Out of their depth


How to compete with Walmart
I am a free market guy. I believe that choice and competition delivers better products over time.

Take Walmart.

Assuming that they haven't been playing footsie with the local authorities, Walmart can ignite the free market.

See, the local store employees have very little control over what a Walmart carries. Walmart gets the low price by purchasing in great quantities and centralizing their inventory management. The average Walmart may have several items in a given category, but all are low end and there isn't a lot of choice.

What you are trading for is the low price, and nobody can beat Walmart on that day after day.

When my local Walmart closed and the company opened a Super Walmart, the picture changed in ways I didn't expect. The product range increased but the product depth decreased. Instead of having more wiper blades in the automotive section, there are fewer blades but you can now get paper shop towells on a roll and other products that the old Walmart didn't carry.

Instead of five choices that will work, I now have one or two. And not always that.

On the other hand, my local True Value is doing great guns. Walmart was just the incentive they needed to shed all the non-hardware items. They went with better quality tools, focused on customer service, and they have expanded four times since Walmart came to town.

So guess where I go when I need to scratch the tool itch?

Or let me give you a more recent example.

I decided to get a whiteboard. It needed to be between 26 and 40 inches wide, magnetic. and decently made. Now Walmart had magnetic whiteboards, but they were all two feet or less wide. They had a 36 inch wide whiteboard, but it wasn't magnetic, didn't have a lip for the dry erase markers, and the wooden frame was coming off in the store.

So I ordered one online. No, I'm not thrilled about the shipping costs, but that was the tradeoff I made to get what I needed.

There are no other office supply stores within a hundred miles. I probably do ninety percent of my shopping for office supplies online just because I don't like what Walmart carries. Sure it would probably work sort of if they had it. But mostly they don't.

Everyone thinks that the only way to compete with Walmart is on price. Not so. Quality and service goes a long way.

What good does it do me for Walmart to sell stuff that I don't want?

Walmart targets wide but doesn't have the inventory depth to keep me as more than a cursory customer.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - February 10, 2009 at 02:29 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved