I posted some things to a Facebook buy/sell/trade site to sell some unused electronics like old phones and an iPod Touch over the past few days. Well, I guess there is a first time for everything but this seems to be a new low. People had a hard time figuring out how to contact me. Each time this happened I posted my phone number. Seriously, I have had my share of crazy stories but the amount of people who couldn’t seem to figure out how to contact me amazed me. I used to think that elections had to have been rigged/stolen when you hear about the crazy stuff going on in politics but now am starting to wonder. If there are this many people who can’t seem to read, understand, and follow the most basic of directions, then I understand how many elections go the way they do. I seriously posted to call me and my phone number like 10 times and I still don’t know if it got through. People like to rag on Craigslist but this was even more different.
People need to start being honest and start living within their means,its to easy now to rent a car you cannot afford and do no maintenence and default on it,if I bought a Car off lease,it would have to have been guarenteed to have been serviced by the dealer. Easy credit has generated too many defaults on vehicles and everything else and the manus dont help the car with the most desireable features usually cost 10K more,while the factory cost is probaly insignificent,greed fuels a lot of discontent
And Wally World hurts us in ways that are not readily apparent.
@kmccune I agree. My neighbor across the street is well to do, but even though they have a Cadillac and a Suburban (both paid for), his wife still drives her faithful 2002 Toyota Corolla. It has no rust and always starts. She says she will keep it until it becomes unreliable.
While the “Big Box Stores” do tend to draw customers from the little mom and pop store that used to frequent every downtown, I never could understand why everyone hates Walmart so very much. There is K-Mart, Sears, and other chains in regions that I’m not familiar with, that sell every item under the sun, but no one ever seems to be bothered by their presence.
Is it because Wal-Mart has succeeded so well in every state that people just can’t handle the fact that it is such a success. It’s not Wal-Marts fault…it’s society and the attitude that "we have to have it now and in one place.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d much prefer the way it was before the Big Box stores when your local butcher shop had such good meat and sausages, and you could see them in the back room where the floor was covered in sawdust while they cut your meat to order.
I lived in a little town in the 1980s where we still had a local Butcher and his small grocery store. You asked for 2# of hamburger…and how lean…and he would open the cooler door, step in and cut a few pieces from a 1/2 a beef…a chunk of this and chunk of that ,and he’d grind it right then and there.
Or the cheese factory a few miles from town where the aroma of the aging cheeses was pungent in the air as soon as you opened the door.
Or the local Bakery, where the doors opened at 5am with the smell of fresh baked goodies hot and fresh.
The local shoe store, the record shop, hardware store, the lumber yard, clothing stores where you were actually measured for clothes.
K-Mart is within two miles from downtown, but of poor management for many years. I don’t know how they can keep the doors open, yet people would rather drive 8 miles to the Wal-mart.
I have a niece that has been employed at Wal-mart near Denver for the last 15 years, and has through the years climbed the ladder and is now in management and she never has a bad thing to say about the chain. When her kids were young the store even worked around her hours taking and picking up the kids from school.
Yosemite
And speaking of Hummers, how much does a Hummer cost? They are nothing but phony body panels bolted to a Suburban chassis. How much extra is paid for the image?
I think the reason WalMart is so hated is:
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They are really impersonal. They don’t have a guy who owns the place who is really interested in helping you.
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They put the little guys out of business.
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The clientele isn’t the creme of society.
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If they have what you are looking for, great! But if they don’t, they have put the guy who might have had it out of business. Thanks goodness for the internet.
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They usually have very inexpensive, throwaway products, rather than quality products that last a long time.
I could go on.
Wal-Mart seems to have successfully boiled down to the essense what the vast majority of working class Americans want and that seems to be an impersonal grab and run multi-line store. But now that we have it we miss all that we had before. Are there any OTASCO stores left? Any Western Auto stores? For sure the mom and pop local hardware stores have disappeared. And can we assume that the decline of J.C.Penny and Sears is due to the growth of Wal-Mart?
My greatest complaint in the situation is the quality of the products that are available today from the vast majority of stores due to the influence of big box stores. Years ago I bought a somewhat expensive pair of Allen Edmonds shoes and wore them for many years because they were well made and there were shoe shops where they could be re-soled. The vast majority of shoes today are cheap and glued together and disposable and the public buys them and so all the shoe shops have disappeared. A good pair of work boots would be a bad investment because I can’t get them repaired. They would be thrown away when the heal and sole wore out just like a pair of cheap boots. But that’s what we seem to want.
Auto service and retailing in general has changed drastically over the years. Cars need far less service now and the family owned gas station/garage is no longer viable.
Department stores have always had a car service department; K Mart, Sears, and others always saw it as a profit opportunity. But hey are now only capable of basic and routine service. Our local grocery Co-op had a 3 bay service department, but that is all gone and converted to a 2 lane car wash.
Because of the complexity of today’s cars, the business model now points to the dealer or well equipped independent or chain. The department stores can’t afford or keep really skilled diagnosticians any more.
We normally start off with the dealer, located close by and when the warranty is expired, choose a competent in dependent shop with all the equipment.
For a muffler I might still go to Midas. Six years ago was my last visit to Walmart where I bought a good battery at a reasonable price. They actually had a guy who could install it.
I agree with @Yosemite, we’ve had big-box stores forever but WalMart gets the slam because they are the biggest. WalMart brings a middle class lifestyle at budget prices. Best place to buy kids clothes. Not the greatest quality but the kid out grows it before it is worn out anyway. Best place for limited use products (like Harbor Freight). Cheapest source of any boxed goods as long as you know what you want.
As for putting mom-and-pop stores out of business, mom and pop need to change their business model. They will never beat WalMArt on lowest price. They need to target higher end buyers. WalMArt has NO personal service, m-a-p stores MUST have better service to survive. My hometown and my new residence both have thriving hardware, bike and grocery stores because of this.
Just looking at the auto parts industry.
When I first started driving in 1971 we had two Auto parts stores in our small town.
NAPA and an independent…at least I don’t remember them being associated with a chain.
Both places had complete machine shops, heads rebuilt, to brake drums ground, to generators rebuilt, to bearings pressed. You may have to wait a day or two for heads, but both places could accommodate your needs.
Now out of the four parts houses in town, about the best you can hope for is that they can swap out the power steering pulley for you…if you’re lucky. The two guys that know how to use the puller may have today off.
They can have the machine work done, but it’s sent out and then they can take a cut for transporting the parts to and from some machine shop.
Parts are supposed to be of superior quality in these days, yet nothing can be rebuilt…just throw it away and get new. That is our "throw away society!!!
I’d have a hard time finding enough fingers and toes to count how many generators and motors that my dad and I replaced the brushes on.
Even the grocery stores have their agenda.
I went to our local “Pick and Save” (grocery chain) looking for a gallon of Cider vinegar for making pickles. The biggest bottle was about 12 oz. when I asked the manager why they couldn’t stock gallons during pickling season his reply was, “There is no room on the shelf for Gallons”. I walked him to the aisle to show him that they had about a six foot area of shelf space…from the floor to the top with every imaginable flavor and brand of vinegar from all around the world…but NO room for a few gallon jugs on the bottom shelf???
Pick and Save used to be the place to find great prices on the everyday items and bulk packaging. Now they are too busy catering to the people that want grape vinegar made in Greece for their salad.
Yosemite
Alternators, starters, water pumps, etc. are all still rebuilt
The difference is it’s a big operation
It’s not the guys at the small shop doing the actual rebuilding, not in most cases
hey, i try to save a buck when i can…and my “fixed income” is what my paycheck is…not a whole heckuva lot…however, having been in business for myself, i totally understand when someone comes in and begs for a bargain,but can also tell when it’s BS…can’t really blame folks for wanting to get the best bang for the buck, but you can blame them for not wanting you to make any money for your work…
Really, I don’t blame 'em for asking.
I do handyman/lawn maintenance, and YES there’s a “rich part of town” price, and a “poor part of town” price. If you’re a “working Joe” especially if you’re “from the neighborhood” you can ask (and typically get) a somewhat better deal than a out-of-area guy (or business). One hand washes the other, after all, and you do “favors” for the guy who took your sister to the Junior prom…
(Of course, I live in a town where you aren’t considered “local” unless you’re second-generation. In a Western city–where everybody’s "from somewhere else "–YMMV.)
@cwatkin
"The other one is that they will call you with a problem and want a binding estimate over the phone. "
Last time someone asked me to give them a binding estimate over the phone I told them one million, but odds were it’d be less.
- They are really impersonal. They don’t have a guy who owns the place who is really interested in helping you.
My local WalMart is more helpful than the local guys. The local guys don’t pay as well, sad but true. Our Walmart starts at $10+ an hour.
- They put the little guys out of business.
Well, I’m willing to pay a little more to shop locally, but when the local guy charges 2x or more than Walmart it’s kind of hard to support them especially when the local guy doesn’t buy locally. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard the local business person complain that people don’t shop locally, only to notice they don’t buy their stuff locally. Their car isn’t from the local dealer, they shop out of town, etc.
- The clientele isn’t the creme of society.
And the point of that is? You mean they service everyone no matter what they look like or how much money they have, what’s wrong with that?
- If they have what you are looking for, great! But if they don’t, they have put the guy who might have had it out of business. Thanks goodness for the internet.
And if the local guy doesn’t have it, at best he’s going to have to order it, which you can do, on the internet.
- They usually have very inexpensive, throwaway products, rather than quality products that last a long time.
Given that most people are price shoppers, is it any wonder that people buy inexpensive, throwaway products, rather than quality products? I can name many businesses that do just that, stock inexpensive goods because that’s what people buy, I can also name name brand products that have gone from quality to throwaway products. They are only selling what people are buying.
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We do like Wal-Mart for many reasons. Downtown ripoff artists hate the store. This store in Caribou Maine Called Buzzards or Buzzels used to keep an eye on you as if you would even consider stealing one of their red plaid $200 jackets. Just as soon as I change my name to Conrad or Peewee.
I know a few towns in our area that have been smart in competing with the local “Big Box” or big Grocery chain. You have to find a nitch that attracts everyone for that special item that the big places don’t handle or you’d like the item to be unique.
Gift shops, Ice cream shops, specialty candy stores, patio furniture, custom jewelry, antiques,
Leather specialties, just to name a few.
One small town…60% of the stores handle things that The big box won’t. That draws people to walk the streets and see what other unique stores there are.
As a kid, I remember Friday nights being the night to “Window shop” to see what was offered around town. That went away for many years, but it’s coming back as more and more specialty stores open up.
Yosemite
I went to the dealer to get some wiper blades the other day. Here they are, $22 each. I said I’m retired and on a fixed income so what’s the price now? $22. I said I’m old, do you have a senior discount? No. I said how heartless, how do you live with yourself? She said well you probably make more that I do. I paid the $22. Should have given her a tip.
I pretty much charge the same price no matter the economic level of the people. If anything, the more well-off ones are more likely to be given discounts, especially on combined jobs where certain steps are not repeated when two or more jobs are combined. This would be like not charging the book rate for a water pump and timing belt job as they stand separate if many steps apply to both the jobs. The problem with the hagglers is that time is money. Unless they are willing to pay an hourly rate for the privilege of haggling, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. People will talk to you for hours and then not come through. Wasting that much time is not acceptable so I pretty much let people know I won’t haggle much right off the bad. The ones who usually ask for a lower price are also the high maintenance ones who will complain and cause problems later. The expect more for less which isn’t the way it goes. If I do end up haggling, I will make them sign a form that everything is as-is with no guarantees or future discounts because of this sale.
The two classes of people who really get obnoxious are the entitlement-mentality ones as well as the very well off. The middle class people seem to be the better ones for not being pains.
Another reason I have gotten to not charging different rates is because then someone will bring up that their relative or friend came to me and I gave them a different price and were told to ask for that same price. This got old pretty quick so I pretty much had to make all prices the same.
Wal-Mart is OK for basics like some groceries, toothpaste, toilet paper, and the like but not for anything you want to last. Sure, an air compressor from there might be fine if you only plan to air up the tires a few times a year and not use it for shop use. My experience with the electronics is that they break as soon as the warranty expires and/or are paid off. Rent to own places are just the same except the prices are much higher. In that case, I would suggest Wal-Mart over one of those.
Black Friday is another day where retailers somehow convince the public that buying low-quality goods at prices they probably wouldn’t sell for that price on a normal day that they are somehow getting a good deal and that it is worth getting up at 4AM to fight over it. Sure, there are a few good items to suck you in but there are only like 5 per store so they don’t take a huge loss on selling them. I always like to look at the ads for popular items like laptops and flat screen TVs. They will often not specify a brand or model and say that this is all dependent on availability that day so you don’t even know what you are getting. I personally boycott Black Friday on general principle.
The other big issue with big box stores pointed out here is the lack of service. This makes items even more disposable when you have no way to get them repaired. Sure, some of them can be repaired but it can also cost just as much as buying a new cheapo with some type of warranty.