I would be surprised if most people under 60 or even 50 know what strolling down “Main Street” means. In my 30+ years, I have never once strolled down a Main Street.
I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).
I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).
What WalMart hates the most is that they can’t get people of affluence who want to save money to shop at one though. When I worked there the complaint out of HQ I heard the most is that Michelle Obama and Oprah would shop at a Target but never step foot in a Walmart despite having identical goods but Walmart has better prices
I guess you can't be everything to everybody...
Maybe they can fix that first.
Also, nobody in them seem to know how to exist in public without constantly being in the way. Wal-Mart has an uncanny ability to feel crowded while not actually being crowded. I don't get it.
Inflation is doing the trick[0]. For several quarters, they've reported marked increases in the share of higher-income shoppers, especially for groceries.
[0]: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/18/inflation-walmart-prices-ea...
The problem is they can’t manage to keep most of them once the economy bounces back, and growth slows significantly (their top line growth was only 2-4% per year for most of the 2010s and they still aren’t profitable on e-commerce)
Maybe since inflation is a different beast it will capture more consumers like this, we shall see
target isn't a whole lot better, but at least they have more staff wandering around to ask for help. I'll pay an extra 20 cents on my megapack of paper towels every time if that gets me out of the store faster.
I always thought the secret weapon to attracting wealthier shoppers is their far too under-capitalized and under-utilized Sam's Club model that is similar to Costco, but not Costco. I think thats what they should have invested in far more to attract the wealthier demographic. Most upper middle class+ people I know shop at Costco varying from often to religiously. Same with Trader Joes, actually.
I always thought Walmart was the "lesser" brand personally, but HQ never seemed to grasp this
slightly cheaper food court (and IMO slightly better tasting food, especially the pizza) is a nice draw as well.
I do my normal shopping at a grocery store where everything is probably 10-15% more expensive. Why? 5 reasons.
1. Paper bags. I hate plastic ones.
2. I'm not forced through the self checkout. Walmart has almost no cashiers any more, and the two that they do have (for all 30 registers) are hidden, except for the fact that there's a huge line of people there, all with overflowing carts.
3. I'm tired of having to wait 20 minutes just to stand in a checkout line. It happened so often at Walmart (even with self-checkouts) that I was fed up with it. The longest I have ever had to wait at the grocery store is 5 minutes, and often there's no wait at all.
4. Carry-out. It's nice for some young kid to have an after-school job helping me load water into my car. It's nice not having to find the carousel to return the shopping cart to. It's nice having a quick conversation with someone. It's standard at my 24-hour grocery store. It's an act of congress and a long wait at WalMart.
5. Walmart treats you as if you're trying to steal everything everywhere. They put cameras up everywhere that ding at you as you pass by. They take pictures of you as you use the self-checkout. They check your receipt when you try to leave. I'm sick of being treated as if I'm a criminal when I haven't done anything wrong. So I refuse to go there.
I can choose to spend $100 at Walmart, or $115 at a grocery store without having to put up with 1-5. I will choose that any day of the week.
The parking lot is another item. Instead of the rows going perpendicular to the front of the store, where you are constantly crossing at the pedestrian entrance, the parking is lengthwise across the store. So you can cruise up and down the aisles without driving by the front of the building. And no matter where you park, you are only 2 - 4 rows back from the building.
Then again there are a lot of cities/towns on the east coast that predate the car, so there's probably an increased concentration of "main streets".
Just completely unnecessary ad hominem. Why?
The suburb I live in now has a literal "Main St" as well. Maybe it's an east coast thing, but saying he doesn't get out much was more a statement of fact. I can't think of anyone I've ever met who has never experienced a Main St, and the only people I can think of who might possibly meet that criteria are people who live in tiny rural towns that they never leave, aka people who don't get out much.
This is the uncharitable assumption which you didn't have to make. Someone was describing something they observed, you can counter them without making silly snide comments.
If it is a legitimate observation, they must really, literally, not get out much and I would recommend driving to the nearest town with a population north of 10,000 and look around a bit to broaden their horizons. That's the generous interpretation.
I understand it, though. There very much was a main street downtown in my college town. It wasn't literally called "main street", however.
Growing up in Metro Detroit, there were "Main Streets" in most of the Cities/townships and IIRC it's a pretty common term. I'd argue most people under 60 and 50 know what "Main Street" means just to counter.
You know it doesn't have to be named "Main Street" to be a Main Street
I only ever remember going to Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, Best Buy, malls, Kroger, etc.
I've lived in cities since I've been an adult and every neighborhood I've lived in still has a main street for our small community inside the city. Granted this is only 4 different places, but most cities have many smaller communities inside of them with their own "main streets"
The neighborhood I currently live in, is considered by its residents to be its own little town inside of the city with everything being walkable along the main street.
We even talk about leaving our neighbourhood to go to other places within Toronto.
Maybe it's more of an Eastern US term?