A brand new Super WalMart just opened in a nearby community a few days ago. It containes over 4 acres of merchandise ranging from truck tires to frozen quiche.
The mega center opened with all the local fanfare that such an event usually creates. There were even protests - courtesy of the local food workers union.
I heard that there were actually people waiting outside at 2:00 AM on a Tuesday so that they could be the first people to shop there. So it goes.
I walked in for the first time this morning and felt like Gilbert Grape. There was a decidedly blue-green tinge to everything. Very odd. The employees were TOO NICE - which is just the over eagerness of a group of new people at a new job.
They're in their honeymoon phase.
And the shoppers, much like myself were shuffling around glassy-eyed, absorbing the new envirnoment.
I do the grocery shopping most of the time. I like to do the cooking (it chills me out) and therefore like picking out the stuff which all-in-all works.
But my main reason is that I like watching consumers in the wild.
Call it field study...call it stupid. Call it whatever.
I like watching people pick stuff out. Face it, when you've got 22 kinds of pasta sauce staring you in the face, "reason" is not often the motivating factor in your purchase decision. (I like MID's - try it if you can find it!)
Anyway, so there I was, walking around with a fish-eyed stare like the rest of the shoppers and all I kept thinking about was just ditching my cart and going to my regular grocery store.
We are such creatues of habit - aren't we? We reach for the same spaghetti sauce and park in the (usually) the same general location. When we have our meetings, we all usually sit in the same place, don't we?
So what forces us to break our habits? What forces us to change?
Why did I go shop at WalMart this morning?
The Answers: The promise of low prices and everything under one roof. Seeing what all the hub-bub was about. It was closer than my regular grocery store. Adventure and discovery (jk).
It took me over an hour to find half of the stuff that I usually buy and then I kind of gave up. Things weren't in logical order (at least I thought so) and I couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't belong there. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I was looking for some holistic experience - after all, it's WalMart - but I guess I was expecting more of a grocery store and less of a warehouse. (The floors were dyed cement).
Afterwards, I ended up going to my regular grocery store to get the rest.
I walked onto the familiar tile in the entry. I walked up to the familiar face at the deli counter. I walked the familiar aisles and out of the corner of my eye, caught some of the same faces that I just saw at WalMart. They were home again too.
I think my grocery store overcharges. Their bakery is horrible, it's almost impossible to get a fresh loaf of bread.
But the people are friendly and I've been going there for so long that I guess I don't mind paying a little extra. In fact, this is the same grocery store that I went to when I lived in this small town 5 years ago. I drive 10 miles out of my way to go there because I just like the store, even though there's another chain location that's closer to me.
I gave WalMart a shot and now I'm going back to Giant Eagle (Madison).
My point: It's tough to unseat the local leader, the first on the block, the incumbent, the "first". You may get a shot but you get ONE shot. Make it count.
