A Scary Reality About Wal-Mart's Customers: They're Broke

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18. We've been going to the local...

Butcher, baker and candlestick maker.

As it happens we can buy meat at the local meat store for cheaper, there is a bread store that is cheaper and a small fruit and vegetable market that is cheaper.

We don't really need candlesticks.

The other issue beyond the outsourcing; is the cheap shit. It seemed nice for a long time that you could get everything under one roof, but everything is plastic and it breaks. We go to second hand stores and often you can buy old tough stuff that will last forever; whereas the new plastic one that Walmart has will break in a week.

Beyond that, there are other stores that carry the same stuff. Why wait in line at Walmart when you can go right up to the register elsewhere (that's how Walmart drew us in initially, open registers, then they thought they had us and didn't have to keep them open).

They ran out local fabric stores and then stopped carrying fabric. Just because Walmart reopened their fabric department doesn't mean that people will come back.

I expect that they will continue to decline. They've lost their competitive edge because they decided it was all about making money.