Walmart: 'Going to a very dark place'

[IDemo]

Walmart may not go the way of RadioShack (RSH) any time soon. But Goldman Sachs says that customers are abandoning the big-box pioneer in droves.

On Tuesday, the investment bank downgraded Walmart (WMT)'s stock to 'Neutral,' saying that big-box stores are losing out to online retailers and stores with more focused inventories.

With $469 billion in annual sales, Walmart isn't quite going out of business, but the retailer has seen sales slip for five straight quarters. Online shopping is clearly hurting the store, as more customers turn to Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) and other merchants for everyday items such as hardware and groceries.

E-commerce is making Walmart's vast breadth of merchandise less appealing to shoppers. Instead, customers are looking for better deals on a more narrow assortment of goods available at stores like Costco (COST) and dollar stores The bank upgraded Costco's stock to Buy.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/30/news/companies/goldman-walmart-downgrade/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6&iid=obnetwork

[littlemissmartypants]

1. And in my lifetime.

Hooray.

Thank you for your post, IDemo.

Love, Peace and Shelter. Lmsp

[DirkGently]

2. A dark place of its own construction.

Last one out of that hellhole, please close and lock the door.

[demigoddess]

3. I wonder how many stores are going to end up going this route

I've noticed in recent years many stores such as Target starting to look more like Walmart stores. Target added groceries. And grocery stores here have recently added liquor to its shelves, but you can only buy 4 or 5 flavors of Jello. so I go to Amazon to buy my Jello. There is something to be said for specialty stores, instead of these everything and the kitchen sink stores. they might just die because they really don't offer what they promise on the outside.

[sarge43]

7. Good point

Our local supermarket (Hannaford's) has gone to the everything including the kitchen sink.

Can buy a dozen different brands of cheap makeup, but basic food stuffs like grains and whole bean coffee, not so much anymore. So, Amazon has my business. We especially like the subscription service.

[Lochloosa]

8. I have just started using the subscription service for TP and paper towels...Great savings

[calimary]

12. We go to Costco for those things. VERY pleased to patronize them.

I like their business practices. I like the idea that the CEO feels he deserves about 20 times - and no more - what the guy on the loading dock earns. That seems mighty reasonable to me. And their employees all seem to be happy.

Learned about voting with my pocketbook from the Watergate era. "Don't buy books by crooks."

[FreakinDJ]

13. The quality is so Extremely Low at Walmart who would trust them for food

Completely unthinkable to me give these times of China shipping poison laden food products to the US

[Squinch]

24. Costco, baby! And the jobs for the store are local. I just renewed yesterday.

(Unrelated story that you just reminded me of: I used to work for a publisher of science textbooks. We had a program where we partnered with inmates in some prisons to provide them with remaindered texts. We found out that, among themselves, they referred to the program as "Books for Crooks.&quot

[OnlinePoker]

20. Target did an expansion into Canada a couple of years ago.

It didn't go as planned...they lost $1 Billion last year here. There has been talk of them giving up and shutting down. Inventory sucks and there is no price benefit compared to other stores.

[laundry_queen]

28. Oh, boy did they botch that expansion

They didn't do enough research to find out that Canada is actually a more complex market from coast to coast than the US is. They thought we were all the same, and planned the stores that way. Not only that, but the main reason Canadians cross border shop at Target is the selection coupled with the low prices. Then when they came into Canada they changed the inventory to be totally different than in the US, AND they raised prices compared to the US on nearly everything. To add insult to injury, shelves were fucking bare! I know at the Target closest to us, there were whole aisles with nothing on the shelves - for MONTHS.

Canadians are the least brand loyal customers...we tend to care mostly about price. For some reason, here in Canada there's no stigma to shopping at crappy stores like in the US, people who are rich will happily shop at walmart or the dollar store to get a great deal. So, Target loses out on that crowd too (the crowd who is too embarrassed to shop at those places).

Anyway, it actually made me quite sad, because I LOVE some of the products our Target carries and if they closed up shop, there is literally no where else to shop but Walmart for some of that stuff. I shop at Target quite often (our Walmart is plagued by empty shelves as well so it's no better) and love their home items (kitchen, décor etc) compared to other stores. I hope they get their shit together.

[randome]

4. This is anecdotal experience only but...

...for the past two years or so, I've noticed that the WalMarts I frequent have done poorly managing their inventory, something they once were the best at.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The night is always young. It's never too late.[/center][/font][hr]

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Wal Mart's inventory problems have been an issue for some time

resulting in much discussion in consumer and business sites.
No one yet has figured out if it is incompetence, or as a result of "just in time" inventory system,
but employees have been saying it is because of too low staffing., Wal-mart will not pay for enough staff to do the job.
There was a time when you would bump into employees loading shelves, but I have not seen any employees in the aisles for a long time now.

FWIW, our Dollar General manager tells me they are having the same problem. A LOT of stock in the back rooms that is not being put on the shelves because of too few staff per shift.

[CrispyQ]

30. They are stupid & let spreadsheets influence them too much.

It's easy to put a dollar amount on labor. Not so easy to calculate how much in sales you will lose due to lack of product or service.

The company my husband works for is so guilty of this. The spreadsheet guy has cut their 24x7 department down to 6 people. Only one person at a time can take vacation & some of these people have 4-5 weeks a year. If someone is sick, it's a problem. They've already lost a couple of big customers but they don't seem to care. It's insane. The only way they know how to cut costs is to cut labor. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[rurallib]

42. I don't go there often and only to buy things I can't get elsewhere

and often the little I buy is out of stock. Then if I do buy I stand in a line that is 4 or 5 deep. Plus. theyh have their air conditioning turned way up so I stand and sweat to buy a few things. A wholly unpleasant experience.
We shop mostly at Costco.

[dixiegrrrrl]

43. Wal-Mart is in most little towns around here,

and offers a low price option to a limited choice of stores.
In larger towns, and cities, it has much more competition.

Interestingly, it earnings for the last few quarters have been on a slide.
You gotta know the economy is bad when Wal-Mart is losing money.

[demwing]

44. Just the opposite

Lagging sales is likely an indicator of increased consumer confidence, which is confirmed here:

https://www.conference-board.org/data/consumerconfidence.cfm

When people aren't forced to shop at Walmart, then they go elsewhere by choice.

[jmowreader]

54. I know part of it

I worked there a short time. It was educational.

Home Depot's ordering system works off their price-tag printing carts, which do more than print prices. If you want a case of faucets, and your log-in will let you order plumbing items, you scan the barcode for the faucet you want and key in the number in a case, which is on the shelf tag. Assuming that faucet is still available to order, your next truck from the warehouse that stocks your faucet will have it.

Walmart does everything off its point-of-sale system. If Jane Customer walks up to self checkout with one Toxic Avenger t-shirt and 25 Batman ones, and scans the Toxic Avenger tee 26 times, you will get a case of Toxie shirts (which sold one unit in the last three months) and no Batman shirts. There is an inventory balancing procedure but you don't do it every day. I worked in Dairy where the problem is really bad with yogurt...we were always running out of strawberry but had seven shitloads of coffee and Boston Cream Pie because of the magic of the quantity key.

[brewens]

5. I made the mistake of using their "site to store" option awhile back. I had to get a DVD player

immediately. My old one went out and my girlfriend was coming to visit that night. We had movie night planned and she also had one of the grandkids with her.

I went online to scope out available inexpensive units and decide where to go. I had several options. It turned out Walmart had a good deal on one I liked and I saw the site to store thing and though, "hey, that should be pretty slick!" Just buy it online, print out the order, go in to the "site to store" counter like it says, pick it up and out the door! Nyet so fast!

Guess what the freakin' site to store counter is? That's just a sign put up behind their usual customer service counter! I end up in line behind a bunch of people making returns and cashing checks and stuff. I could have just written down the model number on the DVD player I wanted, gone back to electronics and grabbed it myself, paid for it right there and been out in 1/4 the time. What a crock!

In my town the new Super Walmart has really pissed some people off. The old one was conveniently right by a whole cluster of retirement homes, assisted living centers and several blocks of a subdivision that is largely retired people with double wide mobile homes. That location was perfect for all of those people. It was also in the part of town that even an older person several miles away, had a fairly easy low traffic drive most of the way. The new one was built clear across town where people in that area now have the wort possible trip to get over there.

It's kind of funny really because I know so many of those people love Walmart. It's like an integral part of their Reagan worshipping mind set. Cheap stuff at any cost for them, just don't change anything until after we die!

Several years back I wqas in Walmart and overheard an elderly couple questioning a girl working in an isle. They were asking her how she liked her job, was the pay fair and about benefits. I knew what they were up to. They wanted to hear that everything was wonderful just like Paul Harvey was teaching them. It probably upset them to hear people on the left criticise their favorite store. I wanted to jump in and say, "WTF do you THINK she's gonna say? If she tells you this place sucks and you rat on her, she's fired!"

I feel sorry for anyone that has to work there. It sounds like things will only get worse for them but hopefully it opens up better opportunities. We have a Winco Foods about to open. I hope a lot of Walmart grocery people have their applications in there. It's gonna really kill that Walmarts grocey side.

[easychoice]

41. I buy from Costco and Winco

The rest I get at the pike place market.
Walmart's stink like dirty feet to me.Maybe it's just me but they stink!

[brewens]

47. Do you know how Winco treats employees? I ahven't heard much. I hope they are good. n/t

[easychoice]

51. You would have to check with H.R. at Winco.

Usually their hiring practices tell you a lot about the employer.
The employees I interface with are alert ,helpful and always ready to assist.That in and of it's self tells me they are pretty well taken care of.

[PatrynXX]

6. I go in there

Big frapping store... and there's nothing to buy (well food of course) and even there huh?

and they are still into the bargain bins for DVD's. I go to Target which is just as bad at treating employees but bit further along in being modern blu ray bin a gogo (using a TNT Amusement line) they make Blu Rays affordable. Besides Culvers is out in the parking lot

[BlueJazz]

9. From what I've read about the Waltons, they'll most likely cut hours on their employees.

" I ...I know this is rough on you and me but we're going to have to do some belt tightening around here people."
"You've had it fairly easy, here at Walmart, but I'm afraid the company will have to start a new way of doing things"
"Each of you will be given a new I.D."
"True, it won't be your real name but you'll understand in a minute...you'll check in on the clock each day with your ...alternative name...work for 2 hours ...check out, like you're going home and THEN check in with your real name"

"Don't worry what happens to the hours on your alternative name...we, at Walmart, will take care of that"

"In short, together, we'll make the company profits SOAR once again and our futures will be on solid ground"
"Now, get your wonderful, understanding asses back to work"

[IDemo]

10. That, and hand them a pre-printed cardboard sign along witih their food stamp application

[bhikkhu]

36. And i just imagine it will be some brainwashed 23 year-old assistant manager dressing-down the crew

...of elderly employees. Years ago I was at our walmart here and was looking for something at the back of the store, overheard a lecture going on in a back room. I didn't see the people, but it sounded like a kid (probably making minimum wage +$1), ranting on to some employees about being "on post", and about the rules for break times and bathroom use. Its just a depressing place. I hardly ever go there, and when I do I feel like crap afterward.

[McCamy Taylor]

14. Walmarts are crappy places to shop. They pile stuff in the aisles. It can fall on you.

It fell on my elderly mother. No one except the greeter will make eye contact. No one except the greeter knows where anything is. The only thing it has going for it is the 24 hour ones are open at 3 am in the morning when you need a tool when the plumbing breaks.

[phylny]

18. They got rid of the greeters at our local store.

They used to depress me anyway - elderly people standing all day, earning minimum wage. If they were doing it because they wanted "something to do" during the week, fine, but I think many of them did it to earn money to survive.

[catrose]

35. and ruining their feet & legs standing on concrete floors for hours at a time eom

[shanti]

15. Good!

[mountain grammy]

16. Walmart is the largest employer in America and the world

and they pay shit. You will be told these are low skilled jobs so I guess that means the people working them deserve to live in poverty. They are showing up and making money for the company, but denied a living wage.
I say any business is not successful if their employees can't go home and pay their bills.

[Not Sure]

22. Wow, you nailed it!

"I say any business is not successful if their employees can't go home and pay their bills."

Exactly right!

[jillan]

17. I went there yesterday. What a mistake. I needed a few things and it was literally next door

to another store I was at.

As soon as you walk in there the first thing you notice is the noise level. There is like a high pitched buzz throughout the store.
I figured it was from the zillions of fluorescent lights that cast a creepy glow in the store.
Add to that the kids running around screaming & everyone talking in LOUD voices. Parents cussing at their kids.

The store was a complete mess. You can't even walk thru the aisles because the employees are stocking the shelves and have their pallets or carts full of boxes IN the aisles. This was on a Friday afternoon! Hello? Pushing a cart thru Walmart is like driving during rush hour. You cannot take your eyes off of the road.

Then they didn't have 1/2 of the things on my list. Why did I think they would have Gluten free bread?
Also needed dog food - which was on the exact opposite end of the store. I trek over there, and of course they didn't the dog food I wanted - so I had to make another stop at another store on my way home.

Then the joy of waiting in line and being greeted by someone who is not happy to be there.

Even when you try to give Walmart a chance - they make you despise their company even more.

[KG]

19. if their inventory actually reached the shelves their sales might go up.

[Schmice2]

21. I feel bad for the employees who depend on their jobs to raise a family.

[Clyde Tenson]

23. Just don't go...it's not because of products, prices or service...

...it's because the big box concept is a parasitic monster in every community where it feeds.
- Small businesses destroyed
- Local wage earning slashed
- Social welfare programs paid by taxpayers increased
- All profits sucked from local consumers goes in the pockets of about a dozen Walton family members

add to that:
- Crap, made in china products
- mind numbing lack of variety of products available

There's a new Walmart close to where I live. I'll be damned before I go in there. I will happily go elsewhere and pay more.

[Populist_Prole]

32. I agree 100 percent

Every word and every point of your post. I haven't shopped at that evil empire of a retailer in almost 10 years.

[airplaneman]

39. I refuse to shop Walmart because of their business model.

I would rather shop at a locally owned store.
-Airplane

[joanbarnes]

25. I stopped shopping there over 20 years ago, the rest of the country eventually follows me.

[bvar22]

26. For many rural areas, WalMart is the ONLY game in town.

We patronize locally owned stores as much as possible, but sometimes we are forced into WallyWorld.

I used to get nauseated and dizzy (like seasickness) walking through WalMart.
It had something to do with the waviness of the floors and distant horizons.
Then one day, I forgot my bifocals....
problem cured.

[pstokely]

40. the ONLY game for miles in a lot of places

Target may be hours away

[Frustratedlady]

27. They miss (ignore) the real reason...

I don't shop there because of the way they treat their people. By keeping hours low, we have to pay extra taxes to finance the welfare, Medicaid and housing benefits/fuel subsidies to make up the difference. This isn't unfair, it is criminal. Corporate welfare at the nth degree.

They have also destroyed Mom/Pop stores that couldn't compete when they first came to town and it was fashionable to shop Walmart. Although they tried to survive, they lost their savings and had to close. We not only lost the cute little shops that were fun to support, but we lost a lot of tax base. Besides, Walmart's parking lot is a trash can. They can't even hire someone to come in and clean up the wrappers, bottles and plastic bags that blow against their fences. They are not a good neighbor.

[CrispyQ]

31. We had a Walmart on the south side of town for years.

Then they moved to the north end of town. Walmart wanted the city to pay for a couple of traffic lights & some highway easements, cuz you know, Walmart can't afford it & they would take their crap store somewhere else if the city didn't. The south side of town dried up & almost died. Walmart put restrictions on who could rent/buy the old location. Finally a mega-church got the location. Guess what the mega-church brought to the south end of town? Customers! Now we have a couple of new stores that have most of what you need, another natural grocery store, some restaurants & even a farmers market in the spring.

You are right, they are not a good neighbor. They don't care about the local community at all. The north end Walmart does good business, but I'm a south end shopper.

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price Everyone should see this movie. It covers all aspects of what is bad about Walmart, from union busting, to low wages, to the destruction of the local retailers, to the factory lines in China. A must see, imo. Netflix has it.

[winstars]

34. here it is on Youtube, in English but with Spanish subtitles... Highly Recommended!!!

I myself have been lucky enough to never have set foot in any Wal-Anything, ever. Growing up in NYC and now in SoCal, I have not been exposed to and/or managed to avoid this "shopping" experience.

I totally understand places where it might be (frightfully!) the best place for some to shop for their family. Like I said, I count myself as lucky...

Biggest employer in US = biggest scumbag to the most people in the US

Walton family, what a bunch of losers. They could, if they gave a shit do so, do so much more for our country and STILL BE WORTH FUCKING BILLIONS.

But no way, too greedy...

[bluestateguy]

29. It's not WalMart I would cry for

If people are abandoning big box retailers then that's not good for smaller and mid-size retailers, including good ethical companies like Costco.

There is a lot to be said for brick and mortar businesses. The whole world need not be online.

[Louisiana1976]

33. Exactly. I do the great majority of my shopping at brick and mortar businesses.

[KurtNYC]

45. Yes. Seems like the analyst sees what they want here but ignores

the downfall of Amazon:

The train hurtles down the track, the engineer oblivious to the vanished bridge the villain just dynamited to smithereens. For some investors, that train is Amazon and the engineer is CEO Jeff Bezos, who is throwing every kind of fuel he can imagine into the firebox to keep his locomotive moving: A phone. Drones. Self-produced shows. And now made-to-order 3-D printed items, and possibly a credit card reader.

As Amazon’s shares sink again today after last week’s report of another profitless quarter, three possibilities present themselves. Amazon is about to go off the edge.

http://www.wired.com/2014/07/amazon-stays-the-course-as-its-stock-tanks/

And the author ignores the general on-going downturn in impulse buying and general retail due in part to lack of credit and lack of willingness to take on new debt:

Then again, bartenders, waiters and waitresses aren’t know for having gushers of discretionary cash. Indeed, it seems most people have neither the cash nor access or inclination to use credit to fuel retail sales and consumer spending. Personal spending rose last month, but credit card debt actually declined.

So where does money for consumer spending come from? Savings, which declined month-to-month.
...
The bottom line is that disappointing retail sales and wider consumer spending look to weigh on retail stocks for some time. And it’s not just hurting discretionary stocks like Amazon (AMZN) — down 24% year-to-date — or Nike (NKE), which is off 5%. Family Dollar (FDO) and Coca-Cola (KO) are just a couple of the consumer staples stocks having a bad year.

http://investorplace.com/2014/05/retail-sales-hd-nke-amzn/#.U94-X6OwRw0

And as we all know rises in cost for medical care, transportation (autos, fuel), and utilities (internet/cable/phone) are not being matched, at all, by wages.

[geomon666]

37. I hope to live long enough to see the entire Walton empire go down in flames.

The little bit of anarchist in me would giggle with delight to see that family suffer and share the same fate so many of us have to live through.

[airplaneman]

38. Walmart really isn't a very good deal on a lot of things.

I love Grocery Outlet - It has prices 2/3 to 1/2 of what Walmart charges on a regular basis.
The pharmacy at Walmart sucks - I can get one of my prescriptions for $8.25 vs $60.00 at Walmart for the same thing.
Maybe people are waking up.
-Airplane

[oldandhappy]

46. Many of us have stopped going to WalMart

because of the way they treat their employees. I refuse to shop at WalMart because * my taxes are paying for their employees to live, * their merchandise is subpar, * the stores are dirty, and * I have to run a gauntlet of folk outside the front doors all wanting money. Why go there when we have a WinCo on the way and I have Costco and Stater Bros and other choices. Stop going to WalMart! Thanks!

[brewens]

48. I've noticed a lot less variety lately and more of their Best Value brand items. I've long been a

big fan of trying out store brands. Theirs are not usually good quality.

When I'm over where my girlfriend lives, I end up in Walmart with her. She really has no choice. They only have Walmart and Safeway and Safeway is much more expensive. I don't mind spending a little more to avoid Walmart but she can't afford it.

[dawg]

49. People like to hate on Walmart, and with good reason, but ...

almost *all* Fortune 500 companies display the same sick, twisted, amoral world view as Walmart. And many of those companies do things that are far, far worse. (Like charging 1000% markups on life saving drugs, selling advanced weapons systems to dictators, manufacturing products that are known to kill their users, etc.)

Don't get me wrong. i think Walmart is evil too. But we shouldn't forget to put their evil into perspective.

(I wish my town had a Costco. I'd shop there if I could.)

[IDemo]

50. You do bring up an ironic point

Regarding the "1000% markups on life saving drugs". Type 1 diabetics must use insulin to remain alive and maintain their health. The most popular forms of insulin have been genetically-engineered human varieties which replaced pork-based insulins a long time ago. These have unfortunately skyrocketed in price the past few years. As a result, many people have come to rely on pork-derived insulins available at Walmart for a tenth the price, as well as glucose test strips for about a tenth.

It's a howler that pharmaceuticals are allowed to maximize their profits at the expense of human lives. The identical products are available in Canada and elsewhere for much less money, but guess what? It's illegal to import them to the US. No surprise.

[jmowreader]

55. The frustrating part aboot pharmaceuticals

A massive part of the drugs sold in Canada are made in Research Triangle Park, NC.

It is cheaper to put medicine on a truck in RTP, drive it to a Canadian distribution centre, then to a pharmacy, then put it in the post and mail it to Chapel Hill than it is to take it from RTP to the Chapel Hill CVS. It must be because you can get the shit cheaper from an online Canadian druggist than a physical store in the US.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

52. need a jobs bill to create jobs for displaced workers

As the venture capitalist in "Inequality for All" noted, Amazon.com is a billion dollar business that employs 60,000 workers. When those were brick and mortar jobs, they were done by 1 million people.

[Ruby the Liberal]

53. Excellent

May that whole family rot.