Target or Walmart

I haven't gone to Target in a long time because the closest one is always too busy for me and I end up feeling claustrophobic. No great loss.

yeah target is too close to my office and they just built a brand shiny new one not far from my house. watch $$$ fly out of my wallet.

that spending too much money thing at target thing is another check in the awesome column for target

the target and walmart near me are definitely the "meeting of cultures" spot in san diego

I live in Arkansas which means I can jump in the air and land somewhere 200 yards away from a Walmart.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4fdu4G4qK1rsat8no7_400.gif

...but when you buy a spear at Wal-Mart, they have an employee walk you to your car with it!

i swear to god this isnt meant to sound judgy but im amazed at how many of you guys buy food at these places

Really though, I probably know WAAAAAAYYYY too much about the different sides of Wal-Mart (both Mom & Sis used to be Merch Reps) and they are pretty damn bad on most fronts.

The two things that they do have on Target:

• A more random selection of stuff. Target is pretty strict w/their tagging & shelf space, so it's like you go into one store you've seen nearly all of them product-wise. On the other hand, Wal-Mart frequently takes chances on merch, so you can find, say, a crochet magazine at one, some Hot Wheels at another, or a certain brand of ice tea at a third--items all of which you couldn't get at Target.

• Open 24 Hours 364 Days A Year. Cause I really that $5 Van Halen cd, a gallon of milk, and a folding chair @ 3:00 AM.

Most stores have at least a few items that meet your idea of the right product at the right price better than any other store. When you figure out what a store is 'good for', you tend to return, but only for those few items. This is not a very interesting fact, but it is a fact of modern post-industrial life.

As it happens, I don't have a local Wal-Mart and the nearest Target is somewhat further than I want to drive on a regular basis, so this gives Target a very tiny edge by being not entirely irrelevant to my life, although it nearly is.

tbh the one thing I like about Wal-Mart is ~~~some~~~ of them in rural areas carry knitting stuff, yarn and needles.

This saved my life when I was visiting my parents and ran out of yarn.

Walmart staff seems to 70% middle-aged women sporting injuries - eyepatches, slings, neckbraces...it's v weird.

ahaha

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 have a friend who's like that and who used to really enjoy going to walmart at 2am. his thing was "everything's so fucked up beyond repair that you might as well enjoy the fucked-upness of it all"

i don't get much enjoyment out of the walmart experience, but i find fast food restaurants and mall food courts fascinating for similar reasons. they're very odd environments

i miss living in a place where there are 24-hour supermarkets. it's entertaining to see what kind of ppl are food-shopping at 3:30am or to be able to buy breadcrumbs or pancake batter while the rest of the world is sleeping

Y'all can take my word for it right now -- Walgreens is NOT the place to be at 11:00 at night. God knows what's happening in there four hours from now.

i go to target all the damn time, impossible not to, kinda

i grew up with a wal-mart. i remember the music section at the one in my hometown filed led zeppelin under Z. every one i've been to recently has been a tiring and unhappy experience. it's the quality of the light, i think. tho i feel like ppl need to get with the WM experience in a solidarity kind of way.

on a political level they aren't that distinguishable. lol "consumer choice"

xp oof walgreens. late night drugstore vibe is really unseemly.

Walmart at night can be tough to navigate because the aisles are crowded with restockers and pallets of merch.

The real misery Walmart causes is in their supply chain, do some reading about the abuse of temps in their distribution centers if you have time. I work in a Walmart factory supplier.

My job is like 90% Hispanic and Hmong temps, 10% Caucasian office staff.

It took me a long time to step foot back into a WMT. I used to sell photography packages for American Studios inside rural Wal-Marts that weren't big enough to have their own studio.

Still have one part PTSD, one part Stockholm Syndrome about the place, tbh.

http://www.alternet.org/labor/154020/wal-mart_warehouse_workers_move_ahead_in_fight_for_justice/

re: food, Super Targets around here have full grocery stores inside with produce/meat at least as good as Kroger/Tom Thumb, if not better. And we only have one Trader Joe's about half an hour away when it opens.

I just read taht walamrt is actually trialing robo-stocking of shelves

target will stock robots HOORAY

I wonder if the walmart robots will be injured and middle aged like the ladies that work there now - plus will they have cameras with a feed to peopleofwalmart.com

i have a friend who's like that and who used to really enjoy going to walmart at 2am. his thing was "everything's so fucked up beyond repair that you might as well enjoy the fucked-upness of it all"

there's a Walmart in Greenpoint?

I have always had knowledgable clerks at Wal-Mart in the gun department, when I'm trying to figure out what ammunition I want.

do they make a gun that can shoot paintballs full of pepper spray? - for use against racoons

do they sell t-shirt guns, y/n

do they sell a gun that shoots beer into your mouth?

yes but you can only really use it once

they have low, low prices on ammo I gotta say

I like Target hand soap, by contrast.

good candles too

there's a Walmart in Greenpoint?

heh-heh

no actually this wuz near where billy clinton lived. during the clinton years.

Target started carrying a lot more aspirational soap + candle brands like Caldrea and stuff

I think it's the same company as that Meyer's Green Day cleaning products stuff, actually

I am a 31 year old male who likes buying cleaning products and stuff that smells good don't judge me

* rubs green tea-scented lotion from Target into hands *

i've some target dental floss and as someone mentioned upthread, many of their in-house products have better graphic design going on than do the name brand competitors. especially since proctor and gamble got rid of their "we worship satan" progrock wizard logo

I am a 31 year old male who likes buying cleaning products and stuff that smells good don't judge me

dude i think that is called sanity. if all guys were into aromatherapeutic cleaning products then our children would have a chance at a thermonuclearwarless future

so please rock on with your aspirational soaps. you have the right idea

yankee candles are for frat guys and inveterate stoners who live in dominos pizza box hovels

there, i said it

Target's applesauce is bad

ugh

do you mean "bad" like b.a. good?

I mean like it feels like it has some sort of detritus in it

i bought a target ("archer farms") ham once. was p good. tasted like normal ham. their salty snacks are good too. don't really know beyond that.

i shouldn't have repped for target brand food in the first place. i started out intending to compliment their packaging and product design, especially their toys and holiday merch. they have kids workshop and kitchen toy sets (lol, i know) that are way cooler and cheaper than anything similar on the market. if i had kids, i'd buy the shit out of that stuff. and their halloween stuff is wonderful.

old moms in momjeans and sweaters and grannies like Yankee Candles too

eh, they're not really people though imo

fair enough

they have kids workshop and kitchen toy sets (lol, i know) that are way cooler and cheaper than anything similar on the market.

nah, i totally can relate. since they stopped making incandescent lightbulbs and made everyone buy those florescent ones, it's almost impossible to build your own e-z bake oven

I hate all scented candles ever

maybe you just have shitty ones with bad scents rather than good ones that smell like bamboo or cilantro