Walmart hates fun.

"We offer what we think our customers want to buy. That just makes good business sense."

And we don't have any interest in expanding our customer base... That makes excellent business sense.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060760508.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

But hey. Four AA batteries only cost 88 cents.

But that's just talk. FUck walmart, I aint shoppin there.

Thank you for taking the time to bring your concerns to our attention. The "Bodega" store being built in San Juan Teotihuacán has been properly certified by officials at all levels, including an archaeologist with the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). We are not building "next to" the pyramids at Teotihuacán, but miles away. We have been awarded construction permits by federal, state and local agencies, and our project has the unanimous approval of the town council, the town mayor and neighborhood representatives chosen by the community. Construction is under the ongoing supervision of Veronica Ortega Cabrera, chief of the Technical and Legal Protection Department of Teotihuacán, located at the Teotihuacán archaeological site. Our construction is in an area designated for commercial buildings and residences, and hundreds are currently located there. The only opposition to our store has come from a small group of merchants who find competition unwelcome and are seeking to misrepresent our plans for their own interests.

The letter goes on to say, "Their interests include not being put out of business and having to work at fucking Wal-Mart. Seriously... can you believe these assholes?"

Or else they're figuring that their online customers would send in more complaints than their meatspace customers if the book wasn't available.

http://www.kaleo.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/20/417608ab20afe

They also dug up ancient graves for their Honolulu store.

the remains of the Native Hawaiians were found and now sit in cardboard boxes under the on-ramp.

Have you no decency, Wal-Mart?

That's what I meant, actually. (Tortured syntax, ahoy!)

I mean, yeah, Wal-Mart will be open about having books you guys might get sick over in stock, but damn, the last time I was at Wal-Mart I spotted the John Edwards autobiography and Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country? prominently displayed along with the other "current affairs" books it has toward the front of its store, next to the cash registers, so there's more political balance there than you guys are willing to acknowledge.

(Sorry -- that was an xpost. Eisbär, I have no clue.)

If "unapologetic, Union-busting, ball-breaking, wage-slaving, highly discriminatory capitalism" equals political balance, then OK.

That's just not true. And even if it were, Nike preys on slave labor abroad, while Wal-Mart creates its own slave labor by economically devastating the communities it moves into, so it's quite a bit more predatory than most.

Yeah, you're right. Low prices are not going to budge me off this point, and I'm not sure they should influence you as much as they seem to, either.

Why don't we save this term for actual slave labor.

It's co-produced by the prettiest girl who went to my high school, she was the nicest girl who went to my high school too. I think the first time I saw her I was eating Subway and she walked in and I just froze mid bite, Slick Rick "down south BBQ ribs fly out a nigga mouth" style. Pure grace - not surprised she doing the right thing these days.

Anyway, once corporate started hanging around and making us do the walmart cheer at meetings I quit. MOst of the engineering department was russian, they were not amused at the cheers. As my manager said, "I lived in Soviet Union. For me cheers mean something else."

What, the Sam's Choice or whatever brand eveningwear isn't good enough for you? Elitist.

Also, the CBS Evening News might as well flat out admit that it is the Walmart Evening News.

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs

"We are investing in our benefits that will take even better care of our associates," she said. "Our benefit plan is known today as being generous."

i first noticed it a couple years ago

Never got any beer and ammo from Jesus...

I'm offended at the agressive stereotyping of Target shoppers.

But what are you gonna do, make all your own clothes? And what else are you supposed to do when the DVD player stops working?

I try and buy vintage or from op-shops so at least the money's going to charity and the clothes are usually better made anyway. I cant sew so thats my only recourse rly.

I buy better-made electronics, and whatever happened to getting things fixed when they break???

Anyway thats not rly germane to this thread, but yeah.

who breaks a DVD player?

I don't think I've ever seen PBR in a Target
although to be honest I still have not visited either the williamsburg or columbia heights locations

Target here isnt fancypants at all, all the clothes are cheapo made in china shit. Is it diff in US? (I know its not the same company rly)

the target in hollywood is a piece of shit, almost as bad as k-mart

oh i'm not saying it's well (or fairly) manufactured stuff, i'm saying they seemed to have helped in the mainstreaming of the beardo look. simulacra vintage & skinny jeans etc.

xpost

I don't think the point is that people shouldn't buy things, ever, but rather that the price of products should reflect their true cost. If the price reflected the true cost of bringing that product to the consumer, then consumers would be more likely to honestly evaluate if they needed the product. And if they did purchase the product, they would be less likely to trash it.

Walmart's low prices are only possible through the exploitation of various groups of people along the resource extraction, manufacturing, and sales journey.

Or something like that.

The Targets here all have tshirts with fake punk stuff on them with sparkly bits for the tweenies. I actually saw an off the rack sparkly "punk" shirt with Siouxsies head on it. I should have taken a photo, Alex in NYC would have had apoplexy.

Agreed, SC. If you think about it too, the people buying cheap shit are only entrenching their own lack of jobs, because to get things that cheap, you gotta offshore all the labor and manufacturing costs. So no jobs in the US, so the ppl remain poor, and so on the cycle goes, turtles all the way down.

you guessed it...

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/31/stuff-white-people-like-bought-by-target/

Blog founders Christian Lander and Myles Valentin will be retained as consultants.

“I’m really happy to be working with Target,” says Lander. “I think this is a great partnership and a true step forward in the future of advertising.”

“White people love Target!” joked Valentin. “But in all seriousness, we could not have selected a better corporate partner. I think Target’s new organic line will really change the way that people eat and shop.”

Regular readers of the site will be offered free shipping on their next order at Target.com with the code “STUFFWHITEPEOPLELIKE.”

also let's not kid ourselves that there's much more than cosmetic differences betw Wal-Mart and Target

kind of like bud light and pabst blue ribbon

target is for hip poor people while walmart is for regular poor people.

indeed.

That hipster bingo card is partly inaccurate for real hipsters, but it nails Target clothes dead-on. Converse + shirts of guitars, skulls, boomboxes, or 60s-80s music icons + sweaters + military hats + tight jeans.

that pic of mick jagger's from like '63

also let's not kid ourselves that there's much more than cosmetic differences betw Wal-Mart and Target

I want to dispute this! I think there's a lot of difference, tho I don't know much about Target's business models specifically. I think Target makes more $$ off having deals with housewares & clothing designers who make exclusive lines of stuff -- the prices are low-ish but not the lowest possible cost for that item; it seems reasonable that customers are willing to pay a bit more for melamine dishes styled by Cynthia Rowley or a cotton jacket by Isaac Mizrahi, rather than Target squeezing the life out of those designer's manufacturing procedures to undercut the other guy by $.25. That approach is v different from Wal-Mart's.

Also I think that while you can get "family-sized" versions of things at Target, it's still kind of a medium version of "family" -- whereas at Wal-Mart you can, rather famously, find containers of food that are bigger than a normal family could possibly consume before they spoiled.

there is no target in williamsburg

also, laurel otm, vis-a-vis more than cosmetic differences within the contents of the stores. plus, wal-mart owners much more famous for having batshit fundie beliefs which spill over into what is sold in the stores, how employees are handled, etc. i don't shop at target very often but i won't shop in a wal-mart. no judgment against those who do, the price is a pretty compelling argument obviously.

at Wal-Mart you can, rather famously, find containers of food that are bigger than a normal family could possibly consume before they spoiled.

Am thinking specifically of a jar of pickles that I saw on a tv special abt Wal-Mart (I think?). WM went to the pickle manufacturer and said, "Make us a jar bigger than your biggest existing jar, make it enormous and we will sell it." And the pickle company was like wtf? No one is ever going to actually USE all these pickles! But they had to do it to keep WM as a customer.

OH HAI there's a whole thing about it online, apparently.

"Vlasic Pickles was roped into a contract with Wal-Mart, in which Wal-Mart sold a 3 gallon jar of whole pickles for $2.97. Wal-Mart sold 240,000 gallons of pickles per week. But the price of the 3 gallon jar was so low, that it vastly undercut Vlasic's sales of 8 ounce and 16 ounce jars of cut pickles; further, Vlasic only made a few pennies per 3 gallon jar. With its profits tumbling, Vlasic asked Wal-Mart for the right to raise the price per 3 gallon jar to $3.49, and according to a Vlasic executive, Wal-Mart threatened that if Vlasic tried to back out of this feature of the contract, Wal-Mart would cease carrying any Vlasic product. Eventually, a Wal-Mart executive said, "Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it"—meaning it had wiped out competitor products. Finally, it allowed Vlasic to raise prices; but in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy."

You guys should just be glad I bought anything. I'm still mostly rocking Minutemen T-shirts and shit I got freshman year of lollege

On the other hand, Wal-Mart deserves some of the credit for making bottles of laundry detergent smaller, reducing plastic and waste.

Also, they're making milk jugs that look like this:

http://www.sustainableisgood.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/30/square_milk.jpg

Oh just wait until Walmart discovers vinyl.

pfft, wait until steve jobs discovers wal-mart

Every Target sporting goods section I've ever seen is really just half an aisle between barbie dolls and yoga mats. You can buy boat anchors at Walmart.

Anyone who thinks only hipsters shop at Target has never lived a day in a town with a Target

― velko, Sunday, November 30, 2008 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, the main demographic I associate with "Target shoppers" is middle-class Hispanic families.

Oh just wait until Walmart discovers vinyl.

― Gino-Vanellyville (Mackro Mackro), Monday, December 1, 2008 10:20 AM (5 minutes ago)

pfft, wait until steve jobs discovers wal-mart

― El Tomboto, Monday, December 1, 2008 10:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Transitively ---> iVINYL

Anyone who thinks only hipsters shop at Target has never lived a day in a town with a Target

― velko, Sunday, November 30, 2008 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, the main demographic I associate with "Target shoppers" is middle-class Hispanic families.

― jaymc, Monday, 1 December 2008 18:26 (3 hours ago)

Hahaha basically my family, which loves Target. I do admire their Method line of biodegradable shit, though. Besides the non-toxic soaps and stuff they actually use bamboo fibers in place of wood or synthetic fibers, which in my mind is a lot more helpful than just a little bit of soap.

THIS IS A GREAT IDEA WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

I thought they already sold lotto tickets, honestly.

It is the only big-chain dept store that sells smokes.

target doesn't own method

the whole "target = hipster" thing is crazytalk

although I like the idea of ol' mall/retail standbys adapting to hipsters, like Foot Locker selling "ironic" sneakers or something.

But what are you gonna do, make all your own clothes? And what else are you supposed to do when the DVD player stops working?

I try and buy vintage or from op-shops so at least the money's going to charity and the clothes are usually better made anyway. I cant sew so thats my only recourse rly.

I buy better-made electronics, and whatever happened to getting things fixed when they break???

― Trayce, Sunday, November 30, 2008 11:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest

True, true. I havent bought first-hand clothes in nearly a decade, if you don't count socks and underwear you can get from dollar stores. I especially cringe when I see people paying top dollar for stuff made to look like it's 2nd hand when they could've gone the authentic route and just went to a thrift shop and saved a crapton of money. But I've never heard of a DVD player-repair shop, and I can't imagine getting one fixed would be cheaper than buying a new one these days...

I agree with you 100% on there being better ways to use your money than buying new stuff all the time at Walmart, but I think if people are going to gripe about Walmart they shouldn't stop there, they should think about the issues behind capitalism at large. This is what I mean about Walmart being the Jesus of capitalism. Every time some child labor/sweatshop/biohazard/consumer products issue comes up it seems like people crucify Walmart and then continue to shop at, say, Target, thinking "Oh they're OK, at least it isn't Walmart". Once Walmart dies for capitalism's sins these problems become less of a concern.

But that could just by my misreading..

Why would StuffWhitePeopleLike (started by a dude in Toronto, right?) partner with an American firm we white Canadians can't even shop from? Balls.

Every time some child labor/sweatshop/biohazard/consumer products issue comes up it seems like people crucify Walmart and then continue to shop at, say, Target, thinking "Oh they're OK, at least it isn't Walmart".

i don't see this at all -- if anything, the stores themselves are rarely crucified and the person/supplier/brand associated the closest with the issue is vilified instead. people seem to be unwilling to acknowledge that there will just be another cheap-ass celeb or whatever endorsed line that is made the exact same way because of the behemoth stores and their cheap cheap cheap agenda. it's disingenuous either way its done but i think your way is less common...?

people who're trying to say "wal-mart, target, what's the difference" should really read the story linked by Laurel - or the New Yorker story from a year or two ago - to think more about the nature of wal-mart's business practices and their effects on 1) american businesses, and by extension the economy and 2) the quality of merchandise generally available to the consumer. Target sells crap like anybody else. But to the best of my knowledge they haven't driven anybody out of business by demanding that they reduce their profits to points so low that they can no longer afford to do business in the US. Wal-Mart's whole business model contributes to a lesser standard of quality for American-made goods and to a lesser quantity of American-made goods, i.e., fewer American jobs. Unless the jobs created by new Wal-Marts can be said to offset the losses of American factories, which I don't think they do. One big reason that Levi's suck now, when they didn't used to, is that Wal-Mart got Levi's to think like Wal-Mart. That counts as a loss to me. Levi's were pretty cool once.

tl;dr "Wal-Mart is just a serious bummer"

to be fair wal mart is pretty bad-ass

well yeah but so is napalm

totally

although I like the idea of ol' mall/retail standbys adapting to hipsters, like Foot Locker selling "ironic" sneakers or something.

― Gino-Vanellyville (Mackro Mackro), Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:03 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah this is basically what i'm talking about: i think it's happening.

The variety of products of all levels of quality generally available to the consumer has never been greater. Just because Walmart has made a ton of stuff cheaper than ever doesn't mean you have to shop there. For every product they carry, there's something better at another store in all but the smallest towns.

http://i39.tinypic.com/21eqcud.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PZLJbRJ.png

Life Is Crap