re: #151 reine.de.tout

However, the quality of stuff at Wal-mart sucks. It really does.

Here’s how Wal-Mart works:

Companies produce a special line of whatever it is they make to put at Wal-Mart. Not every company, but a lot of them, and especially the durable goods companies. This is because Wal-Mart pays them lower than anyone else, and so by mutual agreement this line, which has the same serial number, perhaps with a slight difference at the end— has gone through fewer (or no) rounds of quality assurance testing.

The products at Wal-Mart are designed the same as their counterparts elsewhere, but their overall quality is demonstrably lower, since many more will fail.

The evil part about this is that it’s a crapshoot, a lottery— you may be the poor dude who buys the faulty TV that will fail in a year, or you may not.

Anyway: Wal-Mart products are cheaper, but in many, many cases, especially with high-end items, that comes with a price of lower quality control. So in the end, they’re no cheaper than rival products.

I don’t know as much about their other departments, mainly just about durable goods. But the company did not get to be where it was by giving generous deals to customers, I’m afraid.