Wal Mart v. Target

JB over at Fraters has posted an interesting little piece:

{...}It is a matter of faith among the left that there is something wrong, if not immoral with Wal-Mart. Much of it stems from a simple elitism that allows them to make high-minded criticisms of a place they consider to be for the proles and the semi-washed. They realize it just doesn't sound right to admit that they hate Wal-Mart because they consider themselves superior to the people who shop there, but saying "I disagree with Wal-Mart's (fill in the blank) policy and therefore I go to Target" allows them to avoid the place (and the people) AND to make what passes in for an intelligent point at the same time.

Even those who aren't lefties and are in fact quite conservative can be heard making the case that Target is superior for this or that sundry reason and would never consider setting foot in a Wal-Mart. In the Twin Cities, part of this is the fact that Target has been around much longer, but the elitism of the left can affect conservatives as well (like people who somehow cannot find one item of edible food on a Friday's menu and moan about "chain restaurants").

I guess it comes down to the fact that Wal-Mart is perceived (correctly) as catering to lower class and lower middle class customers (one woman I work with said it was too "Bubba" for her). By shopping there and by telling (admitting?) others you do, you are positioning yourself with the lower class. For many people, they could care less how they are perceived by others, but for many others, this kind of decision is one of the ways (including the car they drive, their house, their Ipod) they tell society who they are. "Oh, we aren't one of those Wal-Mart families, Target is so much hipper and cosmopolitan" is every bit a part of the psychology of choosing where to shop and as important as rational reasons like location and price of the goods.{...}

JB makes some interesting leaps of the imagination, no? While I don't doubt that JB's got a point about the difference between Wally World and Le Boutique de la Target (pronounced Targhzay), I think, perhaps, he's overthinking it a bit.

To out myself: I am a Target shopper. There was no Wally World in my neighborhood when I was growing up. There was, however, a Target about three miles from the house. We went just about every Sunday, right when the circular came out in the newspaper, and had to fight to the death for a parking spot. We bought our school supplies there. When I was little, my mother outfitted me in Garanimals purchased from Target. Target was where it was at. I didn't know there was such a thing as Wally World. I had no clue that there was a whole league of shoppers in this country who were devoted to buying things from the Walton family. I wasn't introduced to Wally World until I went to college. And even then I really didn't go there because it was the difference of about five miles and an interminable bus ride. Wally World was on the other side of town, near the mall, guaranteeing that you had to take the bus to get there because no one who had a car shopped at the Ames Mall. They drove to Des Moines, instead. You could, however, always catch a ride with someone to Target, which was nearby. I've got nothing against Wal-Mart, it's just never been convenient for me to shop there.

My local Target is here. The nearest Wal-Mart is here. In case you're not from the Twin Cities, this is how you'd get from the Target to the Wal-Mart. Target is much closer to the Cake Eater Pad than Wal-Mart is. Keep in mind that we don't currently have a car and are reliant on public transportation to get around. The bus may not go to either store, but to get anywhere near the Wal-Mart, I'd have to transfer, which is generally not convenient, ya dig, particularly not when you are schlepping bags full of laundry detergent and other products. None of this, of course, mentions that the East Bloomington Wal-Mart is---and how do I put this politely?---skanky. Been there, done that and I am NEVER going back there. The neighborhood Target is nice, clean, well-lit, populated with friendly and helpful employees and the chances of you being raped in their parking lot is much less than it would be if you went and shopped at the Wally World in East Bloomington in the evening. Call me crazy, but I think it's kind of stupid, in terms of a woman's personal safety, to shop repeatedly at a store where the management deems it necessary to have a security guard escort you to your car if you were unaccompanied. Granted, this was a while ago, but this one experience guaranteed I was never going to go back to that store.

While there are suburban Targets, there are very few urban Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart is always and forever on the fringe of cities and you have to drive to get there, as is evidenced by the massive parking lots. This is not to say that Target doesn't have massive parking lots, but is there a Wal-Mart in downtown Minneapolis? I think not. But there is a Target in downtown Minneapolis and it's nice. Wal-Mart is geared toward the suburban market. They need large tracts of land to set up shop and the only place they can get that land is on the outer fringes of cities. Target stores are, in my humble opinion, more geared toward the urban audience because they will work with what space they can get and will set up shop accordingly. While there are any number of Targets in the outer reaches of any metropolitan area, there are also Targets in the midst of the same metropolitan area. Target makes it easy. Wal-Mart, in my humble opinion, doesn't.

If there was a Wal-Mart nearby, I'd probably shop there. I have no particular loyalty to Target in regards to its products. You can generally find the same thing at Wally World for the same price. The only thing about Wal-Mart that bothers me is that they are very choosy about what entertainment products they will choose to sell. Don't get me wrong: they've got every right to choose wisely what products they will put on their shelves, but---and this is a BIG "but"---when they deliberately choose not to carry certain items, like, say, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas because of concerns over the content, I would say that they're doing their customers a disservice. They're playing the part of the morality police and that bothers me, but I will admit, they're free to do this. It's their business. It's worrisome, given their market share, but--again---it's their business and if that's what they want to do, that's their right.

While I don't doubt there are plenty of people who do shop at Target for the reasons JB stated above, that's not always the case. It could simply be because Target has aligned themselves better in some locations than Wal-Mart has. And that's simply where I live---other people might think differently.

Now if only the local grocery union would lighten the hell up and allow for a SuperTarget somewhere inside the 494/694 ring, I'd be a very happy camper.

UPDATE: The kid throws her two cents in.

Posted by Kathy at August 30, 2005 10:49 AM | TrackBack