Saturday, August 05, 2006

Cheap Goods & Poor Employees

I have been shopping at Wal-Mart on a regular basis for the last 10 years basically because of the isolated country living and there isn’t much competition in the area for them. In the past I have purchased larger items like a Homelite Weed Eater and within about 2 years or so Wal-Mart stop selling any replacement parts for it, the only thing I could buy was the string!

In another instance I had purchased a water sprinkler with a built in timer. One day in the fall of the same summer that I purchased the water sprinkler it fell and broke. Because it was fall I knew Wal-Mart would be changing there stock to winter items and they probably wouldn’t have any summer garden items left on the shelves. So I contacted the manufacture of the water sprinkler and came to find out that the water sprinkler was no longer made and hadn’t been made in the last 2 years! Personally that led me to believe that Wal-Mart was going to warehouses and buying old and outdated stock at more than likely a cheap price and throwing it out on there shelves and could care less if they had a replacement if it broke!

Also I have noticed in the recent past years there selection of a lot of there products has been cut way back! In the store I shop at I can no longer buy the largest jar of Maxwell House Coffee, now they only sell the small and medium size jars. I also noticed the size roll of Viva Paper Towels I like to buy has been reduced to a medium sized roll and I can no longer purchase the largest size made. They also stop selling a local brand of barbecue sauce that I used to purchase at this store! I thought they were supposed to be like a warehouse store where one could purchase bulk items?

Just yesterday I had to take back a cheap $36.00 office chair I had purchased just a few months ago because it was recalled, Model #VCR1022. The backs were breaking and the chairs were unsafe and tipped over easily! I fell over in the chair a few times leaning over for something and the back of the chair broke a while ago! Buy the way the replacement chair cost me an extra $20.00 because they didn't have a replacement chair at the same price. So they made more money on the recall!

Yesterday I also returned a $70.00 DVD, VCR player because it stopped functioning properly. When you put a tape or CD in it would play a few seconds then turn off! They replaced it!

The truth of the matter is I am sick and tired of buying cheap low quality junk! I am sick of having to take there broken crap back to the store which is by the way is a 50 mile round trip for me! I personally feel they could care less what the consumer needs or wants and that they only sell what they can get there hands cheap or what has been sitting in a warehouse for a long time that is so old it isn’t even being manufactured any longer! I personally feel that Wal-Mart doesn’t care one bit about quality products or customer satisfaction. I wrote a letter about 2 years ago to the main corporate office in Bentonville, Arkansas complaining about the situation at the store I shop at and never received a reply! Apparently they didn't care!

Wal-Mart has an I could care less attitude and according to the news reports they blatantly breaks the U.S Department of Labor laws plus they don’t give employees a 40 hour work week so they can have some kind of health benefits or something! Just remember this they employ nearly 1.2 million people and one-third are part-time employees - limited to less than 28 hours of work per week which results to a life of poverty! No wonder our great country is sliding downhill! Nothing like having the fox watch the henhouse!

ddolin@centurytel.net