Today's youth probably wouldn't believe this....but remember the days when:
- Walmart had the widest variety of everything—for truly the LOWEST PRICES ANY WHERE? Remember the banners that read exactly that? It was a winning formula that had put them on top to begin with: Service your customers with the cheapest costs. Now? Their arrogance is unbelievable: Whole shelves sitting empty, and outrageous sticker shock pricing. I know what their thinking is; they're betting customers will think 'Oh well, I'm already here. Might as well just go ahead and buy this anyway'. This has been slowly eroding away as we are quickly waking up, smelling the coffee—and buying it elsewhere.
- Another benefit WM had above all their competition—plenty of Staff were everywhere, ready to help you with whatever you needed. Now? It's like a ghost town, walking through these places.
- Even if you were from out of town and wondering where the closest WM was, all you had to do was follow the traffic stream, one side of town or another. Morning and evening, those stores had steady convoys coming and going. Now? The parking lots are looking like K Mart of 1998..
- Back 10 - 15 years ago WM had other gorcery retailers like Kroger on the ropes. Now? I and many others here in central Il. are doing 90 + % of our shopping at Kroger.....and using Walmart mainly for social interaction. Kroger came back with a fury!
Walmart is not going out of business any time soon, but their Happy Days of living high on hog are most definitely OVER. .....................................And they did it to themselves.