Hi all,
Believe me, it is not just the Walmart in Alabama. The ones in California are even worse. I moved to Riverside County in Southern California about ten years ago. At first the local Walmart was okay; but, then, they had a change in management -- and the store totally changed. I have had the same experience as you; products which they carried for years -- all of a sudden disappear, for no apparent reason -- and for products they still carry, half the time all I see are empty shelf spaces.
I have been buying the gallon bottled drinking water there for a long time -- and most of the time when I go to the store, regardless of the time of day or night -- the shelf is empty. They will have 30+ bottles of distilled water; but, no drinking water. I have talked to management many times, asking why they do not stock more drinking water and less distilled, since drinking water moves fast -- and distilled just sits there occupying shelf space. Marketing common sense tells one that if you have two products sitting side by side -- and one always sells out as soon as you put it on the shelf -- and the other hardly moves at all; you reallocate shelf space to the product which sells. But, they have never been able to figure that out.
If I go to Walmart with a shopping list of say, ten items -- I can promise you that at least four of the items will be sold out -- empty shelves.
A couple of years ago, at Bible study, I told my wife we had to leave a little early so I could stop by Walmart. A friend asked, [i]"Do you mean that Walmart on McKinley?"[/i] I said yes and he told me, [i]"I hate that store. They are always out of stock."[/i] And, I had not mentioned my problem to him. So, obviously I am not the only one who has noticed.
About five years ago, I had a problem with the local Walmart and, at the same time, had a problem with products purchased at JCPenneys. I sent an e-mail letter to the corporate office of both companies. Two days later, I received a call from the local JCPenneys store manager. He told me, [i]"Bill, come to the store and ask for me. We will take care of your problem."[/i] And, he did exactly that.
The same day, I received a call from the local Walmart. The lady identified herself as the Assistant Manager -- and she arrogantly told me, [i]"Mr. Gray, I am just calling to tell you that anytime you send a complaint to corporate; they will just send it back to me."[/i] And, she made no offer to correct the problem. In other words, she just wanted to let me know that it did no good to complain to Walmart corporate office -- because they would just send it to her -- and she would trash the complaint. The personality of the local Walmart has not changed; nor will it as long as corporate allows this kind of local management. This tells me that Walmart corporate thinks they are too big to fail -- and could care less about the customers or our needs.
It seems to me that a few other companies recently thought they were too big to fail -- until the bottom began to fall out -- and the government decided that "we the people" should bail them out. Maybe we should let a few more fail -- so that they all will know they are not bigger than the customers who buy their products.
Personally, like you, I have been going to Target a lot more lately.
Just my thoughts.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill