Still Broke by Rick Wartzman

Author:Rick Wartzman [Wartzman, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2022-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

About a month after Janet Sparks addressed the annual meeting, a man named Walter Loeb walked into a Walmart in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In his late 80s, white-haired, and bespectacled, Loeb wouldn’t have attracted any special notice. But what he saw sure grabbed him. “It was disturbing,” he said.

If you were Walmart, Loeb was not somebody you wanted to let down. One of the industry’s most esteemed advisers and observers, he’d been writing about retail for more than two decades, following 16 years as a senior analyst at Morgan Stanley and, before that, 20 years as an executive at Macy’s and other chains. He knew the business inside and out, and his latest column for Forbes was as unforgiving as when theater critic Ben Brantley panned a Broadway show in the Times. Walmart was a flop.

“Everywhere I looked,” Loeb wrote, “whether it was the men’s, women’s or juniors departments, merchandise was not well assorted by style, size, or color. There was no fashion message; and the presentation was poor—goods hung loose on separate racks in a most unattractive way. In the women’s intimate apparel department there were many bras on the floor—certainly unappealing, not to mention an unsanitary condition.

“It wasn’t just apparel that was in disarray,” he said. “The rest of the store was also disorganized and out of stock; for example, the pharmacy area had many empty spaces on the vitamin shelves as well as in other categories. In the vacuum cleaner department, there were some machines on display—but no back-up stock to purchase; some styles were in boxes but not on display. There were many other departments in similar conditions. No surprise in such a poorly kept store, the bathrooms were both filthy and in serious need of management’s attention—to me this shows the disregard management has for customers and employees—not a good message.”

Then Loeb delivered a real gut punch: “What happened to this standard-setting retailer?” he asked. “Walmart always prided itself on neatness, cleanliness, and full assortments of merchandise. It was Sam Walton’s creed to offer his customers the best values that were available. I walked Walmart stores with Mr. Sam many times—he cared deeply about people—he knew associates’ names and often recognized loyal customers. Sam has been dead over 21 years, and unfortunately as the company has grown beyond his wildest dreams, it has become a bureaucracy.”

Although his words carried special weight, Loeb was not the first to make such an assessment. Reports of empty shelves and shoddy service had plagued Walmart since at least 2011. But these woes had worsened, with more and more customers unable to find what they came into the store for, leaving them exasperated and off to shop at the competition. “If it’s not on the shelf, I can’t buy it,” said Margaret Hancock, whose local Walmart in Delaware was short of lots of items on her shopping list, including face cream, cold medicine, bandages, mouthwash, hangers, lamps, and fabrics. “You hate to see a company self-destruct, but there are other places to go.

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