Canthook

You read it first here, folks, tell your friends. WalMart is about to change their clothes.

When they started out in 1962, it was Wal-Mart. For the last decade or so, they've used a star instead of a dash between Wal and Mart. The new logo has one word, Walmart, followed by a dorky daisy.

Over the past three years, Wal-Mart has set out to repair its image. It has improved employee benefits and used its great might to shrink prices even further - a strategy that is winning over cash-strapped customers. During the 2006 elections, opponents of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) painted him as the "Senator From WalMart", pointing out that he was flying around, here and there, on the WalMart corporate jet, and that he'd introduced or sponsored legislation to reduce the tax burden on Sam Walton's heirs, and to make WalMart more profitable. Bob Casey, his Democratic opponent, won easily, although Casey himself probably would have won anyway.

A Goldman Sachs study recently showed Wal-Mart to be the clear price leader on a variety of products, from health and beauty aids to food and household cleaners.

What they haven't done at WalMart is to make the store less miserable to shop at.

One of the keys to WalMart's cost reduction has been "just in time" inventory levels. In theory, that's a good idea. There's no reason to carry a six month inventory of product on the shelves. In practice, though, they have a lot of empty shelves. If you have a shopping list of 20 "must have" items, especially popular items, you're lucky to find 17 of them in stock. That means that when your long, exhausting shopping trip is over, you need to conduct yet another long, exhausting shopping trip, to get those 3 items they were sold out of.

Retailers have long paid attention to "You can't sell much from an empty cart", but WalMart seems not to know that epigram.

Given today's higher gas prices, you're spending most of your "savings" in driving to the other store; you might as well shop at the other store in the first place. Additionally, given today's higher costs of freight, higher prices show up instantly at WalMart, while slightly older merchandise is still being sold at slightly older prices at other stores.

The thing I hate most about WalMart, though, is rude personnel. Ironically, that was what originally drew me to WalMart - back when Sam Walton was alive, WalMart was one of the friendlier stores around. Cash registers bore stickers that said "CHANT!" on them, and cashiers knew exactly what that meant: "Customers Have A Name, Too!"

When I'd buy something at WalMart, the cashier would see my name on the check, or see my name on the credit card, and say to me, "Thank you, Mr. Delos. I appreciate your business, and I hope to see you again soon." Never mind that they couldn't pronounce my name. (It rhymes with Ross - think of Hervé Villechaize crying out "Dee Loss! Dee Loss!" as I arrive at Fantasy Island.) What mattered was that they recognized that I was someone, and that their paycheck was possible because of me and people like me, so they acted like I was appreciated.

That's important. The customer is not always right, and customers realize that, but the customer is always the customer, and it's important that the employee knows that, and that the customer realizes the customer knows that.

These days, WalMart employees don't treat customers as if they are their sole reason for being employed, but instead, as someone who is a hindrance and bother, a nuisance who interferes with their job.

Not everyone, of course. Some of their employees learned better when they worked at other retail establishments. Other employees treat you nicely because they consider everyone a child of god, someone deserving of respect. The fact that there are exceptions, however, don't make up for the fact that the majority of WalMart employees once used to love customers, and these days, they hate customers. It's as if WalMart was trying to be a huge vending machine, eager to steal your money and balk at vending your purchase.

Sam Walton cut his teeth running Ben Franklin dime stores. He had something like four of them. "Uncle Ben" used to distribute little cards that store owners would post in the rest room, pointing out that customers were the ones that ultimately paid everyone's salaries.

Of course, things have changed in a lot of businesses since then. McDonald's managers used to walk around, chiding employees with, "Time enough to lean, time enough to clean." That was something else Uncle Ben used to promote, and Uncle Ben was around a long time before McDonald's was. Forty years ago, there were 1200 Ben Franklin stores, making them the largest chain store in the world, most of them owned by individual franchise-holders. These days, there are 30 times as many McDonald's restaurants.

Ben, who lives across town, says he thinks he could make a small fortune with a restaurant. He'd get a location where a lot of people have short lunch hours. He'd have a very short menu - hamburgers on toasted buns, with and without cheese, french fries made from fresh potatoes, pepsi, and shakes in chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. You'd walk up to the window and order what you wanted, and by the time the cashier made change, your order would be sitting there, ready for you to take away. He'd have courteous employees, a scrupulously-clean place, top-quality food, and excellent prices.

"It worked for McDonalds fifty years ago," he said, "but they haven't been been doing that for quite some time. Time for someone else to eat McDonalds' lunch." I suspect he may be right.

Other Bloggers On These Subjects:
Ben Franklin Stores - Bob Casey - cleanliness - empty shelves - friendliness - McDonald - quality - Rick Santorum - Sam Walton - WalMart