Ghost of a flea

I never have had any customer service problems at Wal-Mart.

Would be interested in hearing yours

(Shrug)
I admit, my dislike of Wal-Mart IS in part aesthetic...but mostly "ideological". I despise them for their charming habit of having employees work weekly hours right up to, but not over, the point where they would legally be considered to be working full time (so as not to have to pay full time benefits). Also for forcing their employees to work unpaid overtime by treatening their jobs. (yes children, this does happen in real life.)
I also despite Wal-Mart for brainlessly fulfilling Lenin's prophesy, in buying product from Red China: "The capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with."
Yay capitalism, I love it, but some intelligent, decent capitalism would be nice too. Target seems to be practicing this for the most part. What's the big difficulty?
(yes, I realize I'm being naive. Sue me.)

No Target in Canada so it’s not an option here.

Anyone have any experience with Wal Mart in the US? Here they are dumps - merchandise everywhere, poor lighting, dull colours, and surprisingly little variety.

I don't shop in them much but went in this past week to buy Christmas wrap. Had to wander all over the store and finally found it in the back next to the layaway area. Go figure!

The newly refurbished Zellers stores appear to be taking them on. Brighter, cleaner, more variety, and the Christmas wrap was up front!

You've got to tell me where your Zellers is, because the one near us, after a brief spiffing up in response to a new Wal-Mart, is back in the dumps again, as is the Wal-Mart. My wife has sworn never to shop at the W-M again after trucking down there on a Sat. morning to buy diapers and finding out that they ordered barely a carton and sold out the day before. The Zellers just filled me with despair.

Frankly, I long for a Target - everything I've read suggests that they're clean, well-designed and well-staffed. And if they push under underperforming Canadian institutions like Zellers or even its parent company, the Bay, so much the better - nationalism doesn't excuse shoddiness.

It's in Waterloo and so far, hasn't gone completely to the dogs. I was hoping that HBC had their act together and it was indicative of a corporate trend rather than luck.

I agree about Target. Sounds as if it might be a good alternative. Either that or I read too much Lileks.

We all read too much Lileks.

In my experience, the smaller the town, the better the WalMart. Sam Walton built the company in towns of about 10,000 people. I find in cities you can always find some store that beats them on electronics, others that beat them on clothing, etc. And so they become the store of last resort - and they act like it.

In a smaller town, the WalMart is staffed with small-town people who offer small-town service, but with big city selection. Relatively.

I'd love to see Target in Canada, though, because it's a rare Zellers that can compete with the local W/M.

P.S. If you get a chance, read Made In America, Sam Walton's autobiography. Good story. He changed the way retailing is done.

Most of the criticisms I see levelled towards Wal-Mart are not only applicable to them.

Made in China? Give me a break everything is made in China these days.

And for those to young to remember before China everything was made in Japan. Remember in the 70's the standard line of the hack comedian?
"Japan is not gonna bomb Pearl Harbour this time around. They are going to buy it" (rim shot)

Then there is the pervasive beleif that Wal-Mart's success is purely on the backs of their poor exploited employees.

I ran into a woman in line at IKEA last year who was buying stuff with her husband. They had just retired and had bought an RV and were going to drive all around North America.

I asked her where she had worked and she said Wal-Mart. To which I repliied:

"I hear it's a tough place to work"

"No way! She said. I was part of the Woolco stores they bought when they came up to Canada and Wal-Mart was a much better place to work than Woolco.

BTW do you all remember Woolco and Woolworths? Those were the places we used to shop before Wal-Mart. Not the ma and pa shop on main street.

Main street disapeared long before wal-mart. It was killed by something called the shopping mall.

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