I'm not sure if I think it's what's wrong with America, but I both like and dislike it. I like that I can go in and buy stuff like toiletries, music, and DVDs cheeper than at SuperK or Target, but at the same time, the one by my house is over flowing with white trash. My sister makes cracks about them from time to time, but it's true. Another thing I don't like about them is their clothes, I think they use the cheepest material, and you can get a better quality at Kmart, or better yet, Target. Now granted, I don't shop at either Walmart or Kmart for clothes anymore, I did buy clothes at Kmart when I worked there around 10 years ago, but lets not forget that I was a college student, paying my way through school and so the 10% discount I got helped, even though it really just took care of tax and a little of the items. But I usually clothes shop at Kohl's or Target these days, Kohl's more so.
A number of years ago, I decided to stop buying clothes that were cheeper but instead paid more for quality. That is something I've stuck with. I can't afford to go out and buy new clothes any time I want, so when I do buy something, I want to make sure it'll last a couple years at least.
But getting back to Walmart, I've found that I've stood in endless lines there just about every time I've gone. I recently bought a office chair, and haven't had a problem with it, so far. It's still pretty early to tell. But I decided to shell out some cash for this one, versus my last one, a student chair, that cost me 20 bucks and basically was worth that much. In all the parts that mattered, like the cover on the back, it was plastic, and so after sitting in it, for hours at a time, for a few months, the metal ground through the plastic and it broke, in other places as well.
But I still go there more than I do Kmart beacuse in general, they have more than the Super K does. Then again, if I want groceries, I just go to Dominick's, one of the major grocery stores in IL, the other being an old employer of mine, Jewel. Personally I've always felt Dominick's had better quality than Jewel did, even though they sell the same things. But as for competition goes, for all my years, I have never seen something this crazy before, the only other time being remotly close was in Wilmette. By my house, on Rollins Rd, there is litterally 4 strip malls in a row, all of which have a grocery store in them. Starting at the corner of 83 and Rollins there's a little mall with the Jewel, on the North East corner, and directly accross from that is another mall with a Cub food. On the other side of the street, the North west corner, is the mall with the Walmart and the Dominick's and the mall next to that has the SuperK and a nice huge mega plex. Now it's nice having all those choices right there because I go to all of them for different reasons, but at the same time it's insane! The only thing that was added in the past 8 years, that wasn't there when we moved up here, was the Cub foods, and the Dominick's sort of. The store Dominick's moved into was another grocery store, the name of which I forgot, but that closed about a year or 2 after we moved up and Dominick's moved in there.
Interstingly enough and related to this topic, just this morning, on the radio, they mentioned that a number of Dominick's are going to close, those that aren't doing as well. I don't think the ones up here are in danger though, I think it's just the ones in the city.
