I wish every municipality would turn down Walmart. Yeah to Toronto!!!

It's just too hilarious. A lot of North American cars have these bumper stickers on them, obviously provided by the Union.

"Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign." And you see them parked in Walmart, doing their shopping! LOLOL

Lima,a small town in upstate New York, turned down a Wal-Mart. The citizens banded together and made it clear to the city fathers that they didn't want Wal-Mart.

WalMart Powercentre??? Would you have to bring a lunch just to get across the parking lot?

A few of our neighbouring cities and towns have opposed WM opening for years. They eventually did get into one city, and it's as busy as anything. Currently a city on the other side of us is protesting the possible building of the store.

It hasn't shut down any of the smaller stores at all. Home Hardware (a Canadian hardware) store, and Canadian Tire are both very successful. They don't sell clothing or food, but many of the same items as WM.

During the course of my 53 years, I have exchanged a grand total of about $4 with Walmart - when I forgot to pack socks on an out of town trip. I will never shop at that company.

i'm not a fan of any "mart", especially walmart.

i have a very dear friend that represents a particular union and they are extremely anti-WM and yet she shops like a madwoman in WM - but never the one in the city, she does so where her weekend home is located. what a contradiction.

I'll shop it forever....my money goes a long way there...if other stores were smart they would do the same thing...sell more for less.

patti

If you ever studied WalMart, you'd see that the biggest reason for their success is how they stock their stores, and that it is the biggest reason for their lower prices.

They have a system where every item rung up at the checkout is immediately noted as to quantity and store number. This gives them the information to stock only what sells well at that store, and to replenish ASAP.

I'm with Patti. Sometimes we go to Winn Dixie or Publix, but everything is WAY more expensive than at WalMart.
JoanMN/FL

I love shopping at Walmart but I also shop in our local stores as well. We don't have a lot of them in my town. In fact we only have a Dollar Store and Pharmacy. Since Walmart is 40 minutes away I will go to our area merchants first. But I do go to Walmart twice a month for other things.

I know a lot of areas don't want Walmart to build but in this economy 2000+ jobs would be a blessing for some areas.

SamKaren
your resident DJ

I agree with Patti too! I love Walmart and always have. I shop our local stores too, but since all grocery stores here except one is chain, WM saves me money!

I agree with Patti, too. Wal-Mart has provided jobs for so many people and given people who don't want to spend a fortune the opportunity to buy their children new things. I'm thinking of a family with five little ones and they could never afford clothes for them at the little "children's stores". Kids grow too fast to spend a lot of money on clothes anyway. Matter of fact, so do I!! LOL, (I think). We all need to shop cheap these days.

Walmart is the answer to many strugling families trying to make their dollar go as far as it can. Stuff is going to come from overseas to our markets anyway.

My thought is, if people are so against Walmart, because the bring in their stock from China and other cheap countries, how is that different from any other store who stocks the same thing?

Case in point, my Black and Decker bread-maker which is only a few months old, sounds like it's going to break, and fall apart every time I use it. I didn't buy it at WM, but it makes no difference. Obviously B&D outsource to China, and their quality shows. So it makes no difference where you shop......most stuff is made outside of North America.

We believe that our bodies/our health are our #1 asset and that our financial situation is in the next high tier. So, in general, we believe that if we eat food loaded with antibiotics (mass produced meats/dairy) and chemicals (foods have somewhere near 15000 man made chemicals in them), then we invite health problems that could otherwise be avoided and we incur extra medical costs. So, we grow what we can and food shop to focus on healthy foods. We seriously walk at least 5 evenings/wk - year round. Knock on wood and thank god, we don't get sick very often, but I do have some medical issues that require regular oversight and which I can't eliminate.

We also believe that if we buy quality, we won't be rebuying the items again and again. So, we save up for larger purchases and only get a "new" one when the old one is shot. We often look for used, refurbished items as our "new" when we need to replace. I'm using the coffee pot that my mom &dad were given when they got married in 1954 (and no it doesn't make cappucino/lattes!!), we use a drill that I purchased in 1980 which is all metal. We use a 1950something toaster which we purchased used. We buy garden and other tools at garage sales and we try to avoid buying items with plastic parts. We use cotton and wool blankets, we don't redecorate every 6 months.

Because we eat fairly healthy and we exercise, we don't change clothes size - yes, we can go up and down, but we get back to the base size before a size change is in order. Staying the same size is a blessing and a curse. We try and make sure that most of our clothes are all cotton/wool/silk because we have found that synthetic materials wear out and get ratty looking alot faster. We don't buy "trendy" styles and we always look reasonably timeless. We wait for clothes to wear out but because we do, we don't always wear the absolutely most current color or style. And that is ok.

My husband grew up in a military family and money was tight. I grew up in a middle class family, but my parents had lived through the great depression - I always heard about how much things cost. Sure, sometimes we don't have a choice but to buy cheaply made items, but we do what we can to avoid it and we shop with local firms. We find that it's pretty easy to avoid Walmart and live within a budget at the same time.

Like kec01, I'm finding it easier to live without Wal-Mart also. Wal-Mart still used to sell quality items back in the 80's. I bought clothes and everything else there then. Wal-Mart doesn't have that quality anymore. Unless I'm wanting something for one use or practically disposable. Wal-Mart probably isn't that great of a deal.

I've been shopping around at the other stores. Wal-Mart's prices can be beat on many items particularly during a sale. Wal-Mart's generic brand, Great Value, has been having some quality issues. It isn't as good as it used to be. Great Value isn't even necessarily the lowest priced item on the shelf anymore. I bought some name brand items for less the last time I was in there.

I still pick up a few clothes for the kids because the jeans seem to fit my kids better than other stores. I like to dress my kids in matching t-shirts when we go where there are big crowds. I don't buy clothes for myself there anymore because the clothes are shapeless. The cut added pounds to my look. I've found I can buy better quality clothes for dh at the mall during the end of the season clearances.