Serious Question to anyone who works in retail

They watched this video in the marketing classes when i was a sophomore in college. I am watching excerpts from it now.

Totally blown away that 80% of the walmart workforce is considered below the poverty level going by their salary alone.

A guy just said that if they only raised the price of every item by .10 cents, they could afford to pay their store workers 10$ an hour...

Watching this now makes me wonder why/how the government has not been involved yet....

To be fair, Walmart typically underprices competition by 1 to 3 cents for marketing purposes - lowest price etc. so if they raise prices by 10 cents they will have successfully undercut their main selling point and reduce their customer base. The logic on that thought sounds purely governmental, ie ignore real world consequences and force an action that sounds good to the masses.

I am fairly certain Target and Kmart would love to see Wal-mart make that pledge!

Yes I do shop at Wal-mart, I do like the self checkout lines, and I can be patient in line when at a popular market place. If I am in a rush, I probably would go to a slightly more expensive store and expect their lines to be shorter.

I don't work in retail, but I do know how expensive even part time workers can be on a company's bottomline.

I think you're missing my point. They can still be the #1 leader in retail and can afford to pay their employees more than minimum wage. They dont have to be shady with their employee health care, or lack therof.

Target is just as busy and they at least give people 8.25 an hour. I think Target could overtake WM if they had the # of locations.

I've read Sam Walton's book before. He pulls no punches. He was all about coming in, driving the "mom and pop" places out of business, and beginning his monopoly. With that said, he also beleived in treating his workers better..

you are missing my point, you said they could pay better if they just increased their price 10 cents. But increasing their price by 10 cents would incredibly reduce their customer base, because their base is the bargain hunter/lowest price customers. Target has fairly loyal customers that would shop there even if they are not the lowest on every item, Wal-mart does not have that type of market. Wal-mart markets two things, convenience and low price. If you take away low price, suddenly BigK's or Super Targets look mightily convenient.

Ok CRedskins...i get what you are saying.

But asking you honestly, do you think the average person would care if it went up 10 cents? I would not. I do not shop there much, but they would still have that "convienience" factor...its still a one stop shop, etc...

My ex wife would!
as for me, maybe not, but I think a huge base of theirs would. Especially if everything was more. I don't think the advertisement " we charge more so our employees are paid better" would make as much of an impact to budget shoppers as a target ad "every item lower than WalMart" would.

But all of this is off from your question. I think mredskins nailed it with his answer: better to have the capacity and not use it, and it's better than having a wide open area right in the front of the store.

But at least we all agree that Walmart Sucks

But at least we all agree that Walmart Sucks


yup!

And let them keep their low prices, it drives al lthe crazies to them and stores like Target have the normal folks.

Price for price on most things Wal MArt and Target are fairly close. Wal MArt just tends to have a larger selection in auto, outdoor stuff, camping, etc...

You can have too many counters but you can't have too few. The Mob will revolt if they can't buy crap in timely manner during the holidays.

Well at least we are "civilized". There was a guy killed at black friday this year, he was 6 foot 5 and like 250, he was a walmart worker and he was trying to protect a pregnant lady from a violent crowd...they killed him for it...seriously look it up

But at least we all agree that Walmart Sucks

I despise WalMart. Living right near the DC-MD line, I would have to travel about 20 miles to get to nearest one anyway, so I never go. When I lived in Florida I did occasionally shop there. They do have good prices on toiletries. In general that place is just gross as hell.

Folks like this keep me away from Walmart:

People of Walmart: a collection of all the creatures that grace us with their presence at Walmart, America's favorite store. (http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/)