With all of the headlines (and the reality) about inflation, predatory pricing and ever increasing costs of goods, I expected that retail shopping would be taking a significant hit. Personally, even with my limited amount of purchasing and general anti-consumerism tendencies, I cannot help but notice significant prices increases in the food and items I purchase regularly. The price increases motivated me to quit purchasing some items altogether and to purchase other items only when they are on sale. Most of my retail shopping, aside from hardware and groceries is done online.
I don’t know if retail shopping is down. What I can say is that when I visited the optician at Walmart a few weeks ago, business was booming. The Walmart parking was jam packed with only a few empty spaces. People were jockeying for parking. Carts were filled to the brim with bags of stuff. There was a constant stream of people entering and leaving the shopping center.
And it was in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday.
Personally, I despise Walmart and only shop there when I have absolutely no other choice. When I was living off-grid in the remote West, Walmart was invaluable as it was often the only place I could get groceries, supplies, water, and gear. But in my normal life in the city, I avoid Walmart like the plague. The lines are long. The products are inferior. I smells like PVC inside. Many of the stores are dirty. The customer service is abysmal. In some locations, the parking lots are full of panhandlers and sketchy people hustling for money.
Clearly, I’m in the minority. In this particular Walmart I saw people of all kinds – young and old, poor and well-off (judging from their cars and outfits). Some people fit the “People of Walmart” stereotypes and others looked no different than shoppers I saw at the upscale mall where I purchased my new iPhone.
So, despite my internal grumbling about the prices of ground beef, eggs and cheap Chinese crap from Amazon, perhaps the economy isn’t as bad as the gloom and doom headlines proclaim.
The people at the Walmart, much like those at the mall, seemed to be enjoying themselves.