TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits

Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits

Lisa Hancock (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)
14 Nov 2004 09:52:42 -0800

Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> wrote

> The experts mined the data and found that the stores would indeed need
> certain products -- and not just the usual flashlights. "We didn't know
> in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven
> times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane," Ms. Dillman
> said in a recent interview. "And the pre-hurricane top-selling item
> was beer."

WalMart is huge and now many people don't like them. There have been
several documentaries on them (PBS' Frontline will have another this
week, check your local listings).

Critics say Walmart destroys Main Street and American jobs. Yes, it
does. But on the other hand, aren't the customers of Walmart
benefiting from lower prices?

I like patronizing local businesses and try to do so. But when my
local hardware store charges $5 for a flashlight and Walmart charges
$1.50 for the very same model, I do have to stop and think. I
realized my local hardware store was grossly overcharging for many
things. (They're out of business now).

A few towns still have nice Main Streets, though many places they're
pretty awful. But most of these were killed off long before Walmart
came around, the more traditional shopping centers and chain stores
did them in a long time ago.

Some people may be upset that Walmart has such detailed customer
buying habits as described above. But it enabled them to serve their
customers with things they needed and wanted in an emergency.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, their prices are not necessarily
lower. Prices are only lower in areas (of the merchandise) they
want to push one week. At our downtown grocery store, Marvin's, the
selection is always just as good, and the prices are nearly always
at least competitive (if not sometimes better) than Walmart. Plus
which, I *hate* large crowds in a mall-type setting, and not getting
the customer service, carry out to your car arrangements that Marvins
and the stores downtown offer. PAT]

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