Walmart Tales and Woes

[aja8888]

I just keep a few quarters in the car for "Aldi's cart money".

Ah, yes, quarters....I remember those!

 

[Teacher Terry]

Winco has better prices and quality than Walmart so I shop there. There’s only a few things I buy at Walmart such as toiletries.

 

[Gumby]

Things I buy at Walmart: dishwasher detergent, motor oil, cat litter, canning jars and lids, ammunition. That's pretty much it.

 

[ivinsfan]

Things I buy at Walmart: dishwasher detergent, motor oil, cat litter, canning jars and lids, ammunition. That's pretty much it.

However those things are all vital to life...can't live without them...cat litter but not cat food?

 

[JoeWras]

However those things are all vital to life...can't live without them...cat litter but not cat food?

Gumby probably goes out to the shore, drops a line, and brings in fresh fish for kitty.

 

[EarlyandLate]

My gripe with Walmart is their prices are not that low. Dollar Store is beating them on many items. Aldi and Lidl also. Even Target beats them now.

This can be true. In Walmart, like other stores, you have to be a very savvy shopper to avoid their traps. I have complaints about the Walmart near me. They are terrible about shelf price tags. I frequently encounter prices that are higher at the checkout than the shelf tag said. Many of the commodity items, i.e. dairy and eggs, have no posted prices at all and sometimes items on the shelves do not correspond to the tags under them. The second category is the pickup shoppers. They have an absolute army of them now. About half of them are rude. They will walk right in front of me when I am looking for something. They leave their carts blocking aisles and shelves. There is one who is nice. He is an older disabled man. He smiles and says hello and even helped me reach an item one time. They need to hire more people like him!!

 

[Gumby]

Gumby probably goes out to the shore, drops a line, and brings in fresh fish for kitty.

I get the food from Amazon. Heavy things like cat litter are not usually a good deal when they have to be shipped. And Walmart is the only store around here that has the kind of litter that the young wife has directed me to buy.

 

[freedomatlast]

I will say during the early stages of Covid during the spring of 2020, Walmart had their act together for pick-up orders long before most other stores in this area.

 

[JoeWras]

I will say during the early stages of Covid during the spring of 2020, Walmart had their act together for pick-up orders long before most other stores in this area.

They clearly still do huge business in this area.

One thing stopping me from going to Walmart more often for groceries are their internal shoppers. The isles are too narrow to begin with, and there are usually 2 or 3 internal shoppers with these huge cart-things clogging up the works.

As for "type of neighborhood"... Well Walmart seems to consistently lock certain stuff up no matter where they are. Home Depot and Lowes, on the other hand, selectively lock up their wire and other high value items depending on the neighborhood. YMMV.

 

[jollystomper]

I have owned Walmart stock since the 1990s. I'm not gonna complain much about them . There will be incidents like the OP experienced, since people are not perfect. But I try not to use one incident as a basis for a complete judgement.

I have 3 Walmart stores within 20 minutes of me, so they are on my errand route. I like the curbside pickup, a couple of times they have been waiting with my item due to the app GPS notification before I pull into a spot. I also like being able to return things without a receipt, and the online receipt lookup. The only problem I have encountered more than once is the mismatch between what inventory the app says a store has and what is actually there. Sometimes it says it is in stock when it is not, and vice versa. But these have been for smaller items, not for anything major.

 

[aja8888]

They clearly still do huge business in this area.

One thing stopping me from going to Walmart more often for groceries are their internal shoppers. The isles are too narrow to begin with, and there are usually 2 or 3 internal shoppers with these huge cart-things clogging up the works.

As for "type of neighborhood"... Well Walmart seems to consistently lock certain stuff up no matter where they are. Home Depot and Lowes, on the other hand, selectively lock up their wire and other high value items depending on the neighborhood. YMMV.

The newer WM super stores near us have isles you can drive a dump truck through!

 

[Tranquility Base]

Random replies to various posts on this thread.

Shoplifting is an epidemic at many stores, and not just Walmart of course. A couple of years ago I was getting into my car in a Menards parking lot when I saw a store employee chasing after a 20-something male in the parking lot. The male was carrying several boxes of power tools. The employee was yelling at the man to stop. The man jump in a busted up pickup truck and drove in my direction (a bit too close for my comfort) as he sped away out of the parking lot. Since I was leaving for home anyway, I followed the truck as best I could. But because I was driving the speed limit I soon lost sight of the truck. When I got home I called the police department to report what had happened and where I had last seen the pickup truck (in case the store had called the police about the matter). In talking with the dispatcher I mentioned how surprised I was that someone would load up their arms with boxes of power tools and just bolt out the front door. The dispatcher seemed to have to restrain a bit of a chuckle at my naivete and said this happens all the time, sometimes as often as 2-3 times a week at this particular store.

Foxcreek9's comment about fearing for the future every time (s)he walks around a Walmart is spot on in my experience. Near the Menards where I saw the shoplifter speeding away is one of two Walmarts (the north one) in the city where I live. It is located in a decent area of town, especially given the poorer area of town where the south store is located. But I feel safer in the south store. I was in the south store early one Saturday morning several years ago and I wondered at the time if I was the only person in that store who spoke English. The other shoppers, however, for the most part, seemed like decent, honest, hard working people, just going about their business like I was and not disturbing anyone else.

That cannot be said about many of the shoppers at the other Walmart. I've often said that if there ever was a mass shooting of some kind in this city, the north store would be on my short list of possible places where the shooting would occur. So far I have been wrong and I hope never to be correct on this prediction. But if something like that were to ever happen at this Walmart I will not be surprised one bit. I have seem too many scary looking people in the store and in the parking lot and have seen several loud arguments and screaming matches break out between people in the parking lot. I have no idea what they were arguing about. So if I have business at that store, I get what I need, check out, load up my car and get off the Walmart property as quickly as I can. This usually means heading in a direction opposite from the direction in which I live. But the key is to just get off the Walmart property and get away from Walmart as quickly as possible.

Wobbly shopping cart wheels are especially problematic in any area which experiences lots of snow during winter. Snow, salt and slush are be brutal on these carts and Walmart (at least around here) isn't known for cleaning or fixing anything. One tip I'd offer when you are trying to select a cart is to look at the bolts and nuts attaching the wheel assembly to the bottom of the cart. Look for a cart with shiny bolts and nuts as opposed to dingy or even rusty bolts and nuts. That's a good indication that the shopping cart might have been serviced recently and might have functioning wheels. It's not a perfect system. But it works for me about 75% percent of the time.

I can't speak too much to whether Walmart prices are low anymore. I know that Amazon's prices aren't that low anymore. Most of the time I shop on Amazon it is because I can't find something locally, not because Amazon's prices are lower. I have seen Target match or beat Walmart's price many times. I just don't have the patience to walk 10 miles inside Target to find what I am looking for.

I haven't seen the plastic hand baskets in my area for quite some time. I hadn't even thought about them. I suppose they might have disappeared because they kept getting stolen.

There used to be a few stores I would look forward to going to and browsing around or killing some time. There aren't any such stores anymore. Walmart was never one of them.

 

[Jerry1]

I have seem too many scary looking people in the store and in the parking lot and have seen several loud arguments and screaming matches break out between people in the parking lot.

I would never go there after one occurrence and especially after “several”. There can’t be anything there with such a great price that it couldn’t be gotten elsewhere.

 

[Time2]

My gripe with Walmart is their prices are not that low. Dollar Store is beating them on many items. Aldi and Lidl also. Even Target beats them now.

Years ago, my daughter was paying for expensive shaving cream for her legs. I was at the Dollar store and saw Barbasol was $1, I bought her a can. Next time I was at Walmart, I saw it was $0.88.

 

[audreyh1]

Fortunately they have really cleaned up the larger Walmart nearby. When we first moved here it was dingy, junky, cramped, poorly lit and hard to find stuff. Now it’s brightly lit, sparking clean, nice produce even, stuff is where the app says it will be, great self-checkout setup and a great order pickup service. Night and day!

 

[jim584672]

Years ago, my daughter was paying for expensive shaving cream for her legs. I was at the Dollar store and saw Barbasol was $1, I bought her a can. Next time I was at Walmart, I saw it was $0.88.

Pre pandemic Walmart shaving cream used to be $0.98, now it is $1.47. Barbasol now is $1.84.

 

[bclover]

I'm also not a fan of walmart but it's definitely not because of the workers. lol the "guest" in my local Walmart are really special.
Now I avoid it because they converted 70% of the check out to the self scanners and there is always a line. sorry Joe q. public is simply not as efficient as the old fashioned check out person. there is always always long lines.

 

[jazz4cash]

I would not be able to shop at Aldi because I never have change! It is rare to see anyone use cash here (I still do) but unless I just bought something 5 minutes ago the change is at home.

I saw a guy with a fake quarter on his keychain. He used a hardware washer the size of a quarter and put a hook on it. I was offering him a quarter to save him having to walk the cart back but he said no thanks and showed me his hack.

I had recommended Aldi to an acquaintance that was complaining about the cost of groceries and feeding teens. Next time I saw her she sneered at me about the cart policy. She didn’t even go in the store.

 

[badatmath]

However those things are all vital to life...can't live without them...cat litter but not cat food?

I always got cat food on amz when I had my cat. Good way to make up for not having enough for free shipping (I don't have prime) and I had to get his brand from a pet store not a generic box store.

Appears only 3 Aldi in my state and none close. Gas is $4.99 so no. I mostly get stuff from Frys (Kroger) or Walmart. I will say SOME of the individual stores are SO MUCH BETTER than others though. The one on the "senior side" of town is normally cleaner and quieter.

Dollar store is also no longer $1 here at least Dollar Tree isn't. I am not much for that either as the one closest to me is filthy but I did run in and buy a cheap thank you card yesterday.

 

[frank]

I think it pays to look around. things I buy on a regular basis, I find the best price and go there for certain products. aldi used to be the best for produce, but the other day I noticed walmart was getting in line with them. I think the stores around the midwest are usually pretty clean and have decent inventory, so not so much worry about that part of it. so many things people are getting upset about are the product of people misusing the store policies, walking out the door without paying for cartfuls of product is one example. people putting packages of steaks inside a purse or shoe box and then scanning just the purse or shoe box. shopping is like politics, it seems the minority makes it bad for the majority.

 

[GenXguy]

I don't have many choices, but I go to our Super Walmart often. If there's a line in the self checkouts, it seems I'm still able to checkout quickly. I've had no issues with Walmart, Walmart employees, or other customers in many many trips there.

As someone mentioned, the prices are high at Walmart, just like everywhere else. Someone mentioned they fear for the future, and I feel the same way seeing those skyrocking prices everywhere. That really my only complaint about Walmart. As for the customers, what annoys me is the healthy college kids that use the scooters to ride around in for fun so that they aren't available to the people that really need them, but I haven't had any direct interaction with those people.

 

[Chuckanut]

Chalk up another pandemic caused change for some of us.

Previously, I rarely darkened the door of any Walmart store. But during the pandemic the fast food joints kept their drive thru open but locked up every thing else including including the restrooms. It was then that I discovered the big reasonably clean restrooms offered by Walmart in various towns on the interstates. Slowly I started buying more groceries at Walmart when away from home. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Fermion]

I'm also not a fan of walmart but it's definitely not because of the workers. lol the "guest" in my local Walmart are really special.
Now I avoid it because they converted 70% of the check out to the self scanners and there is always a line. sorry Joe q. public is simply not as efficient as the old fashioned check out person. there is always always long lines.

You don't like the self check out? I love them. One fewer person that I have to stand near while they cough on my items and pick each item up to scan it after wiping their nose with the back of their hand. I realize the items may have been touched recently on the shelf, but at least I always take from the back of the stack.

 

[grasshopper]

I must live in the perfect WalMart world. We have free plastic bags, because our county didn't ban them. I have never seen a lock on anything, but phone and electronics may have some locks.

After living here 17 years and shopping at WM, I know about 50% of managers associates by name, mask or no mask. A cherry hello/hola goes pretty far when you may need assistance. I have never ever been asked to see a receipt.

It is not unusual to find Border Patrol agents shopping here, and most of the ranchers are packing, makes me feel safe. At worst I may get accosted in the parking lot to buy some homemade tamales or burritos.

I haven't owned WMT since it hit $100 years ago.

 

[frayne]

Guess I should consider myself lucky, I haven't been in a WM since before covid and no plans in my future to visit one. Same goes for Aldis and Target but the DW has drug me into Kohl's a few times under extreme protest.