Why I'd NEVER Shop at Wal-Mart

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Regardless of what kind of a "line" wal-mart put in place the mad rush was going to happen somewhere - like the back corner of the store that they normally put all the loss leader TV's in. Willing to bet that the majority of ya'll blaming wal-mart for this have never worked black friday in retail. People are animals, plain and simple.

People are indeed animals, and knowing this, the store has a responsibility to protect its workers and customers.

Crowd control measures are in place where ever large groups of people gather, be it a sports stadium, Times Square on NY eve, public protests, etc. etc. Someone pointed out above that in some jurisdictions, by law, if the crowds reach a certain size then portable toilets and police need to be provided.

Walmart dropped the ball on this one and as $5 Subs just said, you can be sure they will be facing lawsuits from all those injured and the families of those killed, and rightfully so.
 
@ -Matt-: I couldn't disagree more. Wal-Mart should have put precautions in place to make it SAFE. They should have organized a LINE or even let waves of people in at a time.

I agree. Circuit City did this the one (and only) time I've gone.
 
Wal-Mart should have put precautions in place to make it SAFE. They should have organized a LINE or even let waves of people in at a time.

No matter how safe you try to make it, 2000 angry people in a mob mentality will destroy any safe guards you try to put up. You simply cannot (unless by force, which is illegal) handle that amount of people.

That being said, it's sad what people do for a bargain... I guess they fail to realize they could just stay home and order it online...

Whats really sad is that in the video on the nytimes site (second page), you hear people walking by laughing as this guy is laying dead on the ground.
 
From looking at the photos I can't see that walmart made any real preparation to control the crowd, they seemed to allow people to queue up directly onto the doors and their signage is a joke - a piece of a4 paper taped on the wall with the words 'the blitz queue starts here'.

thesaurus entry for 'blitz': heavy attack;
synonyms: assault, bombardment, bombing, lightning attack, etc.
 
This is so fucking pathetic.
Even without being able to shop online, these people are just retarded for thinking you're going to be getting that good a deal anyway.

First up, the best deals are always after Xmas, because stores are trying to dump the rest of the products to make way for next year's lines.

Secondly, if you pay attention, you will notice prices rising slowly from July through to November, so that when you get that "amazing" 30% discount, you're still only paying about 5% less than what the thing cost in June. A friend of mine is even thinking of doing a photo-journal of it.

Finally, FFS, it's not like smaller stores aren't going to have similar prices as part of their sales. This "one stop shop" mentality is a fantastic way for getting screwed because the items that aren't discounted that you end up impulse buying are usually substantially more expensive. It's like getting fruit & veg at an ALDI.

Yep. A kid just shot 2 people in a California Toys R' Us.

Update: shot dead according to Fox News.

All over a couple of bucks of savings. Assholes.
How much do you want to bet that this will absolutely not affect the sale rates of toy guns from Toys'R'Us this year? Or in fact, may even increase them.
 
Wal-Mart had precautions in place. It is hard to predict how many people and how crazed they can be. How can anyone predict such evil and selfishness?

I heard there was a corrected report and the baby was OK. Any confirmations on that?

In Tucson where I work, an assistant manager talked to the people waiting, requesting respect, courtesy, etc. He opened 5 minutes early and requested no one enter until he said so, after the doors opened. He then opened the doors, walked far AWAY from the entrance and motioned for people to enter. No incidents and our store had the top sales in the US (we are not a super center).

People loose perspective. I know two families that can care less about deals right now...
1. Bob's good friend and his family. The friend's brother was in an accident the day before Thanksgiving and has a little better than 50% chance of survival.

2. Bob's family. Bob's grandma (my former mother-in-law) just went into emergency surgery a little while ago. She is already weak and has been sick for nearly two months. We pray she survives the surgery (I'm still close to her, I even went there and cooked Thanksgiving dinner so she could have everyone at the house like she wanted).

We can't change other people, but we can make sure we remember what is REALLY important and we can appreciate the people in our lives and appreciate what we do have (no matter how inadequate it seems at the moment).

Prayers to all involved in the Wal-Mart incident and others who have way bigger problems than missing a good deal.
 
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