Used to be I'd walk into a Walmart and find half a dozen things I wanted that weren't on my list. They were really good at getting impulse buys.
These days I'm lucky to find all the things I came to get in the first place, never mind the rest of the junk they're selling, ....
They're bowing to the almighty dollar.
The new distribution/storage system sucks. Stores can't order what they want/need, they get what the new inventory software says they're short on. On-site storage has been cut to a minimum, there's very little stored behind the wall now-a-days. That's why the taller shelving was installed (top stock), to store the part of a case that won't fit below. No more keeping a couple of cases stored in the backroom. If the on-hand counts are off on a product, (and they
always are, one way or the other), the store's not going to receive what they need - or they'll have too much of something they don't need. This is also why the stores are putting more product on display in the large alleyways - no place to store it.
And, of course, money's why they're going more to the self checkout. A machine costs a lot less than a cashier. Around here the self checkouts will be empty while people are standing 4 and 5 deep at a register with a cashier. Corporate doesn't see that though. Attempts to write the corporate offices have resulted in the email being forwarded to the store one shopped at for resolution - great, except the store can't do anything about corporate policy.
Maybe the current policy makers aren't planning on the chain lasting too much longer. "Who cares? we'll get ours now".
