a day trying to kick her out to a nursing home while they were still trying to get her stable.

Finally the HMO rep actually came to the hospital herself to check it out and after seeing my mom at least apologized to me for trying to say she was ready to go to a nursing home. It turned out right after the stroke my mom had gall stones and could not longer speak to communicate what was wrong. She had to have emergency gall bladder surgery. Oh what I would have given for her to have stlil been on that great Wal Mart health inusrance she had when she had her first stroke.

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

Hey, I used to live in Highland Village. Now I'm over in Fairview (near Allen). What church do you attend?

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

I like Walmart, sometimes I don't like the crowds, or the fact that in some English is rarely spoken.

But without Walmart there wouldnt be a strong middle class they have single handedly helped fuel the middle class in the US.

They keep other retailers honest, without a Walmart presence, HEB, Safeway, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, whatever other corporate run Grocerer would raise prices 20% or more.

Yes they get a bad rap, but primarily from unions and their supporters.

Go WALMART!!!

Re: Your Opinioin on Wal Mart Please
 

:toofunny:toofunny:toofunny

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

You know Walmart is one place that you can run in to and grab that ONE thing you need and not worry about how you look.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Wal-Mart & Piggly-Wiggly is our only choices in our little town so we usually go to Wal-Mart but we do try to buy things made somewhere else besides China even if we have to pay a few more dollars. I would shop at Target if we had one. And Kroger. I miss having a Kroger.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

WalMart is great for the consumer. Most folks I have known who work there like it.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

If you run into Walmart for one thing you must have a lot of time on your hands. It seems like you are in line there forever. I avoid Walmart as much as possible. I hate waiting in line, and I despise their total lack of customer service.

I don’t care if they treat their employees well or not. If they don’t wanna work there, get another job.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Thad, please stop reading liberal, socialistic material.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

The employer has the right to distribute labor as he/she sees fit. The employee has the right to distribute his/her labor as he/she sees fit...like if he/she doesn't like the way he/she is treated then, get another job. (see Adam Smith). Besides, couldn't the same complaint be made about every employer at one time or another??

And yet this country was built on such labor practices. It's probably not a valuable nor charitable endeavour to take jobs, and money, away from 3rd world families because Western do-gooders don't like the fact that they and their children are sweating.

Ahh small town America nostalgia...which is responsible for how many jobs?? I don't think it's right to make a family of four suffer because mom and pop want to keep selling their limited products for higher prices.

So...it's not art...it's business.

Yeah...creating a new market, selling cheaper products, making convenience a business necessity for the customer, all the while turning a profit.

You're right...that is what's "ugly" about America.

It's called the free market...and you might think it's ugly, but it is the most American of ideas.

Do you realize that Wal-Mart is responsible for more production and profits than most countries?? Take that out of the American economy...do you think the mom and pop shops could fill that void??

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Almost immediately after Sam Walton died the service went down a lot. I think he must have been the only force on the board insisting on good customer service.

For awhile I avoided Wal Mart because of the lines but the last few years they seem to have staffed back up to handle the crowds and I don't have any problems with the ones in my area.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Some of the newer Walmart's have self check out and that's really nice!

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

I shop Wal Mart most of the time because it is convenient and the prices are better. In our community it is the biggest "game" in town. But I do not buy meat there- the meat there is terrible. If I have a few groceries to purchase or buy meat I go to a local mom and pop grocery.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

very simple...Go to Wal-Mart OR Don't go to Wal-Mart.
At least our government has still left us with this choice.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Good point! :toofunny

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Do you own Walmart stock? Sounds like you are trying to convert me. LOL

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Our SIL does! :toofunny :toofunny

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

I work for Wal-Mart is it perfect heavens no,do I agree with the company on everything certainly not. But it is the job the Lord has provided for me,so I am thankful to have a job.

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

My dad DID......he sold it too early. Shoulda, coulda, woulda........:tissue

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

Scott, you look like a Wal Mart greeter!!:bliss

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

my wife works for them so in our haste to judge let us not destroy all the good, she likes it there and has decent benes,dt

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

....it apears there may have only be ONE who has exhibited a "haste to judge":drama

Re: Your Opinion on Wal Mart Please
 

My wife loves WalMart. Who cares what the left-wing media has to say about it.