I haven't been following WalMart closely enough lately but this headline caught my eye. CostCo (good guy relative to other big box competition) is crushing WalMart:
On average consumers visit Costco 2.8 times per month, compared with 2.37 visits a month on average at Sam's Club and 2.1 visits a month at BJs, according to the new Main Street Spending Index compiled by Geezeo, a personal finance Web site that helps consumers track their spending.
Kar-ma.
Aw...riiiight!
Posted by: mick arran | December 08, 2008 at 05:30 PM
Hmm. I suspect that's because Wal-Mart takes care of Sams Clubbers on a day to day basis, whereas Target doesn't perform that function as well for Costco goers.
Store locations and demographics are way different as well. But mostly I think this shows that Costco shoppers aren't as frugal as Scams Clubbers. If they were, they wouldn't need to make that extra half trip a month to buy bulk toilet paper and raisins by the case.
Posted by: Mark Gisleson | December 09, 2008 at 10:39 AM
You may be right but I don't want to underestimate the role of bad publicity, shoddy products, and employee dissatisfaction. Remember, their labor pool is also their customer base and word gets around. Given an option a lot of people would go somewhere else. That's why WM woks so hard eliminating competition in the area of its stores.
Posted by: mick arran | December 09, 2008 at 11:16 AM
God but I hope you're right. Lately a lot of blogs are doing "who's the worst president ever" posts and the comments from wingnuts are all Jimmy Carter all the time.
It's hard for me to credit Reagan Demcrats with having a brain when they keep thinking all this economic meltdown still has its roots in four years of Carternomics.
Posted by: Mark Gisleson | December 09, 2008 at 02:33 PM