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"

You all sound like professionals...so here's a POV from a simple gardener. I love plants so I love going to those nurseries around town that cater to people who love plants...and they provide really cool seminars, great herb plant help for those of us who WANT more than the few types of main herbs sold at "box stores" (including someone getting me a plug of her own sweetgrass plant when they couldn't find one for me) ....they offer thousands and thousanmds of different plants at my favorite nursery. I just would never NOT support such a place!! and they do WELL here ...I know the owenrs and they are youngish, but they are both very open minded to working with the niche they have. They explore it very aggressively (but nicely) . And they do well. This is a free market and there are absolotely millions of people who DO know a thing of two about their plants and will go out of our way to support the places that are there for us. That said, I go to Home Depot too...do I buy plants there? Not so much, no....but I do like to go there and get this great organic compost they've got that I've seen nowhere else. And I have , on the rare occasion, bought a plant from there - they have done just fine, but only because I will only buy a plant that I can see is ok and not too stressed. I know what I'm looking for. I buy far, far more of my plants at the local nurseries and I am not the only one doing that for sure ! The upshot here , I think, is that this is a free market and the smaller establishments CAN cater to their target audience very nicely. I have worked part time at one nursery, another good one, and I have been at many in the area. Do I see them all catering well to their niche? No I don't . But I certainly see some that do incredibly well. And I thnk that is how things tend to fall out...it's just business, it's not about the masses who don't know plants or lost integrity of plant providers or morals or anything like that . In the end perhaps it's really just mostly how well you can flow with your own business. Selling plants is a business. You might love your plants and care for them better than the box stores (and this is definitely true from what I've noted ) however, the plant is a "unit" , no matter how great a unit...and selling units is the object of making money. Business is business. I think all you professionals who sell plants or design for a living are so incredibly blessed!! You are in the business of selling "units" that bring incredible joy , beauty - not mention "units' that can teach patience, love and caretaking ability - to everyone who buys form you or buys your designs. I think that rocks as a profession! Wishing you all a wonderful business year in 2006! Chris

I certainly get frustrated at W*M since they so often don't have what I want. But there's certain things there I can't get anywhere else and certain things that are WAY cheaper than anyplace else. My pet peeve is Sam's Club & Costco. I don't shop Sam's or Costco, though, can't get myself to pay $15 penalty each time I shop there, stand in line for 20-40 minutes and then have to check out AGAIN at the door to leave. Plus I don't need to buy a 5 gallon pail of peanut butter or 30 pork chops at a time and their prices are not that great, especially compared to W*M. Wal*Mart is blue-collar and Sam's is yuppie. I don't shop to impress anyone. I got such a laugh when a Wal*Mart went into a northern town in a heavy-union area. Well the union was going to shut them down. That was the first laugh. Then they started the pickets which they fingured would shut the place down. It didn't. Laugh 2. Then the local paper & TV stations started noticing the picketers drive up, one spouse would don a sign and picket while the other spouse went into the store and shopped! Huge laugh 3. Needless to say, they're doing great and I asked a buddy about it. He put it bluntly and succintly, admitting that union people (and he's a BIG union guy) are cheap and greedy and want to save money so they're going to shop there anyway! Snicker, guffaw, yuk yuk. People blame W*M for closing down small stores. They can affect some business, but face it, it's we the consumers that closed them down for not shopping there. Appliance stores close because people won't pay $100 more for personal service and free delivery and setup which costs more than that anyway. We screw ourselves. In the same town, Lowe's went in and the local UBC closed down. In the end, I use W*M as an additional vendor. No more, no less. They won't get all my business and not frequently. I just wish we had a good grocery store around here. Oh, back more to the original topic, I got an email from my cousin who found that she could get the 600 mg Ibuprofen through the Wal*mart deal and was going to ask her doctor to write a prescription to get a double supply of 600mg size. She wanted those instead of 800 mg since you can take 3 of the 600s a day. I couldn't help but write back and ask her why not just take 3 of the 200 mg non-prescription IBs instead of the 600? Much cheaper. But that's me.

Wal-Mart is a store of convenience, and that like it or not is what we all want. My grandkids use a phrase called sencya ( SINCE YOUR) already up bring me a coke or what ever. Wal-Mart is a sencya, since your already there why not go ahead and get that hardware product or fishing equipment,etc. That way i don't have to make that extra stop at the hardware or sporting goods store or what ever. My grandfather owned a mom & pop grocery for over fifty years. That was back when there was no way they'd let you even consider carrying your own groceries out to the car much less load them in the trunk. That was even before the small stores stayed open on Sun. of if they even did was only half a day. I can remember many a time as a child we would be having a family dinner at grandparents when gramps would get a phone call saying someone was having a family dinner and had forgotten to pick up something or someone had run out of baby milk, can you help us out. gramps would go unlock the store so the people could pick up what they had forgot in the six days he was open. He never complained or said,no. I worked with him for many years, as did my mom and her two brothers. Many a time a senior or someone without a way to the store would call and give there grocery order and we'd deliver. Remember many bad winters where we would deliver groceries on snowmobiles to many snowbound families. Those were the good old days, gone forever. Small stores can't compete with the prices, they can't order in the volumes that the super stores can. Have Wal-mart seven miles from me and i've never run into any workers that don't speak english, now on the other hand have one 15 miles from us and lots of workers don't speak english very well or just learning how.