I have never been a fan of Walmart for many reasons and by extension have had little use for Sam's Club, or BJs for that matter. But, since the economy is booming so well (we've been told) it finally prompted my wife and I - dedicated DINKS - to do some comparison shopping. We don't go through that much as it's just the two of us and the need just wasn't there but watching prices soar and quantity reduce the way they have been, added with the fact that I have more free time in my life that ever before, we made the rounds.
The BJs near here is dilapidated and had me wondering when my last tetanus shot was. Sam's Club is beautiful to behold and very well maintained but to the uninitiated I saw fully 20% of the store, right in the middle, stocked with absolute garbage. Literally entirely made of pallet after pallet of snack foods and junk. Also, we're not shopping there for clothing, furniture, electronics or anything so probably half of those huge stores are of no interest. If I were raising a family on budget, absolutely - but I'd still be aghast at the **** people eat and spend $$ on.
By comparing unit cost BJs actually is cheaper, then Sam's after that. Walmart won the prize because once I had a look at membership costs and what we actually buy, Walmart is doing fine by us and surprisingly our local supermarket comes in ahead of the big chains on some things. You have to really look, which is what we did. Basically, the cost savings of a membership club could be realized by skipping one, two at most trips to the diner. So WallyWorld it is maybe twice a month for bulk items.
Walmartians. Now, this is an old cliche but not necessarily to me. The spectacle's the thing, you see, I found yesterday to be highly entertaining. There are enough memes out there and you don't need me to burden this thread with more but there is a phenomenon I noticed.
No matter how big the store is human beings mill around like cattle. Our local green grocer is tiny by design, makes it quant, and I imagine an aerial view of what goes on inside would look like a slide full of contaminated water under a microscope. Make that exponentially bigger, make the aisle wide enough to drive a semi truck through and you still have people that can block it. Big, fat lumbering asses swinging arms and coats and walking slooooooowly side by side completely oblivious. I read that somewhere is Asia they have 'pushers' on subway platforms to pack people into train cars. Great idea here except they'd need an attachment for a fork truck to do that.
Americans in 2024 by and large are fat bastards.