Target or Walmart

Target: fairly shitty produce section but weirdly good cheese selection, clothes that are adequate for stuff you dont care that much about, okish clearance on video games on the regular
Walmart: literally the worst thing in the world

i very rarely visit either, admittedly more out of inconvenience (i kind of live in a big box desert) than principle. but i'm pretty happy to not be giving them any of my money.

Target: way too many wedding gift registries in my experience
Walmart: none

jjj apparently having never been to a Sam's Club.

(but imagine the Walgreens/Krogers/Family Dollars i frequent are prob just as crap in the big scheme of it all)

We recently got a new Wal Mart in our neighborhood, and when I went to it I was surprised to see that the prices were not all that low? I thought the advantage of Wal Mart was supposed to be super low prices, but the prices were just average. I just wanted a cheap bottle of detergent! Meijer is much better in that (and every other) respect.

actually i DID spend a couple of soul-destroying nights at a Wal Mart in this meth-y disaster of a town on the north edge of the florida panhandle recently.

now i know why everyone hates each other.

they do have Stoneyfield farms orgaic yohurt at walmart

We Canadians used to pat ourselves on the back & cheer because we had Zellers - with some unionized positions! - to choose over Walmart. But Zellers is folding and Target is buying up a lot of their leases.. I was excited because of the clothes and then found out they're just as shitty to unions. My husband is a union steward so that doesn't fly. Will have to sneak in there when he's not looking. ;_;

It's funny you mention that because when I went to that Wal Mart, the parking lot was filled with Canadian plates. It's cheaper to go across the border because of the exchange rate.

p. sure I haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in almost ten years & yeah it's 'cause by the time I'm through the checkout my feeling is "whatever I needed from here today, it wasn't worth this mood of spiritual malaise"

Meijer is much better in that (and every other) respect.

Zomg Meijer's!

Yeah, especially around Christmas there's a mass exodus of Torontonians going to Buffalo because the American prices are cheaper in general, not to mention the exchange rate, even with gas & hotel! :P

(We have Walmart here too; I just meant we used to pat & cheer because we had a semi-Canadian and semi-unionized discount store to choose over the Walmarts)

I know, but it is funny to me because crossing the border is such a hassle to me that I can't imagine doing it even to save some money.

I love Target but their food section sucks esp at the one I live less than a 5 min walk from. I like it for home/health/beauty stuff in addition to cheap plain basics like t-shirts, leggings, underwear. I like the design stuff that The Late Great mentioned too. "The Shops at Target" thing has mostly been disappointing though. Dumb idea all around.

I've been to one Walmart once. It was really depressing.

I was once thrown out of a wal-mart for having a magazine in a bag (Modern Drummer) that they had never carried! Of course, i had lost the receipt. I tried to explain the injustice but since I had red hair and I was 16 they just kicked me out.

Spending too much time in either makes me a bit nauseous.

I'm about to say something just tragic but...the Gwen Stefani line of children's clothes for Target is super, super-cute and if it's wrong to clothe Aero Jr. in Gwen's Target line then I cannot & will not be right

tragic kingdom indeed

Walmart has carts like these, which lends my kids the feeling of being on a really bright hay ride.

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2176/photo144z.jpg

Also at our Walmart, the greeter is a midget who gives Beeps a sticker every time.

If we ever want to ever enjoy the tuneful stylings of a female Tom Waits in 2040, I'm doing my best.

it's hard to get away from Walmart here

when I enter charges to them in my checkbook register, I shorten the name to "satan"

― pixel farmer, Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:38 AM (1 year ago)

If I know I have a trip to Tupelo coming in the next few days, I try to hold out on shopping until then, so I can go to Kroger.

There aren't any Targets in this vicinity.

http://target.scene7.com/s7viewers/dhtml/images/spacer.gif

bah humbug

charming story about Walmart: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/k2dwy/iama_walmart_store_manager_try_your_best_not_to/c2h0mjw

I've never been inside a Walmart. I don't like Target either but my wife insists on buying various things there.

i kind of like target and usually pick up my cat food there -- it's rarely that crowded and there's something kind of pleasant and un-hateful about the vibe and aesthetic. the big red plastic shopping carts!

fact: if you voice any criticism of wal-mart to a libertarian, they WILL flip out at you. wal-mart is like the embodiment of everything they cherish in this life.

like others have said, wal-mart is depressing. the place is dismal, the staff are zombies and the customers are worse. i'm sure there's something classist in my revulsion, but i just don't like being there. i get less weirded and grossed by dusty christian thrift shops that smell of urine and rot.

target may be just as hard on its suppliers and bad for local business, but i like the place. their products and premises are well-designed and inviting, and the staff seem at least roughly cognizant of their surroundings. it's the discount department store as a modern ideal. i always looks forward to target trips, though i rarely do much but wander around looking at toys and DVDs i have no intention of buying.

I go to Target roughly once every two weeks for detergent, paper towels, stuff like that. I frequently wind up walking out with what I came for, plus some random norteno CD or cheap DVD (Bullitt for $5!) that caught my eye.

I have been in Walmart twice and will never go again. The one I was in was disorganized and everything looked dirty. I didn't want to touch anything, so wound up buying nothing. By the time I walked back out into the sunlight I was on the edge of doing that "bugs on me" frantic self-brushing thing.

xp p sure walmart is the embodiment of 'crony capitalism'? some entry level libertarians you're dealing with

Target and Walmart pretty much both suck to work at.

Two things I'll give Target is that they don't go out of their way to pull controversial stuff from the shelves (you can buy the Daily Show's America book, complete with Supreme Court genitalia, if you'd like.)

Also, there is no peopleoftarget.com, that I'm aware of.

But as far as what I'm shopping for and the prices I'm willing to pay, Walmart wins over Target.

ist easy to blow your wad of cash at target

things you never knew you needed

though i rarely do much but wander around looking at toys and DVDs i have no intention of buying.

i wondered whether someone might rep for walmart itt out of creepy fascination/out of appreciation for its weird dystopian late capitalist John Carpenter/mall-horror vibe. like with 24 hour supermarkets, just intriguingly artificial & sense-overloading places to drift around.

i don't really go to either, but if i do go to one of them it's target

I bet walmarts of the future will have no human staff, all robots

ist easy to blow your wad of cash at target

things you never knew you needed

^^^ this. I go every weekend and blow more than I expect on V-necks and shorts when all I wanted was coffee and toilet paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcJRrhi7RQ

i wondered whether someone might rep for walmart itt out of creepy fascination/out of appreciation for its weird dystopian late capitalist John Carpenter/mall-horror vibe. like with 24 hour supermarkets, just intriguingly artificial & sense-overloading places to drift around.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1OCD35Ih27M/Ti51RFq3uCI/AAAAAAAACNk/aeox4NBxLME/s1600/careeropportunities030bx0.png

otm but isn't that target

think that was the point

one thing that really impresses me about target is the quality of their "house brand" stuff. toys, clothes, even food - it's often at least as well-designed as the name brand stuff they carry.

I love their English muffins and meatballs.

the target brand cheezits are an abomination in the eyes of the lord

Target in the Motion Pictures: Career Opportunities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_Opportunities_(film)

Yes, Target has awesome food ... even frozen Indian! I got samosas there. It's great underwear selection. Good booze selection too.

You can't even buy beer at our Target. Wal-Mart's got it covered though.

Target political contributions

Neither

Target: slightly better housewares, also use them for some cosmetics and cheap shoes
Walmart: Royal Oak Charcoal is about the only thing we ever buy from them, for Mr Veg's bbq

I've never had a good experience with any food item from Target's house brands.

bamford has a target joke. i wonder if target is ok with it.

the joke is more about how unsuccessful her awful high school nemeses are, but the punchline is they work at target.

The most aggravating thing ever about working at Target is that they for some reason expect you to buy into all the hype that they are awesome and sell the best stuff a cheapo big store can possibly sell & they are sooo into diversity and all their cool stuff like that.... except its just like any other shitty retail job. I dunno, the best thing about working at Target IMO was the pricing guns and walkie talkies. Also, their POS system is not terrible.

best part of working at target is no walmart chant and no squiggly yeah?

er walmart cheer

We didn't have a cheer but we would do weird countdowns and stuff like we were about to go out and play a basketball game or something. I honestly don't know what you mean by squiggly, so I guess we didn't have whatever that is.

i remember one time i was waiting for my prescription, and this group of target employees like did one of those hand things? you know where you all put your hands in a circle and cheer?

it was invigorating, i felt moved

and to be completely honest i have found some of my best tshirts at Target

i'm wearing one right no

The Target store I go to the most now is built on to the outside of an old mall and replaced another about 30 blocks away on the same street. Well, not replaced, but they closed one right before this one opened and some of the staff transferred. My favorite is this sassy older black man who can scan all your items in about 30 seconds while making it look effortless. He's probably worked at Target for decades. The other cashiers at some local Targets are a balance between kids and women in their 40s/50s.

When we had fewer Target stores people named them according to neighborhood stereotypes:
- Tarjay: bourgeois suburb Target
- Targhetto: self-explanatory
- Targentino: Italian side of town

wow, midwest target diversity

though i remember having similar distinctions about malls as a teenager

this is the Target ad I love, mostly because when it came out my SIL and her partner were moving into a new house and my wife and I joked that this is what they did while unpacking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfqEG7ZPO1k

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net#

Walmart has become the number one driver behind the growing use of food stamps in the United States with "as many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores using food stamps."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_11/the_walmart_way_is_not_the_onl041379.php

Costco pays employees more

Costco is a members-only place with an emphasis on bulk goods, but the Sam's Club/Costco comparison is a good one and Wal-Mart comes out looking horrible.

I think the "you have to have a big family" aspect of Costco is greatly exaggerated, although you do have to have a bit of discipline in order to make optimal use of the place.

In a statement from the United States, Wal-Mart said, “While we are trying to determine if the factory has a current relationship with Walmart or one of our suppliers, fire safety is a critically important area of Walmart’s factory audit program and we have been working across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/world/asia/bangladesh-fire-kills-more-than-100-and-injures-many.html

I worked for Walmart in 1999-2001 as a cashier and I was making pretty good money ($10+/hr by the end of it) and working plenty of full-time weeks. Though yeah that was over 10 years ago so maybe things have changed. They were pretty anti-union back then too fwiw.

walmart for president

Rented a RugDoctor from the kiosk at Wal-Mart yesterday. I attempted to return it today and see nothing but a blank screen at the kiosk. I ask an employee if the machine is not working, and she takes one cursory glance at it, and says "must be down", and walks away. Then I ask her what I'm supposed to do with the heavy machine I'm holding and need to return, presuming that since there's a machine in their store, they know who to contact.

Instead, she says "Be right back", then comes back with a supervisor who says "It must be down. You'll need to call RugDoctor and explain the situation to them. We'll vouch for you." They also tell me I can return it at another Walmart with the kiosks (I think this is BS - the kiosks only have enough door slots for the machines that originated at their location).

I really do not want to haul the thing back to my car and into another Walmart, as they're heavy, plus I know RugDoctor isn't going to magically 'waive' my late fees just because I call them, but I do anyway. When I call, it's readily apparently that the store is the one supposed to be calling, because the instructions say for the store to report a kiosk issue at their local district number. All I could do was leave a voicemail.

A couple comes up to rent one and I explain what's going on, and then one of them realizes THE FUCKING THING IS UNPLUGGED, so he plugs it in. Problem solved, we think, but it gets hung up at the startup menu. I found a CS manager to tell her it's plugged in, but stuck at the main menu, and she clearly isn't listening, and walks away, thinking we just need to let it boot. After about fifteen minutes passing and other employees telling us to call RugDoctor ourselves, I called corporate to complain, and one of the other customers found the manager again to tell her we still needed help, as the machine hadn't booted (since she wasn't listening).

First supervisor comes back and basically barks at me "I told you I was gonna call, didn't you hear me" (which she didn't), then finally picks up the phone to call them (it's been about 45 minutes now). The other supervisors have no idea what to do or if they even have a key to open it. Then, the manager asks the CUSTOMER to unplug it and replug it in, and after 5 minutes, it's working.

So basically, wasted an hour in a Walmart talking to five managers over a goddamn unplugged machine. This is why I never visit Wal-Marts (well that and because of the people that typically visit them!)

Those people are just Neanderthals.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/23127186

If Walmart paid its workers a living wage, the price of your macaroni and cheese would go up by one penny

but even a penny more might cause walmart to lose a customer. and walmart can't . . . bear . . . to . . . lose . . . even . . . one . . . customer.

http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/ftpuploads/bloguploads/0513/more-mentalnicktoons-krabs2.jpg

i love target's fascist aesthetic; plus the one here has actual sidewalks (some of the few in my town!) extending out into the parking lot, so you can push your whisper-quiet plastic fascist shopping cart to yr car without checking behind yr shoulder every two seconds. plus there are three or four trees planted nearby! it's like versailles.

my hometown wal-mart has been a dud since i was in high school and it stopped staying open 24 hrs cuz we used to go there ~2AM to play sardines.

maybe walmart does to but target has good surveillance, it p much caught this kidnapper/murderer this was an interesting/terrifying true crime ep i saw recently

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kelsey_Smith

Alice Walton knows where her bread is buttered

http://usuncut.com/politics/alice-walton-hillary-clinton/

uh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUxCGnkWcI

http://i.imgur.com/8G3O0Pv.jpg

some of the Targets near us are hilariously incompetent at delivering products.

Last December, I was over one of my close friends' houses, and Target had delivered a bunch of christmas gifts to the door, but instead of putting the toy inside a Target box, they just slapped a Target sticker on the product's box, and their daughter found it at the door so they had to give her gift early.

but today, another one of my friends ordered Nintendo Switch controllers, paying $80 for them. instead of getting a box with two switch controllers, they got an envelope with a cardboard endcap display featuring a picture of both controllers. i feel bad for the friend but i'm having a hard time not giggling at the image they shared.