Walmart Supercenter Vs. Supertarget

[houstonsemipro]

What makes Wal Mart so grest is that they carters to low income people also. People want layaways, and target do not have layaways, but they use to years ago. People is trying to get away from always using credit cards, they rather use cash, or put their purchase in a layaway. Every year during the holidays wal mart always be the #1 place to shop.

Like I said before, it's going to be a hard time to compete with wal mart prices, and just the store itself it's hard to compete. y'all could talk about wal mart, and disgrade wal mart, but wal mart always be that #1 store that everyone appeal to.

[pineda]

Very exciting to hear the Sears and K-Mart merger news! New operation will be called Sears, since the K-Mart apparently has lost its' market appeal to the masses over the years. Should be interesting!

[ssullivan]

Very exciting to hear the Sears and K-Mart merger news! New operation will be called Sears, since the K-Mart apparently has lost its' market appeal to the masses over the years. Should be interesting!

The company will be called Sears. Both the Sears and K-Mart brands will still exist though in the stores, which will continue to operate as separate concepts.

K-Mart has actually made a remarkable comeback the last two years and is doing very well in the markets they stayed in. The company is actually turning a profit now and have achieved a position that is allowing them to buy Sears. That said, both companies are still struggling to a certain degree, and I'm not convinced that a marriage of two weak partners is a good thing. It may work but it could just as easily result in disaster for both.

[ricco67]

Well, with any luck, they will do a "Made in the USA" brand and MEAN it!

that simple statment and a "grass roots" campaign would be interesting.

Ricco

[editor]

Well, with any luck, they will do a "Made in the USA" brand and MEAN it! 

that simple statment and a "grass roots" campaign would be interesting.

Ricco

I got a Sam's Club card in 2000 when Wal-Mart's advertising was jumping up and down about Made In The USA stuff. I couldn't help but notice that the Sam's Club card was marked "Litho [Printed] in Mexico". Made me wonder how much was reality, and how much was advertising hype.

[houstonsemipro]

Hey, why Houston don't have STAPLES?

[pineda]

Wal-Mart took out a full-page color ad in yesterday's Houston Chronicle decrying the criticism received on all fronts. For more information, they have a website that purports to give the "real truth" about Wal-mart at Wal-Mart Facts website

[The Great Hizzy!]

Wal*Mart is becoming increasingly beleagured all over America. They're even catching hell putting up new stores in some of the most suburban of suburban areas. They've gotta do something before they eventually start to go the way of K-Mart and other discount department stores of the past.

[BayouCityGirl]

Walmart is increasingly getting expensive!

I am going to HEB or even Krogers now. Even Target looks cheap compared to Walmart now

[debmartin]

has anybody heard news about walmart going in at northwest mall? someone recently told me they'd heard walmart would go in where jc pennys used to be but so far from what i can tell it's just gossip.

debmartin

[Guest danax]

To me target is just another KMART trying to hang with wal mart, but at the end target is going to get their feelings hurt like kmart.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

K-mart seemed dumpy like WM. I felt like I wanted to get out of there as soon as I entered.

Target seems to be a more pleasant experience. It might not be much different the WM but I think it gives off a classier vibe, and so will probably always survive in nicer areas that WM won't be able to get into.

The WM in Pasadena, which is the closest to me, until they finish the one north of Almeda Mall that is, is on the nasty side. I only go there if my $10 Rustler jeans wear out or if I go with my daughter. But by the time I leave I can feel my energy sinking. It seems dark, the shoppers seem more aggressive, the aisles more haphazard. I feel like I'm lost in some maze trying to figure out where everything is.

All three of these stores are very similar in terms of goods and prices, it's subtle perceptions that can make or break them.

[BayouCityGirl]

K-mart seemed dumpy like WM. I felt like I wanted to get out of there as soon as I entered.

Target seems to be a more pleasant experience. It might not be much different the WM but I think it gives off a classier vibe, and so will probably always survive in nicer areas that WM won't be able to get into.

The WM in Pasadena, which is the closest to me, until they finish the one north of Almeda Mall that is, is on the nasty side. I only go there if my $10 Rustler jeans wear out or if I go with my daughter. But by the time I leave I can feel my energy sinking. It seems dark, the shoppers seem more aggressive, the aisles more haphazard. I feel like I'm lost in some maze trying to figure out where everything is.

All three of these stores are very similar in terms of goods and prices, it's subtle perceptions that can make or break them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I HATE the Meyerland Walmart. Its SO Horrible!!!

I feel like sardines in a tin can going in there with maybe 2 lanes open! (and that stupid spin-a-bag thingie where you KNOW you left a bag at the store because the cashier was busy talking to her/his friend in the next check out lane and wasn't paying attention.

Also pyschologically speaking... "Red" is a color of passion and anger. It draws you in whereas blue is "depression" and maybe i'm starting to get offtopic here sorry.

[Sooner&RiceGrad]

As a psych grad, red is also a color of surprise, more recently.

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

Target wins.

[Hunter]

It is a toss up for me as well. For some things my lady and Igo to HEB and others we go to Krogers. We almost never shop at Randalls or Target. Fruit and vegetables that we buy at Randels usually goes bad with in a few days if not sooner and We just do not like Traget. We will only go there if they have something that we really need. Same thing with Walmart as well. Their prices are not really all that good if you pay attention.

[RaiderDude]

I like Target better. Their stores are much cleaner, the aisles are wider, and the lines are much shorter than Wal-marts.

[LTAWACS]

Target

Marshalls

HEB or Fiesta. Fiesta is closer but more expensive.... HEB has a bigger selection.

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

Uh, Marshalls. When did Marshalls get grocery?

[BayouCityGirl]

I like Target better.  Their stores are much cleaner, the aisles are wider, and the lines are much shorter than Wal-marts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually you haven't been to the horrible Target on Wilcrest. The aisles are small and there is never anything in stock when you need it. The selection is pathetic. I wish they'd close it down, remodel and maybe regrand open the store (and get rid of the Randalls next to it) to a Super Target. The Target on Wilcrest is so bad they don't even have a photo lab anymore!

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

I have never been there. I know that they have just remodeled an older Target on Fry Road@Katy Freeway. THey made it into a mini-Super Target. It looks brand new, and it is great.

[tw2ntyse7en]

...

[musicman]

I think, for some people anyway, physical environment has alot to do with their moods.  Imagine having to spend 8+ hours a day in a Walmart.  Shudder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i don't shop at Walmart either....when they first started it was all about made in the USA, now all they have is chinese products. when you don't know the name brand on a tv, it's time to shop elsewhere. PBS had a great special a few months back on how the company operates. They could care less about american suppliers and keeping them in business. But i guess it's all about making the buck.

it's been several years since i've been in a walmart. after i found out they take out insurance policies on their elderly employees so when they die, walmart collects the money and doesn't tell the family. that was the final straw for me.

[ssullivan]

i don't shop at Walmart either....when they first started it was all about made in the USA, now all they have is chinese products.

Wal-Mart was never all about US-made products. They've always been about getting merchandise as cheaply as possible. They just for a long time made the public believe that their stores will full of American-made products through their advertising campaigns, when in reality, American-made merchandise has always been in the minority in their stores. They only stopped those ads after they were called out and the real percentage of foreign versus domestic goods sold in their store was revealed to the public. At that point they realized they couldn't get away with those ads anymore.

Now, in Wal-Mart's defense, the majority of the retail goods in this country sold in almost any store are imported from other countries. But Wal-Mart is the worst offender in this area and was one of the few stores trying to create a false illusion that their store was full of domestic goods through advertising.

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

Wal-Mart vs. Class Actions

The retail giant's novel defense in a massive suit could rewrite the playbook

Corporate America could find it a whole lot easier to fight off employment class actions if Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) prevails in a sex discrimination case to be heard soon by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Indeed, a Wal-Mart victory could tilt the playing field for virtually all of these kinds of suits, which have plagued Boeing (BA), Coca-Cola (KO), and dozens of other large employers over the years.

Wal-Mart's ambitious legal strategy strikes at the heart of what it means to file a class action. The company maintains that its constitutional rights would be violated if the court allows a suit to go forward involving up to 1.5 million of the retailing giant's current and former female employees. Because such a case would deprive the company of its rights to defend itself against each woman's claim, it argues, the courts should allow suits only on a store-by-store basis. If the Ninth Circuit agrees and strikes down the multistate action certified by a lower court, it would likely kill the largest employment class action in U.S. history. More broadly, it would open wide the door for all large companies to make similar arguments. "A victory for Wal-Mart might mean that plaintiffs can't bring nationwide class actions anymore and that they might have to do them locally or regionally," says Mark S. Dichter, a management-side employment lawyer at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.

Wal-Mart's case is no slam dunk. A few companies have tried similar arguments in bits and pieces and gotten nowhere. But Wal-Mart is the first to tackle the constitutional issues head-on, say Dichter and other experts. Certainly, it faces tough odds at the Ninth Circuit, one of the nation's more liberal federal appeals courts. Instead, it's probably aiming for the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, say experts. At the same time, Wal-Mart has been hedging its bets by engaging in settlement talks with the plaintiffs for several months, say lawyers involved.

COURT-CLOGGER?

Still, the question is whether Wal-Mart's suggested store-by-store alternative makes sense. After all, the most extreme outcome -- thousands of mini class actions -- would clog the U.S. courts for years. Even the company's own prediction that plaintiffs could have grounds to bring discrimination claims at no more than 10% of its 3,400 U.S. stores would qualify as a lawyer's full-employment act. Of course, Wal-Mart may simply believe that few store-level cases would be filed in the end, although Wal-Mart's lawyers deny that. Still, "if even 100 suits were brought, it would be a mess for Wal-Mart," warns Joseph M. Sellers, a partner at Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll who represents the plaintiffs.

The case began in 2001, when a group of female Wal-Mart employees sued, claiming that the world's largest retailer systematically paid women less than men in the same jobs and promoted men ahead of similarly talented women. Last June a Northern California District Court judge granted the plaintiffs class status, allowing them to sue on behalf of all women who had worked at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores since December, 1998. Wal-Mart quickly appealed the class certification to the Ninth Circuit, which is due to set the hearing date any day.

The thrust of Wal-Mart's appeal is that the district judge ran roughshod over the company's constitutional rights to due process and to a jury trial. Despite the company's reputation for micromanaging down to the penny, it argued that pay and promotion decisions are made almost entirely by local store managers. So the judge should have ignored the plaintiffs' statistics showing large nationwide disparities in the way female employees are paid and promoted. Instead, it should hear only store-level suits.

Doing otherwise, the company says, would leave it unable to prove that an individual was paid correctly or properly passed over for promotion. So it could be forced to pay for something it didn't do. That would be a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment's requirement that "no person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." Says Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a Wal-Mart lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP: "When you're talking about taking money from one citizen and giving it to another, you can't just rely on aggregate statistics, which don't tell you who is actually discriminated against."

The problem, of course, is that this logic undercuts the very concept of class actions. The point of grouping many employees together into one lawsuit is to deal with complaints that they hold in common. In employment discrimination cases, the problems usually involve disparate policies or practices by the corporation. Indeed, the plaintiffs' response is that broad workforce data are actually more reliable than individual hearings in such cases. They point out, for example, that the retailer promoted hourly workers using a "tap-on-the-shoulder" method, in which employees couldn't apply for a position and store managers singled out promising candidates when vacancies occurred. So it would be impossible to tell now which individual women would have qualified for a promotion even if there had been no discrimination. "In these circumstances, the use of workforce data to compute aggregate monetary relief 'has more basis in reality...than an individual-by-individual approach,"' the plaintiffs say, citing a prominent 1974 class action.

The two sides disagree just as strongly about which approach would be fairer to the individual women involved. If the court uses aggregate company statistics, as is typical in such cases, then women who never had any desire to become managers could get back pay or damages they're not entitled to, points out John Beisner, a class action attorney at O'Melveny & Myers LLP who filed an amicus brief supporting Wal-Mart on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Or those who suffered egregious discrimination at one store would get nothing if Wal-Mart wins. "That's the Hobson's choice you get when you hand juries these giant cases," he says.

The plaintiffs argue that rough justice is better than no justice at all. They say that in the nationwide class approach, Wal-Mart's total liability would be set by looking at how all female employees fared across the company. If some of that money went to women who didn't actually suffer, then women who did experience discrimination might get less than they should have. But Wal-Mart itself would be no worse off.

Wal-Mart's sheer size puts it in a category all its own. If it succeeds in cutting class actions down to bite-size pieces, large -- and not so large -- employers could end up benefiting.

[kjb434]

I always wonder why people miss the real winner in any class action case that wins. Its the layers. If they take their usually 40-50% of the winnings, then the remaining money is doled out in small portions to all the plaintifs. With the size of the plaintiff in this case, they would probably recieve no more than a 500 dollar check or something that small.

Class action lawsuits are never about the plaintiffs. They are about the lawyer versus the business.

[Subdude]

Before things get too far off topic, political discussions about lawyers or whatnot belong in "Way Off Topic".

Thank you.

[pineda]

Wal-mart sales slowing, trying to be "trendy" to compete with Target

[GoAtomic]

I can't stand shopping at a Wal-Mart of any sort, regular or 'Neighborhood Market' . Their grocery selection is too much 'Sam's Choice' and not enough name brands in some areas. Beyond that, it's mostly a principle thing - they have unbelievable chutzpa when they decide to go into a market. I heard that in a state where they were shot down by the aforementioned 'big-box' ordinance (which was specifically aimed at keeping them out), they now plan to build two stores side-by-side, each under the maximum square footage of the ordinance. Amazing!

But I could roam Target for hours - they always have unique, reasonably-priced merchandise (cheaper than Crate&Barrel but just as cool), and get new stuff all the time. I still can't understand, however, why when they moved the store from Echo Lane to Memorial City they didn't make it a SuperTarget. I would have no problem shopping for groceries there exclusively if they had.

[houstonsemipro]

TArget don't have nothing. Everytime I go into Super target it be almost empty. Everytime I go into Wal mart, it's jam packed. Even late at night it still be packed around 11pm-1am. Besides, target is higher then wal mart. You can take an target coupon to wal mart and they will meet that price, if it's not already low price. Target is going to end up like Kmart trying to battle with Walmart.

[houstonsemipro]

Besides. Wal mart is the number one top fortune companies in the world today. Where is target?