Friday, December 02, 2005

First Walmart, now Target -- where am I allowed to shop?

I've briefly mentioned my disdain for Walmart before. Now it turns out Target (the blue-state alternative to Walmart's red-state charm) is allowing their pharmacists to refuse to dispense the Plan B contraceptive if it conflicts with the pharmacist's religious beliefs. I won't get into why I find this objectionable, but suffice it to say, I do.

I have already decided to boycott Walmart unless I absolutely have no other choice (ie, if Walmart is the only place that carries a particular product). I have shopped at Target for a while now, and I find their products of a higher quality than those at Walmart, their stores cleaner, and the people that work there generally friendlier. If I include Target in my list of stores to boycott, I will add extra agony to the pain of shopping. You see, I live in a small town. Our choices of one-stop shopping includes a Walmart, a Super Walmart, a Sam's Club (the Walmart membership store), and a Target. Yes, that's 3 Walmart stores, one Target, and nothing else. No K-Mart. No Costco. No options.

I don't buy a lot of things (as evidenced by my rant against Black Friday), and when I do, I often shop online. The only regular shopping I do is at the grocery store and for other general crap. Target comes in handy when I want to buy the general crap -- if I need something for the kitchen or bathroom, I know I can find it at Target. If I exclude the only remaining acceptable one-stop store in my town, I don't know where I will buy all of that general crap. What the hell did people do before these mega-stores began taking over small towns?

3 Comments:

At 3:27 PM, Blogger Razib Khan said...

what is the nearest large town to where you are? i forget, college station or state college. we (my gf and i) drove through central PA last year, and man, it was like eastern oregon or something (at least for the east coast). alabama between pittsburgh and philly.

 
At 4:41 PM, Blogger RPM said...

Define "large town". Pittsburgh is about 2.5hrs away (depending on traffic and road work). Philadelphia is about 3hrs. NYC is about 4hrs. I would consider those to be large towns.

Altoona is the closest other city (~45mins). They have a AA baseball team. Johnstown is a little bit down the road from Altoona, and they have a minor league hockey team. If sports are any indication, we are considered a Pittsburgh market.

Also, Williamsport (the home of the Little League World Series) is about an hours drive.

 
At 2:53 PM, Blogger Amit said...

Someone told me when Wal-Mart opened in Ithaca, a bomb was placed near the entrance and the store had to be evacuated.

I guess within in the last 2 years or so whole bunch of big-box stores have opened in Ithaca (Walmart, Lowe's, HomeDepot) I think the Target has been here for a while. Have you seen that documentary on Walmart that came out recently?

 

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