The big box stores in general are pretty bad in keeping things appropriate to the location. Every year, they get those god-awful little sad sticks in boxes brought in during February, when we have 2 1/2 months before it would be safe to plant them out here in Michigan. And invariably, they have cultivars like Thompson Seedless grapes that can't possibly survive here. I've also seen other gems like rabbiteye blueberries, fuzzy kiwi, etc. Mind you, as someone willing to try via "extraordinary techniques" to overwinter out of zone plants, I find it interesting, but its bad and deceptive for the novice who doesn't know the difference. As far as the enormous operations that supply plants for the big-box stores, I find it fascinating that they have such complex systems set up, yet can't manage to find enough people to unload, unpack, water, and properly care for these plants once they arrive at your local Wal-mart, Home Depot, Lowe's,, etc. I always wondered how they made ANY profit at all, given the high cost of inputs such as energy, when they are all paid essentially on commission under these pay-by-scanned-sales programs, and so much of the plant material dies in the retail outlet due to abuse, neglect, and just plain market saturation beyond all reasonable ability to sell it all. But, they must, or it wouldn't happen. I guess the good side -- some of these places, particularly Lowe's, are pretty good about marking things down dramatically to move them -- I get good bargains on things all the time. Best was a few years back at the end of season at my local Home Depot, when they got down to the "everything in small pots is $0.50, everything in medium pots is $1, and everything larger is $2" by Halloween -- I ended up getting several cartloads of nice nursery stock for next to nothing -- Buddleia, crabapples, maples, all kinds of things. Best was a grafted dwarf mounding blue spruce, original price $80, for $2.

Last month, I went into W*M to buy an inexpensive digital camera for my daughter, and I asked the person working the camera counter which additional memory chip to get to replace the worthless one that comes with all new digital cameras. She assured me that such-n-such was what I needed, so I bought one for $85.00, payed for everything, and went home. Opened up the box, saw that the extra chip was the wrong kind, so drove back in, went to the appropriate returns desk, gave the receipt and the unopened package, and went and exchanged it for the right one. I was held up by the store door man - 'security' guy, some poor geezer well into his 80's with a cane, for 30 minutes while they checked to see if I had pulled a switcheroo. I think he was more annoyed than I was, and offered me a chair. Anyway, reason to add to the thread is I read of a new t-shirt on the market, something about "Every time you shop at Walmart, God kills a kitten"

Quote: "i was a dealer for 12 years and never once asked to see a sales receipt to do warranty work. the manufacturer has a date code on most machines telling the date of manufacture." What did the manufacturers do then for the machines that *didn't* have a date code on them? As nevada walrus posted, the companies always ask for the "in service" date when addressing warranty concerns. The date of manufacture doesn't factor into it at all. As for the Walmart situation, I have to ask.....why buy something that doesn't include the factory packaging or manuals? I always want the box myself. If the machine isn't completely set up and assembled, it could very well still find its way to the display counter.....while the factory packaging with some small parts finds its way to the box baler. I won't buy anything new without a manual either. Not only is the manual full of information on how to maintain and operate the machine, but setup info is also included. The guy in the back of the store might have loosely assembled something just to get it out on display. I've always sent my warranty registration cards in, and it's a good idea to do so. There's no information required on the cards that's worth anything to anyone else, so being concerned with your personal info being sold isn't worth worrying about. We get safety and product improvement updates constantly on the machinery we sell. If a customer's machine DOES have an issue later on, the end-user never fails to say, "You never told me that", when we mention a bulletin that could have prevented whatever issue they're having. The thing is, WE don't have a database that records which machines have been sold to which customers. WE don't record and monitor product changes and serial number breaks. The manufacturers DO keep track of such things, but they only can if they're provided the info. Then when there's an issue, the customer gets sent a card, and we get one too....if the customer listed us as the selling dealer when they filled out the card that is.

For decades my trips to Walmart were few and far between for a number of reasons I've outlined before. About 2 months ago a new "Super" Walmart went up not too far from from me. I decided to ignore the order given by one-who-shall-remain-nameless who ordered me to stay out of "her" Walmarts and I ventured in to look around. The big advantage is that it's open 24 hrs so I can go in during the middle of the night and avoid a lot of the traffic, although you do get the restock traffic which can be as bad. At least in this area Walmart has been forced to clean up their act a lot from what I've seen and heard, especially since Target changed the smaller stores to P-fresh. They've also converted a few stores to "Super" Targets. Target has clearly made a concerted effort to take some grocery business from the competition and with the prices I've seen, they will accomplish that. So, back to the comparisons: Carts, not much difference. Walmart's of course are new at this store so they *should* be in good shape. Target's were replaced not long ago and the plastic carts are all fine and seem to hold up a lot better than I thought they would. So equal ground there. I'll say this for the new Walmart, it's still pretty clean, and quite well maintained so far so on that level, comparable to Target. Although I suspect there's some corporate big dogs in there controlling things during the break-in period at least when I've been there. Some very definite non-Minnesota accents floating around! Pricing? Well, I've noted pricing so far on about 40 items in the local "big gun" grocery store (Cub), Target and Walmart and was quite surprised. I knew Target beat Cub on a lot of things and thought it'd be interesting to see how Walmart compares. They run a lot of TV ads comparing receipts from Cub & Walmart and claiming to be so much cheaper. I note they don't compare to Target and it's clear why. About 1/2 the items I've compared so far are identical in price. There's a number of things where Walmart is a penny or two cheaper. But there were also several things where Target was 25¢ to a couple dollars or more cheaper. I'm going to say that all in all they're pretty comparable (especially depending on what you buy, how much and how often of course). FWIW, over the past few years, a couple of the local TV stations have done their own price comparison of the stores and 2 out of 3 times Target beat Walmart quite significantly. The station's claim was you'd save $400/year at Target over Walmart in their comparison. The last one had them essentially neck in neck but an ever so slight edge to Walmart. Two big differences though that I've seen. Meat and produce. Hands down better at Target in both departments. This has been a good year for grapes so I thought I'd get some while I was at Walmart last time, but after tasting one, and spitting it out, I guessed the season was over. Two days later, at Target, I bought 3 pounds of delicious grapes. I bought apples at Walmart and thought they should be good, after all they were Honey Crisp. Bought 3, threw two. I buy apples at Target year round and never had a bad one yet. I guess I should add a third difference. Clearance items at Target. (Never really see anything on clearance at Walmart.) I like checking what's on clearance. I often seem to find something of interest and for things like cleaners and personal care items, when I have a coupon, I couple it with something on clearance and it's cheap for a good quality item. I dislike paying full retail for things like toothpaste, deodorant and the like when it's on clearance so often. Couple other things I noticed: Walmart was cheaper on can coolers, but $2 higher on the same brand name underwear. Plus Target had a "value sized" larger count package available that made it cheaper yet. The first time I was in the new Walmart, people were nearly tripping over themselves asking if they could help, which was *highly* unusual for my normal Walmart, uh, shall we say, "experience". But that situation is pretty much the same as at most of the other places around here these days. (The strategy is for every employee to make contact with every customer they can, and you don't just tell them where things are at, you bring them to it for the "personalized" touch and to help cut shoplifting since people will think they're being noticed in the store.) But I've noticed that is wearing down each subsequent trip in there. Maybe the employees are getting sick of it. Could have been that they just started the job and were excited to have the job at first, IDK. Hard to say, but I'm curious to see what will happen with that. I haven't gone to other Walmarts around here for a long time so I can't say if they vary prices from store to store but they do vary at Target and I do find that a bit annoying. They're all within a few miles of each other but the prices can vary. So will I be a Walmart regular? (Whether or not I'm "ordered" to stay out! LOL) I guess I might pick up a few staples during the middle of the night if I'm up. Not too sure I want to go there during the day. Target can be busy but still not the issues that I've encountered before in the W place. Have to wait and see I guess.