Dear Walmart,
Three years ago I stopped shopping in your stores, never to return as a customer. Part of this relates to the pandemic and your response, but that's only a tiny part of the reason. My main reason is your full implementation of self-checkout machines. If I have to do ALL the work, then why do I even need to enter your store? I could shop online from home and avoid all the hassle -- but when I do shop online, it isn't and won't be from your store, I can promise you that.
I prefer to shop in actual stores because I like to pick out my own items and groceries and the like. Also, I like to physically see that my dollars are helping to employ people. When I go to pay for my items, I want to have a conversation with a real-live person who can also help me if there is a problem with the scanning or the weighing or the sacking, etc. of the items.
I realize that I am one tiny fish in a massive ocean of consumers, many of whom still shop at your stores or order online from you; however, I know that in the past, when I did still visit your stores (when the registers were manned by PEOPLE), I averaged 400 dollars a month spent. That totals 4,800 dollars a year, and if we take that times the 3 years in which you haven't received that, so far, you've lost out on 14,400 dollars.
So Far. I wanted to repeat that phrase because, even though I'm middle-aged, I hope to be around for a while now, so let's continue multiplying that, shall we?! Take the yearly AVERAGE of 4,800 dollars times, oh, let's hope for the best for me, and say 40 years. If I live to a ripe old age, then you will miss out on 192,000 dollars from me.
That's just from me, and that's just an average. As we all know, everyone who enters your store tends to do a lot of impulse buying along the way, and I can be impulsive.
I know many others who have taken the same route as me and opted to NEVER shop in your stores again, so you can take my modest 192,000 dollars and continue to multiply that by 100s of other people. A mere 100 people at that small average spent over 40 years puts the number above 19 million dollars.
Again, I do indeed realize that you have billions upon billions of dollars and couldn't care less about little old me, but this letter, even though it seems to be written to you, Walmart, is really meant for any other person out there who, like me, is tired of places like you that don't care about people like me.
If I can do without Walmart, then so can you. If I can shop locally, then so can you. If I can get by on what my small town grocery store offers as well as the Dollar General that's here, then so can you. I will say, though, that the Dollar General may lose me, too, if they put in any more self-checkouts. So far, there is only one, and I've never used it because there are still PEOPLE manning the checkouts.
Other giant stores take heed. I will not shop in stores that only have self checkouts. It's enough that I have to go fill my cart and then unload it and even sometimes bag my goods (I'm looking at YOU Menard's), but I will not also scan my items and process my payment. Why not make us stock the damn shelves while you're at it?
Stores complain that online shopping is putting them out of business. When the stores themselves have completely done away with any HUMAN component of the shopping experience, then why the hell not shop online? I don't want to do much shopping that way, so bring back the real people to, at a bare minimum, work at the checkouts.
Am I just an old fogey? Maybe, but I'll take being an old fogey any day if it means that I can get help from PEOPLE while I shop and help those people have jobs.
Sincerely,
A former -- and never to return -- Walmart shopper.
P.S. I hear that there's a huge increase in items being stolen from your stores. Hmmm, let me employ this little thing called "common sense" for a moment. . . . Could it be that not every shopper is super honest? Could it be that they are taking advantage of those self checkouts and not scanning everything they are "buying?" Could it be that your own stupidity in implementing those damn machines has led to you losing A LOT of money to shoplifting? It's a conundrum, don't you think? Good grief. You're getting what you deserve.
P.S.S. It's not "10 items or less;" it's "10 items or fewer." If you ever bring PEOPLE back to run some lines and have an express lane again, get it right this time. Thanks.
