Re: Walmart changes name to Walnussen; why we should never be scared of Walmart
From: Archimedes Plutonium (a_plutonium_at_iw.net)
Date: 12/04/04
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Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 03:18:30 -0600
Now it has not escaped my attention that recently Sears has announced a
merger with Kmart. But what no-one really know is how successful such a
merger will yield in future years and what gameplan they conduct to compete
with Walmart and other retailers.
If I were the CEO of the Sears-Kmart merger what I would do is turn the lot
into a "high-quality at fair price" store. Walmart is a "low quality at a
cheap price" store.
Sears used to be a low quality at a medium price store and that spells
disaster over time. Same with Kmart.
If one were to walk into Sears of the future and see brands such as Bosch,
Stihl, Siemens, Toshiba, Sharp, Marantz, etc etc and in clothing such
brands as North Face, Descente, etc etc and at prices that are fair then
Sears would make a great comeback. And to include a food section in Sears
and Kmart, not selling the same foods that Walmart sells but selling
specialty foods of highest quality such as organic brands and imported
foods.
What ruined Sears and Kmart was that they became a Walmart motif of selling
low quality but at a price that was above cheap.
And now Walmart is facing that same dilemma of selling low quality
merchandise that is more than cheap but getting to be pricey high. Here is
where stores like 99 cent stores can one day outcompete Walmart. I even see
some 99 cent stores being built wherever Walmart is built because they can
outcompete Walmart. And if you look at Walmart merchandise other than the
food sections, most of that stuff in Walmart is junk and only worth about
99 cents.
And most cities in the USA have Goodwill stores. These are stores that are
charity stores were people drop things off that they intend to throw away
and the store tags the items and sells them and the profits go to charity.
I scout out these stores for glass and stainless steel and aluminum and
linen items. And one can honestly say that much of the items at Goodwill
stores are really junk but then what is the difference in low quality items
that Walmart sells and what Goodwill sells? In fact, if someone could trace
the origins of much of Goodwill items I would guess that a majority
originated from Walmart.
So can we compare the quality of items at Walmart to Goodwill and 99Cent
stores? I think we can. I would say 99 Cent are the most absymal junk of
low quality. But that Walmart quality is of equal or lower quality than
Goodwill because many items at Goodwill come from more quality stores such
as Home Depot or Lowes or even the high class stores where people donate to
the Goodwill.
So it is somewhat sad to reflect that a poor person with little money
probably can buy better quality items from Goodwill even though they are
used items then by shopping at Walmart.
So if Sears + Kmart becomes a store based on the premiss of "high quality
at a fair price" they should do well and flourish whereas the formula of
present day Walmart is that of "low quality at the cheapest price" which is
a philosophy that the consumer really is not better off because the item
will not last long and not perform well.
And I hope executives of Walmart read these posts because to them, Walmart
is a success story with a bright future, but I would argue that they have a
bleak future because the mantra of "low quality" always ends ruinous over
time.
By the way, today I tried out those matches I bought at Walmart in the
camping section of waterproof and they were inferior quality to the Coleman
brand of waterproof camping matches I bought at Pamida a few days earlier.
I was having trouble striking regular kitchen matches in that many duds and
the striking surface would peel away too fast on the side of the box. What
good is a box of matches when only 1 out of 20 lites up. So I bought these
camping matches and Pamida won out over Walmart.
About the only quality items to be found at Walmart are in the food section
where name brands exist but those name brands of quality are few and far in
between. And every thing else you would not know whether you were in a
99Cent store or Goodwill or Walmart.
Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies
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