Yaron Answers: Why Is Walmart So Hated?

[wickedninja]

My problem with Wal Mart is that they take tax subsidies from tax payers in a lot of cases. I have issue with subsidies.

[PavchBavin]

Yes and no, on the Walmart buys the land part. I remember multiple times the local Walmart tried to move in and tried to get the city to pay for everything (zoning, building, etc) which is bullshit

[icelineman]

Walmart has lower prices but I find they sell cheaper quality versions of brand name products. I find they don't last so I rarely shop there.

[memwill]

Wal-Mart is hated because it's the largest non-union employer in the country - a great accomplishment and benefit to their customers.

[podcastbard]

many employees don't have a choice. We have too much unskilled labor jobs that pays lower then people can live on.

[Mrbfgray]

Amazon is even more successful and I like it.
Walfart is soulless and soul crushing. Quality means little and my time means NOTHING to them bc those things don't matter to their customers.
Once made trivial money transfer and it took more time than the money involved, I was the ONLY one in line who gave a damn about wasted time.

[JjJj-sryp]

Walmart is NOT an amazing company. If u ever go on and what I want is not on the shelf it’s most likely they couldn’t afford to have anyone pick it from the stock room and put it on the shelf to be sold

[graceross]

Great points! I also think society's hatred of Walmart is very much related to society's hatred of poor people. Poor people shop at Walmart; death by association. Classism at its finest.

[podcastbard]

they see the truth in how unions are nowadays. Cheap prices, amazing logistics, cheap products that don't last long, and they pay their people a wage that cannot be livable. You try living on 7.25/hour.

[curtisag]

Ever since when I was eight years old, I was a regular Walmart shopper, but now I started going less often because of the stressful atmosphere and sometimes poor service. Like months ago I was up there in the Electronics dept looking to replace my Roku and somehow it was locked in a cage so I had to stand in line for nearly ten minutes(That's right, TEN MINUTES!!!) trying to ask someone to get the Roku for me so I can pay for it at the counter. After a frustrating ten minute wait, my father who was with me said the hell with it and decided to go to Best Buy. On the other hand, at Best Buy it was just "grab and go". Easy, right?

Why in the heck you have to stand in line for nearly ten minutes just to ask for someone to open the cage for smaller items like flash drives and such!!??? WHY!!!??? Their Electronics policies are UTTER CRAP! What is worse, is that when I call them and ask for Electronics to see if a certain item is in stock, I would have to wait for between 10 and 20 minutes for someone in that department to pick up the phone! I have done this many times all with frustrating results. No wonder people complain of poor service at Walmart.

Despite all of this, I will still shop at Walmart for basic necessities like food, and some art stuff(I am a beginners artist, btw, most of the supplies are bought from Michaels). But when it comes to Electronics, I would shop at either Best Buy or Target. At Target, I wonder if some of the smaller items like SD cards, pack of DVDs, and flash drives are locked in the cage like Walmart does...

[racheljohnhyatt]

Costco has lower prices and higher wages

[Deleuzeshammerflow]

my brother works there: they force him to skip lunch, work off the clock and work on equipment he isn't trained on...and that's not just his store, there are tons and tons of complaints filed with them. Some people work there because it's one of their few options.

[TeaParty]

The nation is a mere tool for the individuals' life and happiness. See: US Constitution.

[AltumNovo]

The issue is the federal reserve printing effects everything, lots of these big business hugely benefit from it. The main reason why people have a yucky feeling about the rich today

[tonycatman]

Part of the reason it is hated is because it moves us toward homogeneity.
There was a time you could go to a different town, and they would be selling unique product.

[pepeledog]

I don't shop Walmart. Never have. Never will.

[zdvd]

There are lots of reasons to love or hate Wal Mart. I agree with the host here, but I also despise their strong-arm tactics with their suppliers. I also think WM would NOT exist as it now does without the great infrastructure we have in this country and should not meddle in politics or culture.

[FPOAK]

You don't think the employees of Walmart were benefited by being offered employment opportunities there? Why did they accept their jobs if the offers made them worse off?

And what exactly are you proposing? New laws mandating that people whose skills do not produce a certain amount per hour should not be allowed to sell their labor at all?

[flilguy]

Sam Walton was not about importing cheap junk from China. He wanted the chain to grow the US economy, not the trade deficit. Ayn Rand says that the US government allows certain monopiles to exist. Walmart is one of those monopolies. In the early years of Walmart, they placed most of their stores in small towns with less than 10, 000 people. They ran a lot of the "mom & pop" stores out of business. I wouldn't have an issue if they were in areas where they competed with other large chain stores. My biggest issue is in order to compete with Walmart its competitors had to change to the same business model. This is why so many goods are now imported. Walmart is part of the reason free trade with China was pushed by the former governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton. At one point in time, Hillary Clinton was on the board of directors.

[technowey]

He's wrong here.

Most people do not dislike companies merely for being successful. There are plenty of highly successful U.S. companies that most people like

The main reason people dislike Walmart is because Walmart has repeatedly had incidents where managers treated employees poorly when compared to how almost every other U.S. company would treat them in similar circumstances.

Anyone paying attention to the news realizes this. There was a boycott against Walmart because of this a while ago.

I think this did eventually lead Walmart to train there managers better and to introduce better policies (not see of that), but many of the employee stories left people disliking the company..