What they don't understand is one pissed off customer tells at least ten people he knows, or just might go on the internet and post it on a message board where it reaches thousands of people. A happy satisfied customer also does the same. It is called word of mouth advertising and is the best there is, or the worst there is depending on what is being said for the simple reason people believe their friends and family more then some guy on TV they know is being paid. Like I say give it a few years and either WalMart will be like KMart or Sears, still making a decent profit but not nearly what they once were. More and more people are getting fed up with walmart and snot nosed employees who aren't trained, know nothing about the departments they work in, and aren't made to be polite and offer good service or face the consequences.
“Word-of-mouth” advertising is a myth when it comes to giant corporations. Someone’s little tirade about some irrelevant experience inside a chain store won’t sway the masses unless the large majority of folks have the same or similar experiences themselves. Wal-Mart will be fine so long as they manage overhead, maximize profits and keep on into the progressive trend with advertising and expansion,
period. What will kill Wal-Mart is, as I said, if the majority of their customers have bad experiences there (I haven’t had any that were directly under the control of Wal-Mart) or if they get enough negative press on an issue that is non-negotiable with their demographic or the majority of it (i.e. Wal-Mart comes out and says that Negroes should burn, or that Christians should be crucified, or they show ads with baby seals being clubbed silly or etc…).
And you know what, that’s the way it should be. I for one can recall a time not so long ago where, without as many of the major chains, “Joe Schmoe” could nearly ruin a small business by badmouthing it in the neighborhood based solely on his own personal experience (which may have not been true or representative of the level of service the recipient establishment of the badmouthing) due to “word-of-mouth” advertising. See, there are a lot of petty people in this world, people that would actually gain some amount of joy out of shutting down someone’s business all over one or two poor experiences, regardless of whether or not the rest of the potential customers that were steered away by the “word-of-mouth” would have had a positive experience had they ignored the badmouthing and just went. See, some folks want to feel big, bad and important; they want others to hang their very existence on whether or not they please them instead of whether or not they please the masses. Companies like Wal-Mart or McDonald’s aren’t joined at the hip to one person’s experience (that can easily be colored by their own negative attitude or ignorance), their strings are pulled by whether or not the majority of folks enjoy shopping there which generates profit.
And how many would Cabela's or any other gun selling chain sell if they had 3500 stores? They would sell a lot more guns then WalMart. In fact I am sure between all the other gun retailers they sell a lot more then WalMart, WalMart just sells the most cause they have the most locations selling them. Joe Shmo doesn't just walk into WalMart see a gun and buys it, guns are purcheses people tend to think about and decide on before hand (unless you are already into guns) and it would be just as easy for someone who has decided to buy his or her first gun to find a gun shop, even easier if there were more because without WalMart more would be able to stay in buisness. That isn't a Walmart kills mom and pop stores attack, it is a simple truth.
The thing is, without the larger gun chains and even Wal-Mart, a whole lot of folks lose the ability to actually physically handle a firearm before they buy it. Most mom-and-pop shops don’t stock even 5% of what’s on the market, they have to order it in for you if you want to hold it and decide whether or not the grip or stock is comfortable,
after you’ve paid for it so that they can order it of course. If you don’t like it, tough, you own it now. So most folks walk into Wal-Mart or Gander Mountain or Cabela’s…they fondle the huge selection until they find what they like, then they go to a mom and pop and order one to save $50.00. The thing is, this creates a situation where the chains are often forced to raise prices overall to compensate for the manpower it takes to serve a person that only wants to fondle the guns and buy somewhere else (thus netting 0 profit to the chain despite the cost to them to handle that kind of ‘customer’) and to make up for the loss of business due to competition from mom and pop shops because they undercut the chain and can afford to do so because they don’t need to stock the guns, people just fondle the chain store’s guns. What are those cheapskates going to do when Cabela’s and Gander Mountain and Wal-Mart stop selling guns? Anyone that wants to go back to “buy it before you try it” raise their hands.
I spend money at my local Gander Mountain AND Wal-Mart. At GM, sometimes I end up paying more than I would by shopping at other places in the area. I do this because I do want them to stay in business because unlike the mom and pop shops, I can walk in there and actually handle a Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun, a Remington 700 BDL, a Mossberg 500, a Colt 1911 AND a Springfield XD and see which fits me best so that I can make the purchase that will suit me the most.
At Wal-Mart, I am usually paying less than I would elsewhere, and I know I am funding Chinese profits for a lot of the merchandise and not always getting 4-star service, but I want them to stay in business because even long before Wal-Mart, I don’t recall any mom and pop shop that was open late enough that I could run in and buy a sleeping pad at 2AM because I left mine with a buddy during my last camping trip and forgot about it until I was on my way to my next. What Wal-Mart gives me, it gives me great. It’s not all things to me, nor is it all things to all people, but they sell guns in their stores (unlike SEARS these days), they sell all manners of products and they’re simply a product of good ‘ol American capitalism operating within the parameters allowed by law and prospering. I happen to like capitalism myself, warts and all.
At least I'll get to shoot some of it.
