Why WalMart will Fail in my Neighborhood

Customer service.

WalMart has risen to preeminence in the consumer retail industry because of their smart-inventory systems and sense of branding among "associates". But that is recently shifting with ongoing lack of local management.

In the last two years, we, the consumer, have seen a shift to modern exteriors, enhanced produce sections, and poor service. It is now expected that when a customer wants to pick up a bag of dog food, they will wait 10 to 15 minutes in a 15-customer line, because of the 26 registers that are newly installed and ready to go, only two.. maybe three.. have a cashier and are actively helping customers.

If it were anecdotal, this would not be blog-worthy.

But this has been my experience with every visit, save one late-night expedition, and at three different stores in the West-Houston region. 

 Something has shifted. So much so that twice this short month I have simply left the store, abandoning my cart out of the way where another shopper had just done the same. There are 4 store associates talking, and the manager had just opened a register but only to help an employee to make a discount purchase. The rest of us stand in long lines thinking she will look up, realize that we are getting frustrated and have the initiative to open one more line.

Or maybe as another manager at another store chats up some off-line cashier, he might glance at the line (Katy store) and actually invite her to open her register for the line that has now expanded into the retail area. Of the two frazzled cashiers working that store's truncated check-out, I see two customers leave the line and abandon their carts when one of the cashiers has a client who wants a price-check for yet another item. And there are three associates chatting away from the cashiers.. I guess waiting to restock items left by frustrated customers?

So here's the part that the Region managers don't seem to get: if people leave the store, they not only did not spend any money there, they may not want to return.

I have now decided that my money and my time will now first go to my local grocery store, whose inventory, pricing and customer service has just won a client. It's only a $50 purchase, but that's money that Walmart will never see.

(originally written Feb2014)

JK,ns