I guess Walmart thinks we are a bunch of idiots.

I remember the days when we'd walk down one side of the street and up the other, getting what we needed as we went in each specialty shop.

The car was parked in front of the general grocery/feed store since we couldn't carry all that. My mother would park the car, we'd do the walking and end up back at the car.

In some parts of the world, it's still like that.

Unfortunately, this country has been developed around cheap fuel, and it would be very difficult to make the transition back to the way it was 50 years ago.

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My biggest problem with Wal-Mart is that almost everything there comes from China, and it isn't made to last at all- I think if there was more manufacturing jobs here it would help our economy to improve. An almost 100% consumer driven economy really isn't sustainable and we're seeing that reflected in the economy right now. We need a mixture of jobs from all fields to be able to actively recover, but I can't pretend to know the answer on how to do it. I do try to shop locally, we just had a new Ace hardware open up here and the prices are comparable to anywhere else so I go there first before the big stores.

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http://georgianjournal.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXa10LAhve8

Or you could you know.... walk? Park at the grocerry store, walk to the other places, carry your purchaces in a backpack, then buy your grocerries last. Or if you want to do it it even smarter put a bike rack on your car/truck and bike it. Saves gas and good for your health. :P

Granted this only works in the real small towns, not the ones with the store on the other side of the 4-6 lane highway.

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You missed my point that "the best value for the consumer" isnt necessarily what the consumer is sold. And mega retailers dont go out asking what people want, they MARKET to consumers hand in hand with the manufacturer. Whole idea of advertising is to sell somebody something they dont need at a price they dont want to pay. They SELL what they decided was most profitable at a price point they consider most profitable. They convince people they have best deal or convince the consumer they need some particular shiney bobble.

Just hilarious that you think the consumer has any input into marketing decisions at all. Sure there are dud sellers, but for most part they just make the product bit more shiney and change the way they hype it and suddenly it turns into a success.

As to Walmart selling organic, it not exactly massive turnabout and wasnt some original idea they came up with. They just saw the success of the yuppie whole foods market type stores and wanted some of those customers stores and copied. Its all corporate produced "organic" so wouldnt bet too much on it really being organic. After govt decided to implement official organic standards and after the lobbyists got through tweaking those standards, not huge difference from standard commercial produce.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

IOW, I can't and neither can 90% of the people in the US.

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Remember, when seconds count. . .
the police are just MINUTES away!

Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. . .Davy Crockett

Your last paragraph contradicts your first couple and prove my point. Wal Mart didn't one decide one day to start selling organic food then use flashy advertising to make people want it. WM saw there was a market for it and started offering it to its customers. When the customers showed an interest WM expanded it. As long as people are buying it in volume WM will keep selling it.

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Remember, when seconds count. . .
the police are just MINUTES away!

Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. . .Davy Crockett

Not contradictary at all. Wally did a monkee see, monkey do. They didnt go ask customers if they wanted organic, they simply saw the yuppie organic grocery stores doing well and jumped on the bandwagon since they've been trying to "upscale" themselves. Once they made decision to jump on the band wagon, it was marketing, not customer choice.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Based on some of the posts here, I'd have to agree.

I see your point but I disagree. First off, listening to your customers isn't just asking them what they want or waiting until they tell you. It also includes looking at what other companies are selling and how well that product is selling.

Second, I'm sure WM did a lot of research to see if a large enough percentage of its customer base was interested in organic food. Its management is not stupid enough to say; "Look people are buying organic food at all these yuppie places why don't we spend a couple hundred million dollars to put organic food in our stores? Who knows, maybe people will buy them."

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Remember, when seconds count. . .
the police are just MINUTES away!

Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. . .Davy Crockett

The market place defines competition, not ideologues.

Organic is just a label and has pretty much been devalued by the large corporate farms and by food importation laws which allow anything certified organic in one country to be de facto stamped in another. So when you eat organic food in America from Walmart you're eating food that was certified under China's organic standards, or Mexico's. There is some overlap between the certifications, but not a lot.

When Walmart can sell organic food from overseas cheaper than I can grow it here at home, that should tell you all you need to know about organic labeling standards and Walmart's business practices both.

Back to the OP. Wal Mart knows some people ARE idiots who will buy just about anything with a clearance sticker on it. So when it first puts something on clearance it reduces the price only slightly. This allows it to get rid of a product that is taking up shelf space that could be used for something that will sell but still make a profit.

But if the item doesn't sell it reduces it more and more and more. Until it either decides it just isn't going to sell and writes it off as a loss and tosses the item in the trash.

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Remember, when seconds count. . .
the police are just MINUTES away!

Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. . .Davy Crockett

Maybe the neighboring butcher, tailor, gocer, etc. need to get off their backsides and earn a living rather than depend on the charity of their neighbors who choose not to get a better deal elsewhere.

Are you going to argue about the marketplace now? Our supposedly free market economy?

Do you realize how much of my tax dollars go to federal farm subsidies? That's MONEY forcibly taken from me and given to my competitors who choose to grow the crops the government asks them to.

Yes, they did.

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But sometimes he HAS to shop at the place that gives the best prices. What good is buying from the butcher, tailor or grocer if in the end he has to declare bankruptcy?

If you don't allow them to make a living, then why should they allow YOU to make a living?

Studies have shown that Walmart savings aren't as great as people think. Various studies have shown that shoppers have an overall savings reduction by only about 3.1%. Of course if you only buy specific things at Walmart then you may get more savings, but for consumers who buy ALL of their needs at Walmart it's only 3.1%.

Do you really care so little about your community and neighbors that a 3.1% reduction in your monthly budget is enough for you to bankrupt them?

I hope in whatever profession you follow that nobody comes along and finds a way to undercut you by 3.1%.

It's also arguable that there is any net gain at all. That Walmart puts other local stores out of business is a known fact. When those other stores go out of business then it results in higher unemployment which translates to higher unemployment payments by businesses, which they pass on to their customers. Less property taxes are being paid which forces local governments to raise property taxes across the board, meaning those who can still pay them are forced to pay a lot more. You'd better believe that your property taxes rose by more than 3.1% last year.

The drive towards ruthless competition and large megacorporations is what has ruined America.

Amen Ernie!

I think part of the problem is the age difference. My mother was from a time when school lunch cost 50 cents without the low budgest program, and 100 5 cent deposit bottles bought you more candy than you knew what to do with. To here saving a few cents is nearly religous as she remembers when a few cents went farther. Never mind the fact she';; burn up 25 cents in gas to save 5 cents on a can of beans.

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My mother was born 1919 so grew up in depression her teen years. Made an impression for sure, then the war years rationing. Buying on the sales at local groceries was big hobby for her along with coupons and all that. And she mostly walked with her foldup grocery cart so fuel cost not an issue (she didnt drive) This is tedious for anybody not retired with lot time on their hands. As an adult, wherever I've lived, I just found cheapest store in the area and do nearly all my shopping there. For several years now, most shopping at Aldis with few things they dont carry from Wallyworld. Except for sales and triple coupons all that gimmickery, the "full service" stores have incredibly high prices. And NO grocery store has ever carried what I consider truly high quality items at any price. Its mostly just hype. The more highly advertised brands with the more colorful labels are going to cost more, cause you are paying for the advertising plus the higher markup. gotta help keep those middlemen making their Lexus and yacht payments...

And I can remember when I was in school and full price hot lunch was like 25cents. Maybe it was even cheaper in low grades, just been too long ago. I didnt have kids so can only imagine how high it must be now... $5?? And carppier food.

I still remember pop coming in bottles and the bottles had deposit. When you returned them, got deposit back and they went back to the bottler to be washed and reused. You know cant even remember when pop started coming in aluminum cans. Must have been after they went to corn syrup and I totally lost interest in soda pop. I vaguely remember beer coming in steel cans and you used a church key to open them, no pull tops. Think beer in bottles was more common though. But mom and dad didnt drink so it wasnt something I paid attention to as a kid.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman