It’s not one of those "angst at their humongous success" screeds, I’m just trying to figure out why it takes so damn long to get out of that place. So this is more about fundamentals of business. Because the retail giant, that’s how the media refers to them, has in fact added much needed efficiencies to the global distributions system. No argument there. They provide discounted items to hundreds of millions annually, making creature comforts and necessary every-day products attainable to a wider swath of the population than anyone. (And more efficiently than the Democrats beloved federal government, I might add.) And they employ an army larger than most armies–wage and benefit arguments aside–because when you have staggering, persistent, inflation and unemployment as we do in the Obama economy, still having a job to wake up to is like getting a raise every-single- day. Even if the government is making it worth less and less, every-single-day.
So what’s my beef (about Wal-Mart)?
I work in Amherst, New Hampshire and the Wal-Mart Super Store there is, if nothing else, convenient. It is convenient to get to, but not convenient to get out of, and there lies my "operational" complaint. No matter what time of day I am in there, 6am, lunchtime, afternoon, evening,…there are never, EVER, enough cashiers. Did I say never?
The average time spent standing in the check-out line at Wal-Mart is most certainly a reflection of their desire to charge less for some items, but can we possibly try to keep it under fifteen minutes? It takes me twice as long to get out as it does to do the actual shopping, most of which is spent walking from the entrance to whatever zip code the milk cooler is in and back. This is a problem.
Long check out lines. High average check. Cashier bagging everything….hope you are not in a hurry.
So what about the self-checkout? Great idea. I love it. Except that so does everyone else because the other lines are so damn long.
The latest trend at self-checkout, OK it is not the latest I’m just being timely, seems to be that people with fifty items or more also feel compelled to use it, as if this will actually take less time than standing in another line. These are of course the same people who have no idea how to use it, if that gives you some idea of where this is headed.
This is not like trying a new salad dressing at lunch, or a new look, or even a new vacation destination. This is serious. Other peoples lives are affected.
There is nothing quite as exhilarating as standing in Wal-Mart with one gallon of milk and a loaf of bread, watching people figure it all out. It’s like sitting on a runway waiting for the pilot to get trained. Oh look! Sky Mall, air sick bag, that tri-fold emergency exit thing–except in Wal-Mart you have a rack of magazines half of which have the word "Sex" or "Naked" on them, next to tabloids with headlines like "Priest Explodes during exorcism," and that manifold of Hollywood break-up horror stories–perfect if you happen to be towing underage kids along with you.
Unfortunatley, this cornucopia of modern culture distracts for but a few moments and you have to turn your attention back to the reality television show playing out just ten feet in front of you.
The bar-code is right there. It’s right. No, turn it over. Again. There! Doh!
Beep!
My old XT8086 first generation portable PC (weighs about 35 pounds) boots up faster than the time it takes them to find the..beep! there’s another one. Excellent! Only 1,521 more items to go. Maybe I’ll make my next vacation destination here, in the self-check out line. Food, beverage, entertainment…don’t have to travel, I’ve already arrived.
I think they should have a self-check aisle with training wheels on it. You know, for people just starting out. And if you have never scanned your own groceries before, a limit on the number of items you can be permitted to self scan. How about learners permits, and rules about only scanning with a licensed adult present?
Or wait. How about adding a few more of those highly paid experts to get the customers out the door because even in the regular check-out there is only so much beef jerky, sugarless gum, and energy drinks I can impulse buy-in any given month. My trunk is only so big and it really screws up my gas mileage. Though I have to admit that if you leave a few issues of Cosmo in a closed up car, in the hot summer sun, the perfume ads make the interior smell Fab-u-lous! This is not to be confused with the smell of Wal-Mart the day the social security checks come out–you can actually follow the perfume like trails of bread crumbs. Just turn around when your eyes start to burn.
Yesterday I was in Wal-Mart and this guy, I’ll call him Scooter, was scanning items from the basket on his, um…scooter…still not sure why he was using one. It was like watching grass grow except that you can mow down grass when it gets to be a bit too long. (I’m actually surprised there have been no reported incidents of Self check-out rage, but then Scooter took care of that for us.) He flipped out about something and made a scene while paying. A fine example of someone who clearly has no grasp of their own limitations. He is making the cash exchange himself and it got screwed up, and that’ their fault. (Which could be another entire post–what dumb ass uses self checkout and pays cash?) This of course added to the delay while the smiling Wal-Mart supervisor tried to resolve his issue. (He was using some grown up words for an added difficulty rating.)
While that little soap-opera plot twist was evolving, another couple had a carriage with…oh, maybe three thousand things in it. They saw us all coming up behind them with one or two items, but went ahead and got started anyway. There was this Lord of The Rings like longing in their eyes…my precious. Kind of scary. So they had already planted a little flag in the floor and declared that scanning station theirs in the name of France well before Scooter had gone postal. You could have put a "closed" sign on it at that point, just like the one across from them with the ‘closed’ sign on it. (They may still be there as I type this, some fourteen hours later.)
In front of the closed terminal we had a mom and her son, or maybe a Cougar and her boy toy–I’m trying to be open minded–looking for the codes on the vegetables. They had a lot of vegetables, and yes they had cucumbers. "Training wheels?"
So it was amateur hour all over Wal-Mart. But then it is always amateur hour. The twenty items or less line is actually a secret code for "if there are less than twenty people standing in these lines close a register."
Fun times. I felt like Jane Goodall observing gorillas. Or maybe the ghost of Marlin Perkins was nearby? I thought I could hear Jim from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom doing the voice over. "We’ve constructed our blind out of an empty flat panel television box and used the natural terrain–a large display of Coca-Cola products–to ensure we don’t scare away the indigenous life. Do you see that scrawny irritated fellow flipping through Cosmo? He’s clearly eying the Slim Jim’s and Red bull, waiting for an opportunity to strike."
Gorillas in the Wal-Mart. Coming soon to DVD and Blu-Ray.
I did eventually get out. I resolved to make a free market exchange. In the future, if I need milk or bread, I will drive six minutes up the road to Market Basket where I get more for my dollar, and I am at the checkout for about three minutes tops; and only then because I can’t unload the carriage faster than they can scan and bag my stuff.
This brings us back to the fundamentals of business. Finding ways to cut costs to save customers money is essential, but if inconveniencing the customer is part of that process, your dynasty is not long for this earth. Wal-Mart could learn a lesson or two here. So could the federal government. But that’s a post for another day.
