I shop at Wal-Mart because you have to face that it is the most convenient store, has the best selection, and by far the lowest prices.
There are some problems with the stores. Smaller stores can't compete and might close down, their employees are often rude and unhelpful, the customers they attract are sometimes unsavory, auto-oriented big-box stores cause problems from an urban design standpoint, and Wal-Mart stores are ugly and utilitarian (esp. older ones, the newer ones are better).
So yeah, there are a lot of downsides to shopping there. I think that the conviennce, selection, and prices are what really matters, though.
Some people have said that Wal-Mart lowers the standard of living for its employees, suppliers, and customers. I disagree. Every decent economist now credits Wal-Mart for the low inflation of the last decade and for the huge gains in productivity over the last two decades. Low inflation, and especially productivity gains, translate into a real increase in the standard of living for everyone.
I mean, when Wal-Mart starts selling groceries in a community, they drive down the prices in that market by 13%. That means that families, particularly poor ones, are seeing huge gains where it counts most. This is all even if you don't shop at Wal-Mart. If you shop at Wal-Mart, the savings are even greater. So having a Wal-Mart in your community is kind of like getting a 13% raise.
I disagree that Wal-Mart does predatory pricing. Yes, Wal-Mart undercuts the competition. But no, this isn't predatory. Wal-Mart doesn't lower the prices, drive out competition, and then raise prices to enjoy monopoly status. It lowers them and keeps lowering them because it wan't to take care of the customer.
Yes, Wal-Mart's compensation packages have some problems. But you have to keep it in perspective: the low wages Wal-Mart pays helps aren't adding to the profits of some rich executives or the company coffers. They are reducing prices. So that 8 or 10 dollars an hour goes a long way when they shop at Wal-Mart or at the stores lowering their prices to compete. If Wal-Mart raised wages, it'd raise prices, everyone else would raise prices, and there would be no increase in the standard of living.
But the other thing to remember with the benefits of working at Wal-Mart: compensation for career workers isn't great, but is good. A huge number of the employees are people with a second job for extra cash, students just trying to get some spending money, retirees passing their time and supplementing their retirement savings, temporary workers earning some dough for the holidays. Some of Wal-Mart's employees, as I'm sure we all agree, are rude, inconsiderate, ignorant, and probably unimprovably so. I doubt if they could get a job elsewhere, and definitely not one with better pay. (oh, and about the "38 or 39 hours so they can avoid full time status." Wal-Mart treats all associates who usually work more than 32 hours a week as full time, with all full time benefits. They don't allow associates to work more than 40 hours a week so they don't have to pay overtime. To be safe, they usually like a 1-3 hour buffer. It doesn't make sense to pay someone double when its a job someone else could do).
So keeping the pay thing in perspective: the wages Wal-Mart pays to its temporary workers, retirees, students, part timers, etc aren't that bad and are rather competitive to the market. Talented career wal-mart associates raise up the ladder rather quickly and get better and better compensation. Look at the executives at Wal-Mart: most of them started out as cashiers or cart pushers, and most of them worked their way up in only a few years.
