Going to Walmart can be a harrowing experience at the best of times.
Certainly the one closest to the Nerdery has not only encouraged me to shop elsewhere whenever possible and it’s actually gotten even worse through the years!
The Mos Eisley Walmart on New Bern Ave! New and improved with 15% more scum and villainy! 😉
As I was trying to work out how to deal with the recent “improved customer service experience” from the incumbent gas company, I found myself needing a few groceries and figured that as there was a Walmart on the way to Julia’s place to move her rubbish bins to the street, how harrowing could it be?
It certainly wasn’t the Mos Eisley Walmart I’ve come to loathe through the years the last couple of times I’d visited over the last decade.
What a time to pick to visit!
This particular Walmart on the former NC-42 now rebranded as Veteran’s Blvd (NC-36) is undergoing a remodeling.
One of the things that was missing that most super-sized Walmarts have on the exterior is an indication of which side of the building the grocery section is located.
That would seem to be handy information for someone turning up to shop only for some grocery items!
Naturally, I parked on the wrong side and had quite a hike to the side of the building I cared about.
When I got there, it was clear that restocking is apparently no longer an activity for the night owls amongst them and the grocery section was particularly hard hit with all sorts of carts, trolleys, and people just after 0800.
So here I am in an unfamiliar Walmart that’s being remodeled and restocked in real time trying to find a few specific items which was much more difficult a task than I would have imagined.
Price Tags Superman Would Have A Hell Of A Time Reading!
When I would finally locate an item I was interested in purchasing, the item and price was noted on a very small tag about the size of a two inch standard mailing label that you’d use to put your address on an envelope for the post that at least most of the time was close to the item in question.
But heaven help you if it wasn’t…you’re pretty much going to have to find one of the randomly placed price scanners or bug an associate to scan the item for you because I’m not schlepping a carton of eighteen eggs to some random location in the store whose layout I do not know because whoever stocked the area couldn’t be bothered to put a tag anywhere near the eggs in question.
But it got worse in that tag had black letters/numbers on a grey background and a slightly opaque clear covering with the description of the item often being heavily abbreviated due to lack of available screen space and finding the SKU or UPC number is painful at best.
Are you getting the impression it’s rather hard to read even if you have perfect eyesight which I very definitely do not?
Now, the larger tags (think four inch addressee label size for a large Kraft envelope) are easier to read if you can decipher the heiroglyphics that is the item description but those are very much the exception in terms of tags being employed rather than the rule likely due to the cost of the tags.
The Goods On Sale Seem To Be A Well-Kept Secret
Worse, the only visible indication that an item was on sale on the smaller tags seemed to be a diagonal stripe through the old price and the theoretically discounted price in a darker red colour that was rather muted.
Even on the larger tags, it’s still not a whole lot of space to see the discounted price and the muted colours against a matte background makes it really hard to read!
Where in the world were those luridly coloured yellow smiley faces and the “ROLLBACK” labeling/signs we’d seen for decades bringing one’s attention immediately to the discounted goods?
Very little of either seemed in evidence throughout the store and the few that were on display were pretty small in comparison to everything round them on the shelves!
Perhaps that could be attributed to the incomplete remodeling but you’d think a store that hangs their reputation on supposedly the lowest prices round would want to draw attention to the discounted and house brands with signage you just can’t ignore.
If you even see one of the red “ROLLBACK” signs, it’s not quite the eye-catcher I’d imagine they would wish it to be. It’s often a small sign mounted perpendicular to the shelf tag which can easily get lost when looking at a display case full of similarly coloured goods.
Whoever thought these tags were a great idea clearly never had a clue when it comes to designing accessible user interfaces!
It’s BOHICA Time!
I also emphasise theoretically discounted price because apparently these new tags are actually digital shelf labels that can be updated by the associates in real time.
Whilst I’m sure there are massive savings to be had by chucking the paper labels into the bin for good, a digital price tag that can be updated in real-time seems to be very easily abused by the retailer implementing a clandestine surge pricing programme where they can dynamically adjust the prices based on increased demand.
So many other retailers have really jumped onto that trend and I think it’s fair to say that the consumers have really gotten royally screwed as a result.
Supposedly Walmart has no plans to introduce dynamic or surge pricing with these new digital shelf tags but there’s nothing really stopping them from doing so if they choose and only the most eagle-eyed or toilet-trained-at-gunpoint consumers would likely catch them at it.
So is this a start of yet another instance of retail bend over, here it comes again?
I rather hope not as the consumer takes enough of a beating from these massive corporations as it is and the current economic conditions sure isn’t helping matters!
Welcome To Walmart Where You’re Guilty Until Proven Innocent!
By the time I was done selecting the items, it turned out that my choice of parking spot was equally unfortunate as the only open checkout queues were on the grocery side of the place. And all but one of those queues were the self-checkout queues where you’re having some employee hovering over you as if you’re going to rob the place blind.
OK, I can understand that mentality at the Mos Eisley Walmart.
I’m pretty sure their rate of “shrink” which was deplorable many years ago when my mate ran a much nicer Walmart in Clayton has only gotten worse as the clientele and the economy have both gone rather downhill.
In fact, the last time I was in there to get some phone charging cables thanks to Apple chucking the lightning port overboard…literally everything was locked in a glass case and I had to not only find an employee whose grasp of English was non-existent, I had to pay for the cables in the electronic department and then hope that the armed goons up front would not demand the receipt and a search that they’re really no longer entitled to by law.
But this suburban Walmart that even in it’s disarray of remodeling and restocking looks better kept than the Mos Eisley Walmart ever will be on it’s best day still seemed to lean very heavily into putting everything worth having behind a glass wall.
Anyone who would try to shoplift at Target or Walmart deserves what happens to them. There are so many cameras feeding back to a command centre that NASA and the FBI would be envious of that can readily identify anyone in seconds and have security upon them before they know it, especially if it’s one that’s been a frequent flyer at the security office before being hauled off to chokey that is already well-known to their facial recognition systems.
The self-checkout kiosk leaves quite a bit to be desired.
It is hell-bent on forcing you to put things in the bags in the bagging area even if you’re exclusively using the scanning gun and are going to go from there to right out the door.
But when it came time to pay…no Apple Pay!
The girl prowling the self-checkout thinks that they’re supposed to get it during the remodel but it’s one of the features of this phone that I actually like even if it’s more than a little awkward if the area you tap on the reader is facing away from you making Face ID much more difficult than it should be.
Super small price tags that are very hard to read, chaos in the aisles, and a self-checkout kiosk that’s a pain in the butt to operate.
The store experience actually got worse making the ghetto Food Lion just up the Rogers Lane look like a paradise in comparison and this at a Walmart that isn’t the usual hellhole at Mos Eisley!
Who knew?