If you listen to the liberal mainstream media, you get the impression that everyone hates Wal-Mart. However, if you talk to the customers, even here at the one in New Smyrna Beach, Wal-Mart is well-liked by shoppers like 25-year-old Cristi Pendarvis who works in the dining room at the Sugar Mill Country Club.
"I like Wal Mart," she says. "Everything is there that you need. It's close and convenient.”
Jill Karnes, 48, who works at Clancy’s Cantina on the beachside, says, “I like Wal Mart. I would like to have a super center here. It is convenient with good deals.”
One of the few dissenters is Robin Regacho, 23, who works at Stella’s Skyline by the New Smyrna Airport, who cites a common refrain: “I don’t like Wal-Mart. They are a monopoly and I go elsewhere.”
You can see the people of New Smyrna express their true feelings at the Wal-Mart plaza on State Road 44. You can see that the parking lot is crammed full of cars, often with still more cars circling trying to find a parking space. You will see an army of New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater and Oak Hill residents and many tourists entering the store and then later leaving with shopping carts full clothes, electronics, food and toys.
Thank God the concerned citizens kept them from building a Super Wal-Mart in New Smyrna. If there were a Super Wal-Mart here the residents of New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater and Oak Hill would be spending even more time there than at the ordinary Wal-Mart we have now. People would succumb to the lure of more and bigger departments plus a full blown grocery.
Those “corporate baddies” at Wal-Mart have come up with superior retailing techniques, which include modern warehousing, delivery and mass-buying techniques that allow them to acquire their inventory at ever lower costs.
Large suppliers such as Procter and Gamble cater to Wall-Mart and have several hundred employees in Arkansas just to coordinate their business with Wal-Mart on its turf.
As a result of all this, it was estimated in The Wall Street Journal that the average family with an access to a Wal-Mart store has its standard of living raised by about $2,000 dollars.
Note that the often heard complaint that Wal-Mart is a monopoly simply isn’t true.
In order to be a real monopoly you must have the power to make people pay ever higher prices for things of less and less value. Examples of true monopoly include the public school system and the post office.
Wal-Mart has no such power.
The minute their competition gives the customer more for their money than Wal- Mart, the retail giant will go into a decline.
One big reason the main media gives Wal- Mart bad press is that Wal-Mart is non-union.
Wal-Mart thinks that it is impossible to give the customer superior service and be union at the same time.
The press can complain all it wants to, but as long as Wal-Mart does a superior job of giving the people what they want at attractive prices, their parking lots are always going to be crammed full.