Dear Wal-Mart

Following is an email exchange between Wal-Mart Customer Service and me. While I hardly think it's time to liquidate your equity position in Wal-mart and snatch up all available shares of "Robert's Retail-O-Rama", the company's brightest days, if not their greatest profits, may well be behind it.

Wal-Mart began life as a good neighbor and champion of the little guy. They were proud of their "Made In America" philosophy, stocking their shelves with goods made here at home whenever possible and only looking to offshore suppliers when absolutely necessary. Today it is a challenge to find a "Made In The USA" label on their shelves, and their only concern for the little guy is eliminating him as efficiently and ruthlessly as possible.

Forgetting one's roots is one of the first faltering steps in this country for a public entity to be taught lessons in humility.

Since the reply came to me, I feel comfortable disregarding the dire warnings of confidentiality at the bottom of the Wal-Mart email. And it is also amusing that despite the fact I took them up on their offer to correspond further regarding this matter, they have allowed nearly 72 hours to elapse without feeling a need to respond.

----Your [My] Original Comments Were----

I am greatly disappointed to discover that unlike most brick and mortar competitors, Wal-Mart does not offer the option to pick up merchandise ordered on line at a local retail location.

I find this to be particularly frustrating at the moment since I want to purchase a computer from you. On line, with shipping, the total comes to approximately $333, while in the store it can be had for $349. Waiting two weeks to save $16.00 on a product I want and am willing to pay for now does not seem terribly advantageous to me.

I am not sure what my final decision regarding this purchase is going to be. However, the impression I got from the customer service rep I spoke with on the phone was, "We're Wal-Mart, we can do as we darn well please, and we don't particularly care whether you like it or not". That impression of your corporate concern for having me as a customer causes me to consider taking my business elsewhere on general principle, even if that costs me a few dollars.

Once upon a time, General Motors was also an unstoppable behemoth. They also believed they did not need to be responsive to the interests of their customers.

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 17:18:14 -0600,
CUSTOMER REPLIES: WM Stores & Sam'sClubs <cstreply@wal-mart.com> wrote:
Thank you for your message. The merchandise and prices available on our web site do not reflect the merchandise and prices available in our stores. Our stores will not match prices with our online store (or other online stores) because we do not consider them to be in competition with our retail stores. Currently, we do not have access to store inventory lists or price lists at this web site. Please contact your local Wal-Mart store manager for more information and availability.

Thanks,
Customer Relations

For further correspondence regarding this issue, please reply to this email.
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Jay Vreeland to CUSTOMER,

You're welcome for my message.

Clearly you managed to provide a canned response, unfiltered by anything so mundane as rational thought. I, and the overwhelming majority of retailers who utilize the internet to offer their goods to the public, consider their e-tailing efforts to be an adjunct to their brick and mortar operations and not some strange form of auto-cannibalistic "competition". At least you can claim consistency. The attitude that "We're Wal-Mart, we can do as we darn well please, and we don't particularly care whether you like it or not" suggested by your phone rep now appears not have been merely a personal opinion or poorly phrased rendering of corporate philosophy. She managed to nail your view of the sheep filling your cash registers rather accurately.

I can only express relief for "Mr. Sam" that he didn't have to live long enough to see the monstrosity his vision has become.

Jay Vreeland
Bunker Hill, West Virginia