I get what you're saying, but will also note that this is probably subjective based on where you live. In my city, most of the walmarts are crowded, loud, and dirty. A lot of merchandise somehow ends up on the floor. The lines are long. The produce quality varies greatly but is not very good.

I once saw a Walmart in another state with a live lobster aquarium. My local friends almost didn't believe me. (I live in California)

The 'quality' of WalMarts vary enormously.

If you want to see a really nice WalMart, then visit store 100, in Bentonville Arkansas. Curiously, this store is across the street from one of the main home office buildings.

Snark aside, the amount of central control tends to cause some unexpected kinds of 'drift' across the various stores. That central control, combined with absolutely amazing, state of the art technology in the late 90s and early 2000s led to much of WalMart's success. I heard from a lot of managers back then that sang high praise for the big computer system in Bentonville. Indeed, in late August 2005, the normal things arriving at the stores along the gulf coast disappeared in lieu of batteries, water, and other such supplies. A store manager told me, a few months later, that he knew shit was getting real when the big computer in Bentonville stopped sending regular stuff.

Unfortunately, that technology has not kept up, and actually grew in many non-useful ways to become the over-bearing beast that it is now.

So the whole concept of 'store of the community' was and is a thing. But in the past, it was a good thing. Now, not so much.

And yes, the ever spiraling expectations put on store managers to keep their comp (1 up, quarter after quarter, for decades, could only end up as we see it now. Serious understaffing, and other related problems.

1) 'comp' means 'comparable sales': http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/comparable-store-sales.a...

I've certainly seen stores that are in just terrible shape. They all tend to be understaffed. They have 30 checkouts available and most times it seems like 5 are open. I never understood the idea behind that, though I went in one time around Christmas and they had a ton of lines available.

I think the best mix between prices and not being over-congested and dirty are the warehouse stores like Sam's Club and Costco. Those places require larger volumes, so they aren't really great options if you aren't buying for an entire household.

Sams (and I assume also Costco) also require a membership, the cost of which keeps the really poor folks out.

My local Walmart had a lobster aquarium for a while. Lobster was 2-3x the price at the local supermarket and it was just sitting in the middle of the food section. Not sure who one would have had to grab to actually buy a lobster. Very odd. It disappeared after a while.

I can't say I'm much of a fan of shopping at Walmart. It's convenient for me and the prices are good to very good. (Though my overall perception is that apples-to-apples it's not spectacularly cheaper than my local supermarket.) But I find that I have trouble doing a full grocery shopping there because of a combination of selection and quality.

For groceries (the one thing I can't really outsource to internet shopping), I find that Walmart's Neighborhood Market stores to be far nicer than the superstores. I shop at mine all the time and it's a clean, quiet, pleasant experience.

There's a standard superstore Walmart 2 miles from my Neighborhood Market, and I avoid it at all costs for the reasons you state.

I have found the opposite -- Walmart is understaffed to the point of absurdity and their produce is substandard. Not only that but it is very difficult to find someone that knows where something else, especially when most people don't have any knowledge beyond their aisle.

Just another anecdote.

If you find someone with access to Nielsen sales data, it's enlightening. Walmart is very rarely the cheapest retailer. It's been a few years, but I believe the rock bottom, cheapest grocer was Aldi, by a huge margin.

That wouldn't surprise me since they are selling almost entirely store brand / generic items. When I first got out of college, I largely shopped at Aldi's and it was certainly the cheapest way to buy food. I ultimately stopped because they sold very little fresh food. I think they're starting to sell a lot more now but I'm not sure how those prices compare.

> If I buy groceries at Walmart or another discount grocer, my bill is nearly half of what it would be if I shopped at a "nicer" supermarket and well over half of what it would be if I shopped at a place like Whole Foods.

I like to do both.

We don't have a Whole Foods, but there is a small regional chain here that has organic local produce and grass fed antibiotic free hormone free meats and such.

I use Walmart for things like 2 liter soda bottles, frozen vegetables, lunch meats, bread, condiments, paper goods, and the like, and so save money compared to places like Safeway or Fred Meyer. I can then justify going to that small regional chain when I want a steak or fresh produce and buy their expensive grass fed beef and the locally grown organic produce.

I can't speak for all Walmart stores, but the store in Mountain View is always understaffed with checkout lines 10+ people deep. The Target that is literally across the street has short lines all the time and people will actually help you find stuff. I shop at Target because I value my time, but I would consider Walmart if they improved their customer experience.

It could be that at least some of those waiting in those long lines at Wal-mart might value their time as much as you do but lack the spare income to trade for time that you have.