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Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

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Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#61

Post by r00fus »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #6

It’s price and the ease the price enables. Low price demonstratably rules in everything from plane tickets to groceries to basic services to clothing as it enables a life of abundance and mental ease. A friend loves Walmart as it means he no longer has to maintain his lawnmower. He just throws it away and buys a new one annually at the start of the season. He can still mow his lawn while abandoning the need to mainta…

Simply amazing. And I thought I was wasteful. What happens to the old mowers? Does your friend sell or give away his old mower?

I almost feel like our way of life (artificially cheap) is going to hit a brick wall once gas stops being cheap (peak oil).

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#62

Post by dingnuts »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32
chromaton wrote: post #15

Sam Walton points out in his autobiography that big cities are changing all the time, yet somehow people expect that small towns will not.

Small towns should be able to change and adapt, but Walmart being the corporate small town core is another version of enshitification (Walmart being your IRL ecomm platform), with your town's core dictated and governed by Bentonville, Arkansas. Build strong, local communities and economies instead: https://ilsr.org/ | https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/how-small-towns-and-cities-c... (it will not be extremely economical…

You might consider it enshittification because it's not as cute as "Main Street" but in rural and impoverished areas Walmart brought affordable necessities -- like much cheaper groceries -- and real quality of life increases for people who otherwise would have simply had to do with much less. The lower prices that Walmart is able to offer actually do matter and have a material impact on people who are not rich.

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#63

Post by leetcrew »

no_wizard wrote: post #14
lotsofpulp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if most people under 60 or even 50 know what strolling down “Main Street” means. In my 30+ years, I have never once strolled down a Main Street. I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).

I consider it the fact that Walmart for a long time had a mostly rural and suburban strategy that skews demographics to people 40+. It’s a Sam Walton hold over that I think is being slowly replaced. What WalMart hates the most is that they can’t get people of affluence who want to save money to shop at one though. When I worked there the complaint out of HQ I heard the most is that Michelle Obama and Oprah would shop…

I'm surprised they care. I can't speak for all "people of affluence who want to save money", but personally I feel that everything about the experience is catered towards a person who values small discounts a lot more than their own time. the inventory is barely organized and I have to walk all the way around the store before I even find the right section. it's even harder to find a human employee who might know where to find the thing I'm looking for.

target isn't a whole lot better, but at least they have more staff wandering around to ask for help. I'll pay an extra 20 cents on my megapack of paper towels every time if that gets me out of the store faster.

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#64

Post by pessimizer »

gdsdfe wrote: post #21

This is wrong on so many levels, are we really talking about urbanism inside of a walmart?

You don't understand. Both the departments in Walmart and buildings in a town are roughly oblong when viewed from above, so they're actually the same. Also, aisles meant to convey you between those departments are like roads conveying you between buildings. What more evidence do you need? /s

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#65

Post by gottorf »

throwbadubadu wrote: post #28
throwawaysleep wrote: post #6

It’s price and the ease the price enables. Low price demonstratably rules in everything from plane tickets to groceries to basic services to clothing as it enables a life of abundance and mental ease. A friend loves Walmart as it means he no longer has to maintain his lawnmower. He just throws it away and buys a new one annually at the start of the season. He can still mow his lawn while abandoning the need to mainta…

Except that we should have more long lasting things and should not add to the garbage pile because of cheapness and laziness :( But money sure trumps environmentalist idealism. Different topic: As a foreigner, really every visit to a Wallmart left me with a very strange feeling, because almost every employee had a zombie like appearance one or the other way, demotivated, sad or emotionless looking, slurping slowly th…

> almost every employee had a zombie like appearance one or the other way

For what it's worth, in my area (a midsize Deep South city; the customary environment for Walmart), I don't see this. But it is also a city experiencing some amount of growth with a viable future. Starting pay at my local Walmarts are the same as starting pay at a McDonald's or any other entry-level retail job.

I'm curious, where were the Walmarts you visited? I've been to "sad" Walmarts like that, and in my experience it correlates most strongly with the general sadness of the town -- places ravaged by the opioid epidemic, with few jobs and no hope in the residents' hearts.

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#66

Post by jxramos »

rblatz wrote: post #48
no_wizard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider it the fact that Walmart for a long time had a mostly rural and suburban strategy that skews demographics to people 40+. It’s a Sam Walton hold over that I think is being slowly replaced. What WalMart hates the most is that they can’t get people of affluence who want to save money to shop at one though. When I worked there the complaint out of HQ I heard the most is that Michelle Obama and Oprah would shop…

Maybe don't strew pallets of junk in the middle of aisles if you want to go upmarket?

yah, it's a much more cluttered and crowded experience. The demographics who shop there too are lower class and bring with them less attuned social dynamics and courtesies and other subtle etiquettes that are desired when out in public. People who are oblivious to blocking things, looking past you while they cross your path and cut you off with a shopping cart, being loud or verbally obnoxious, at times unbathed, etc etc. A certain class of folks would rather bubble themselves from such experiences.

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#67

Post by gottorf »

nathancahill wrote: post #26
rubyn00bie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential: but I’d really like to call out what a life hack, lots of cheap socks are. I got the idea myself long ago, as a kid, from the South Park creators, as they demanded unlimited new socks while making the movie. Once a year I buy like a 50 pack on Amazon and it’s great. 10/10 would recommend.

Like this quote from Dumbledore, when he looks in the mirror that shows your deepest desire: "What do you see when you look in the mirror?" "I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks." "One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

The older I get, the more I appreciate receiving nice socks as gifts.

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#68

Post by afavour »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #58
batch12 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A friend loves Walmart as it means he no longer has to maintain his lawnmower. He just throws it away and buys a new one annually at the start of the season. He can still mow his lawn while abandoning the need to maintain mechanical knowledge. It's hard for me to respect this as a valid choice. Waste and consumption concerns aside, the justification of not knowing (or wanting to know) how to perform simple maintena…

> Why even own a lawnmower at this point-- just pay someone to mow your grass for you. The lawnmower is so cheap that it is the same price as two mows. It is indeed wasteful, but that isn't a problem you deal with directly.

I’m not sure if you’re knowingly ignoring the OPs point or just ignoring it.

Buying two lawnmowers is vastly more wasteful (to the world, not to your pocket) than buying one and maintaining it.

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#69

Post by no_wizard »

gottorf wrote: post #52
no_wizard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider it the fact that Walmart for a long time had a mostly rural and suburban strategy that skews demographics to people 40+. It’s a Sam Walton hold over that I think is being slowly replaced. What WalMart hates the most is that they can’t get people of affluence who want to save money to shop at one though. When I worked there the complaint out of HQ I heard the most is that Michelle Obama and Oprah would shop…

> What WalMart hates the most is that they can’t get people of affluence who want to save money to shop at one though. Inflation is doing the trick[0]. For several quarters, they've reported marked increases in the share of higher-income shoppers, especially for groceries. [0]: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/18/inflation-walmart-prices-ea...

This happened in 2008 too with the housing downturn. Part of the store boom I participated in was fueled by that growth.

The problem is they can’t manage to keep most of them once the economy bounces back, and growth slows significantly (their top line growth was only 2-4% per year for most of the 2010s and they still aren’t profitable on e-commerce)

Maybe since inflation is a different beast it will capture more consumers like this, we shall see

Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town

#70

Post by sudosteph »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #7
no_wizard wrote: post #5

The layout is entirely by design to feel like you’re strolling down “Main Street” Americana. I learned this decades ago when I worked for Walmart setting up stores and training folks. It was explicitly made clear to us this is what the layout was designed to elicit

I would be surprised if most people under 60 or even 50 know what strolling down “Main Street” means. In my 30+ years, I have never once strolled down a Main Street. I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).

You've missed out then! I grew up in a town with a thriving Main St (Davidson, NC) and loved every minute there. The great coffee shop, diner, drug store, bookstore, library, ice cream shop, and gift store all come to mind. Its popularity was an outlier when I was younger, but since then I've actually seen other local towns with formerly dilapidated main streets turn it around (Mooresville for example). Walkability is in huge demand, and these older communities are some of the best options in the region for that.
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