You’re absolutely right, and thanks for not attempting to turn this thread into a diatribe about Wal Mart, as Murph requested. It IS just like being Against Microsoft – you buy their software and durned if you have to keep spending more money every couple years to upgrade.
I agree with your blanket indictment that Americans shop for low price vs. quality and durability. Shame on us. Everything inside the four walls of a WalMart is cheap, but less durable, as you say.
I never thought about it before, but the things I buy at WalMart do require frequent replacing – GE light bulbs, Scott toilet paper, Bounty paper towels, Gillette razor blades, Edge shaving cream, Old Spice deoderant, Anco wiper blades, Pennzoil engine oil, Fram truck air filters, Planters peanuts, M&Ms peanut, 2-liter bottles of Coke Zero, Hallmark greeting cards, dog chewies, Scott’s fertilizer, rolls of 35mm Kodak and Fuji film, Maalox antacids, milk, Campbell’s soup, Coffee Mate, those $4 prescriptions… the list of “less durable” products they have hypnotized the American public into buying could go on forever. [sigh]
You’re right that a lot of WalMart product moves via intermodal, but it is with Schneider, JBH, and others. There’s a fair amount that also moves “IPI” Inland Port Intact (i.e. International staying in steamship boxes to an inland point like Logisitcs Park Chicago. As mentioned, most of that is inbound to DC’s where it will be held for a short period, mixed into WalMart private fleet trucks and dispatched in store-bound quantities to stores within a day’s drive of the DC. WalMart has figured out where rail (intermodal) can fit into their supply chain and leverages it smartly.
WalMart will ship TOFC and COFC, depending on the transit spec of the product.
I dont recall any evidence of WalMart forcing people to purchase lower quality merchandise…
I tend to believe the chain of events is that the folks at Wal Mart figured out the cheaper stuff would sell better overall, by watching what folks bought.
Like wise, by paying attention, they could figure out the most economical overall way to get things TO the DC’s and thus TO the stores.
It is interesting to hear reports that the stuff that comes from China in Containers arrives at the DC’s in van bodies…It was probably less capital intensive to let someone else build the Logistics Center with sidings and warehouses to
a) receive the container
b) dray it to a loading dock, (since you can’t off load it directly while on the rail car)
c) trans load it to a Van
d) send it out to the DC’s.
I would be suprised to find that the entire contents of a single container actually end up in the same distribution center. By repackaging into Vans, and changing from Homogeneous packaging (Everything the same in the container) to Homogeneous Destination (Everything going to the same place) you optimize your Own warehouse space. Now, I dont have to have rail facilities at ALL of my DC’s. (or any of my DC’s). And, if things change, and I start purchasing items that dont arrive by container (hey, we find some items made in the USA at WalMart!) I dont have to invest in different infrastructure.
In retrospect, the system they have probably evolved into what it is today. Remember when WalMart was advertising “Made In America!”? How much of that traveled by Rail?
SO, here we have an amusing situation…some folks may n
Well, as I recall it, there has always been an option to buy from the cut rate brands, but it was usually a niche market.
Walmart, with it’s…(ahem) unique style, is what pioneered the channel making the lower bin merchandise ubiquitous, the fact that many others have now followed suit does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to undistinguish Wallmart as the pioneer in this venue. I’m sure the transportation middlemen do enjoy the repeat business.
Thanks for (however unintentionally) making my point for me. You cite an extensive list of consumables. When durable goods are made so cheap and flimsy that they may become regarded akin to “consumable”, the similarity is hard to ignore.
Think I’ll buy a jumbo pack of lawn umbrellas this summer, there might be a little wind. [}:)]
I’d have to strongly disagree with you on that. As a kid in the early in the early 70’s, Kmart was the 800 # gorilla where I lived. A lot of people shied away from there, not wanting to buy any of that “cheap, throw away junk made in Taiwan”. Walmart didn’y pioneer that market, they simply honed it. Even old Sam Walton says he got his ideas from others in the industry, then refined them more to his liking.
It seems rather silly, to villify the “transportation middlemen”, for hauling freight. That is their business, after all. It appears to me, that ALL the big boxes are providing traffic to the railroads in the way of imports-no?
Red text: Where do you get the idea that I’m trying to “villify” (sic) the transportation middlemen? I’m being sincere when i say I’m sure they enjoy the second (and third, etc) hauls. Clearly it’s not their fault my lawn umbrella disintegrates in any breeze stronger than 3 mph, they just bring me a new one as cheaply as possible.
Blue text: Well, I remember K-Mart from back in the day they were S.S. Kresge, and yes they certainly had their budget brands. But I don’t believe they had the market share that Wallyworld now enjoys. But then most families I knew back then would not admit it if they did shop predominantly at K-mart
I suppose we could get into a debate about the meaning of words such as “pioneered” versus ‘honed’, but I think we are talking about the same thing, just differently.
As it pertains to the context of your original question, I stand firm in my belief that the shopping appetite that walmart has so expertly “honed” [:P] , where lower quality merchadise enjoys wider acceptance (the "low fi
I’d be fairly certain, that lower cost providers have been around as long as money has been around. I’d even wager that throw-away products have been around for a few years as well. Made in Japan…made in Taiwan…made in Mexico…made in China…etc. We’ll always have a low cost labor provider somewhere in the world for manufactured goods.
My question is: Has the change in marketing, brought on by the big box retailers of the world (including Walmart of course) caused the railroads to have to become more efficient and competitive/
ps. If it’s making you feel sic(k), I’ll go and look up how to spell villify.[swg]
Yes, but before all that finely “honed” marketing expertise went to work making lower bin products ubiquitous, it mattered less, because the slice of the pie was smaller.
Then there is the part where demand for quality merchandise drys up due to patron’s succumbing to the “cheaper is better” philosophy…driving the quality products out of the market place, but since you said you didn’t want to go there, I’ve purposefully been avoiding it. [:)]
Maybe this is true where you live, but not here. You fail to give people any credit – they know exactly what they’re buying at WalMart. Only a fool would expect high quality at discount prices – and keep returning to buy more of those items.
In some cases, it is all some people can afford.
I bought some WalMart furniture when I got my first apartment because that’s all I could afford at the time. It worked fine – the bookcase was a step up from boards across concrete blocks.And I didn’t expect heirloom quality, either.
Why are you so upset with the success of companies like WalMart and Microsoft?
Why, we’ve been over this ground once before in the last two years, where you expressed exactly the same WalMart opinions – using your other ID. And nothing’s changed, has it? [;)]
Same here, at all of our local grocery chains (7) in the Drug and Sundries aisle. Also at the stores of three national drug chains we have locally. But WalMart’s prices on these things are probably 40 percent cheaper, though, and that’s why I make a WalMart run once every two months or so and fill up a cart.