Wal-Mart to use Scheduling-Optimization

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by 33girl

The sick thing is, Walmart reduces prices, drives everything out of business, and then puts their prices back up.

No, Wal-Mart doesn't drive the competition out of business -- Wal-Mart's customers do. (And in my experience, they usually aren't driving the locally-owned mom and pops out of business, they're driving other discount chains out of business.) The customers have a choice -- shop Wal-Mart or shop the other stores -- and quite a few of them choose Wal-Mart.

I can't stand Wal-Mart -- I'll go everywhere else possible before I go into their over-crowded, messy stores. Still, I get so tired of the Wal-Mart is the devil incarnate attitude. But if it is the devil incarnate, it only succeeds because too many people give in to the devil's temptation.

[valkyrie]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I can't stand Wal-Mart -- I'll go everywhere else possible before I go into their over-crowded, messy stores. Still, I get so tired of the Wal-Mart is the devil incarnate attitude. But if it is the devil incarnate, it only succeeds because too many people give in to the devil's temptation.

I agree with what you're saying. I'm going to sound like an ass here (but hey, that's never stopped me before), but I wonder if part of the "Walmart as devil incarnate" attitude arises from the thought that many (not all) people shop at Walmart because it's cheap and they're too stupid to know better and realize the negative effects doing so can have on our society.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

No, Wal-Mart doesn't drive the competition out of business -- Wal-Mart's customers do. (And in my experience, they usually aren't driving the locally-owned mom and pops out of business, they're driving other discount chains out of business.) The customers have a choice -- shop Wal-Mart or shop the other stores -- and quite a few of them choose Wal-Mart.

.

Exactly,

Walmart doesn't make the other stores raise their prices, they just offer lower ones. The majority of the people who try to keep walmart out of their town will shop there because of the prices and the "convenience" of being able to buy a napkin holder at 2AM. (South Park did a great episode on this)

In my city we have 2 Super Walmarts, 4-5 Krogers, a Cubs and a few small grocery stores that survive due to being conveniently located or having a full service meat counter. Those local stores aren't threatened by Walmart so much as the Krogers. And the Super Walmarts haven't harmed Krogers either, in fact it has grown as well. (Eagles went out of business and Krogers bought them up) Schnucks tried to move in to town but blamed Walmart on their store's failure... when a Kroger was closer.

Rambling here, but the point is that Walmart does not equal destruction of a city, here at least it functions very well.

[LPIDelta]

As much as a detest Wal-Mart expansion (we are about to add the 3rd store within a 4 mile radius of my home) I don't see a problem with this kind of scheduling. I worked for "the worlds largest electronic retailer" (think television) and I worked what was called "on call". I picked my schedule based on their projections two weeks out....got to schedule my own hours, and had a great deal of flexibility. And it always amazed my with how accurate they were in determining when we were going to be busy. I felt much more productive at work, and I enjoyed this job immensely because of it.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

In my city we have 2 Super Walmarts, 4-5 Krogers, a Cubs and a few small grocery stores that survive due to being conveniently located or having a full service meat counter. Those local stores aren't threatened by Walmart so much as the Krogers. And the Super Walmarts haven't harmed Krogers either, in fact it has grown as well. (Eagles went out of business and Krogers bought them up) Schnucks tried to move in to town but blamed Walmart on their store's failure... when a Kroger was closer.

Rambling here, but the point is that Walmart does not equal destruction of a city, here at least it functions very well.

What is Cubs?

Do you have another discount store? (Kmart, Target or a similar local store)

Do you have a department store? (Walmart is not a true department store.)

Do you have a variety store?

Do you have stores that sell clothing?

Do you have stores that sell CDs?

I'm sorry, but "Walmart didn't hurt us, we have 2 of them and lots of Krogers!" is in the top 5 of really silly statements I've heard where Walmart is concerned.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

What is Cubs?

A non-union chain supermarket

Do you have another discount store? (Kmart, Target or a similar local store)

A super Target, at least one Kmart, plenty of dollar stores as well.

Do you have a department store? (Walmart is not a true department store.)

The mall is just north of the actual city. Several large department stores and a Kohls. Downtown I worked at a small dept. store that does office/gifts/toys/books/wicker/christmas. So there are locals as well.

Do you have a variety store?

Not sure what you mean, but the answer is likely yes. We have a LOT of the chain stores though I swear they're sucky in comparison with the next city over.

Do you have stores that sell clothing?

See said mall as well as stores downtown such as Talbots and locals.

Do you have stores that sell CDs?

BB, CC, and locals. Suncoast/Sam Goody dropped our store (and most of them in the area) when they got bought out.

I'm sorry, but "Walmart didn't hurt us, we have 2 of them and lots of Krogers!" is in the top 5 of really silly statements I've heard where Walmart is concerned.

The majority of stores that close or leave our area are due to corporate issues. Our downtown started struggling when the city said "we don't need the mall" and let it go outside of the city limits. To be fair, at the store I worked at downtown, everyone would have earned more money (except the owner) working at Walmart. That said, they made most of their money off of selling wicker furniture and Christmas trees anyway so Walmart wasn't much of a competition.

Grocery stores are just one example because I felt like I was already rambling. Supermarkets put many local grocers out of business years ago. Yet most people now shop at the nearest supermarket, even if they shop around for a few special items. Walmart isn't much more than a continuation of that trend. People just keep getting what they want.