Wal-Mart VS K-Mart: Which Store is Better?

Written by Garry Conn on May 1st, 2008

My family and I tend to shop at Wal-Mart more than K-Mart. However, I am strongly starting to reconsider this decision. Our local Wal-Mart is relatively new compared to our local K-Mart. Initially, when our local Wal-Mart store opened, we were very excited about it’s opening and we have been shopping there for the last six years.

We liked shopping there because everything was new and shiny. I don’t particularly enjoy shopping in stores that don’t look clean and have a run down appearance. Commonly this is the case for most all K-Mart stores I have shopped at including our local K-Mart store. Partly, that was the one of the main reasons why we stated shopping at Wal-Mart.

As I had mentioned, our local Wal-Mart store has been in town for a little over six years now and the overall store is starting to show some age. It isn’t really as new and shiny as it once was, the shopping carts are starting to show a lot of wear and tear and the overall shopping experience just doesn’t seem as exciting as it once was.

Having that said, this has no lead me to start doing more shopping at K-Mart. Granted, K-Mart still sucks as it is a run down and somewhat dirty store; however, the same is slowly becoming true for Wal-Mart, so what’s the difference?

The difference is in price. I am now starting to notice that many of the common items being sold in Wal-Mart are in fact cheaper at K-Mart, if not at least the same price. It is obvious that I would shop at K-Mart for the better deals and savings, but what about if the products were the same price? To answer that question, I would still shop at K-Mart for the simple fact that the store is never busy.

At K-Mart, you can always get a good parking spot, the lines are never long and you don’t have to fight crowds. Why? Because everyone shops at Wal-Mart because for whatever the reason may be, people feel like they have to shop there. Now don’t get me wrong, we still shop at Wal-Mart, but I think that we are slowing breaking free from the Wal-Mart brainwashing and have started to consider other stores.

What are your thoughts? Where do you like to shop? One thing I do like about Wal-Mart is the fact that we can get everything we need all from one store. We can get food, clothes, medicine, automotive accessories, tires, gardening products and so much more. Literally, if there was only one store accessible to us, Wal-Mart would indeed, have everything that we needed without having to travel a distance to some other store. All in all Wal-Mart is great; however, I just question whether or not you are really getting the best deals as they advertise.