Walmart Will Conquer The World And There’s Nothing You Can Do
Walmart is going to conquer the world. This can be said with as much certainty as the phrases “the sun will rise tomorrow” and “gravity exists” — a prediction weighted with enough statistical confidence so as to be inevitable. I know this because I really wanted to watch a movie tonight.
Picture, if you will, the average flat-screen television, with a diagonal measurement anywhere between 30" and 40". The exact dimensions are immaterial. Take a moment to contemplate how utterly stupid that television looks when sitting on a floor. You will then realize the predicament which required me to purchase a television stand: even in the privacy of my own room, I would be utterly humiliated by watching a screen below eye level. I can’t explain why. I just knew that without this television stand, I’d probably never watch movies again purely due to the sheer mortification of my television’s proximity to the floor. Thus it was that I ventured out to purchase a TV stand, ideal retail price somewhere between $50 and slightly more than $50.
4:07 PM (Location: Target) — I truly loathe everything about Walmart. Both in the subjective (“I’d prefer to be anywhere but Walmart”) and objective (“It’s truly difficult to find a company with worse business practices”) senses. Therefore, my first stop was Target. Obviously they’d have TV stands, right? No. No they do not.
4:21 PM (Location: HomeGoods) — I’ve never been in a HomeGoods store before. It smells like hallucinogenic potpourri. For a couple minutes, I forgot how to speak and just stared at various ornate lamps. Nearby a couple was intently discussing whether or not blue is a bad color. I vaguely wondered whether or not there was a way to predict crime based on how much blue someone wears. It seemed feasible at the time. No TV stands here — only weird flowers and decorations that made me suddenly understand why suburban marriages often end in divorce.
4:27 PM (Location: Barnes & Noble) — Brief case of shopper’s panic, when you feel like the item you left the house to purchase is so utterly unattainable that you make consolation purchases so as not to feel like a failed American consumer. Ended up buying two intellectually-titled books to impress the girl standing next to me — upon leaving, discovered that said books almost certainly made me look like a manically depressed hipster and not at all intellectually impressive. At least I had a gift card, so it wasn’t a total loss.
5:05 PM (Location: Jordan’s Furniture) — TV stands are furniture. I’m reasonably sure of this. This place has “furniture” right in the name. Therefore, it will have TV stands. Wandering from postmodern faux living room to country-style faux bedroom to traditional leather faux office, I began to wonder if people no longer own televisions, just many variations of futon. Hope was dashed entirely when I asked a clerk how much a certain TV stand cost, only to be told it was a cash register and not for sale.
5:14 PM (Location: Walmart) — I walk in. I find a television stand. It costs $21.12 with tax, some assembly required. I’m in and out the door in under five minutes.
As the gap between the wealthy and everyone else continues to grow, those who are left in the middle class will realize that they cannot afford a custom-carved solid oak cruelty-free environmentally-responsible television stand for only $2,999.95. They will go to Walmart, because Walmart has everything. Walmart has played the long game, counting on the fact that manufacturers and distributors would be blinded by profits from bulk sales and not notice increasingly minuscule margins that keep their operations on a razor’s edge, a hairsbreadth away from being outsourced to China. Counting on consumers to increasingly rely on rollback pricing and ignore the vicious cycle where Walmart’s blue-collar wages are barely enough to make a living and thus push them back in the doors of Walmart because that’s all they can afford. It’s impossible to compete with that.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Walmart will rule the world. If you need me, I’ll be in their DVD section searching for a movie to watch tonight.
Image: Flickr