A interesting comment on the retail environment

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-taking-the-service-out-of-the-s. And then the confounding way of tech budgets!! Rx budget to increase 2.5% and tech budget to REDUCE by 5%.ervice-sector/2013/04/16/b0a47efe-a6b6-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html

Retail sales have dropped for 9 months in a row…

One thing that is very interesting about this article is that there is nearly 2200 comments at the time of writing this post…

Maybe that number is so large is because of  engrained distaste of people being somewhat “forced” to shop at Walmart… which is suggested by this from the article

Problem is, the Wal-Mart model of employment and service not only reflects but also reinforces the declining economic prospects of the majority of Americans. The nation’s largest private-sector employer has used its market power to impose its low-wage model all along its supply chain, leaving millions of Americans with no shopping option other than the kind of discount, and frustrating, experience that Wal-Mart provides. The U.S. economy that Wal-Mart has built — with plenty of help from Wall Street and the government — is in the shape of a downward spiral, and it will take all our ingenuity, and a mass movement for worker power, to free ourselves from that path.

And here is the a comment from this blog earlier this week

. And then the confounding way of tech budgets!! Rx budget to increase 2.5% and tech budget to REDUCE by 5%.

And we wonder why people are accepting mail order and buying products on line as a more preferred way to spend their dollars.

So as we move to limited customer service… to total self-service… to nearly no service at all…

From the article:

Fewer workers have meant fewer products on Wal-Mart’s shelves. Businessweek reports that “pallets of merchandise are piling up in its stockrooms as shelves go unfilled” and overworked employees can’t find the time to restock the products.

This reminds me of a time that I worked for a small regional chain and the grandson of the founder – a Pharmacist that was my age — abt mid 20’s… was promoted to tobacco buyer… he announced at a monthly manager’s meeting that once taking over this new position… he had focused on increasing the turns of the product in the warehouse and the stores and he sheepishly admitted that he was so successful at increasing turns.. that the warehouse and the stores were running out of merchandise and losing sales because of out of stock status of many products. He quickly changed his inventory control policies… ROI went back down but sales went up…

I wonder how long it will take Walmart with all of its layer of bureaucracy to figure this out…

 

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