(no subject)

[which_chick]

ozarque posted about WalMart the other day -- her original post is here and the bulk of the responders came down anti-WalMart.



The sad fact of it is that I don't have a ton of options for where to buy things. I do buy a lot of crap online or on planned trips to more urb-ish areas that have shopping options, but if I just want something in fairly short order (like, for example, a six-pack of Hanes men's white tube socks), there is only one place to go. I do not know where else I could *buy* a six pack of men's white tube socks on the way home from my work. The Dollar Store might have something. Possibly the shoe store at the WalMart plaza carries socks. We don't have a K-Mart or a Sears or a mall without me driving forty-five minutes to Altoona. WalMart is my option, unless I want to drive to Altoona, shop online, or try some plausible local sources that might have the socks I want.

So, y'know, I buy the socks at WalMart. Fair enough, right? At least they have 'em. Well, but they don't, not really. I've worn the same make/model/brand of socks for the last ten years. (Having all the socks be exactly the same means I don't have to fuck around with matching them up. Any two socks will work. The eyestrain purple socks are an outlier and so hideously purple that there is no way my before-coffee mind could confuse them with the ordinary white socks.) Since I've worn the same socks for the last ten years, I have something of a baseline for what Hane's white men's tube socks (sold in packets of six) are like. They're getting worse. They use less material and look threadbare after one wearing. They're almost like what you would get if you bought pre-worn-out socks.

Why did Hanes suddenly (In the last year or so, really, things went to hell. The socks I bought last year this time weren't as bad. Two years ago, the quality was what it should be for WalMart socks.) start making shitty socks? What's up with that?

You can't get blood from a stone, I think. WalMart demands that stuff get cheaper and cheaper. That is its promise to its customers and its demand of its suppliers. Lower prices, everyday! I expect that there cannot be continually cheaper socks of the same quality. Eventually, all the fat has been cut -- there are no more ways to cut the cost of the socks (everything has been mechanized, the actual humans have been outsourced to China, economies of scale ramped up, etc.) without making shittier socks. Hanes has, with the men's white tube socks in the six-pack, reached the point of making shittier socks and, in point of fact, has moved beyond that point for me. I have an entirely unsatisfactory six-pack of socks that is the last I will purchase from Hanes, at WalMart or elsewhere. *fuck* I liked those socks, damn it.

Money shot the first: Does anyone know where (online or whatever) I can buy decent-quality men's thick white tube socks individually or in packets of six? The quality of the local offerings has reached the I won't buy it anymore line of dissatisfaction demarcation, see, and I still fucking need socks.

Money shot the second: Despite living in BFE, I am tech-savvy and not poor. Shopping online for socks that will make me happy is not particularly a problem for me. What do the people who lack my resources do for socks? Expanding the scope, here, is it possible for WalMart to lower prices, everyday! itself right out of business? Is there a limit to what people will lay down money for? Does the American consumer have any standards? (I note with interest that our currency is sliding against the rest of the world. Perhaps we can spend our worthless money on worthless goods. My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.)

Comments

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

Warning: not at all what you're asking for.

sock-dreams.com

Okay, so they have tube socks, but I'm guessing you don't want $7 a pair socks. But this site is so fantastic that I have to show it to anyone who mentions socks. They have socks....SORTED BY LENGTH!

I live in a major urban area where we have lots of stores and, you'd think, a plethora of sock options, and I still can't manage to make a good economy sock purchase. Actually, for a long time, I thought I hated socks (I sorto f hate shoes, but I like socks. I just hate socks that don't fit right and are hard to get over my heel, or don't fit and bag down around my arch. Who knew?) so I think that socks are just a wasteland. I think people do not give much thought to socks and just buy new ones whenever they wear a hole in the heel. I go through cheap socks like water, though (I do a lot of walking) so I guess I think about socks a bit too much.

Oh, my mom wears wigwam socks, they are pretty good quality, but I think that's (again) in the higher price by the pair sort of area.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

PS-- my knowledge is skewed because I like thinks to come in bright colors.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

Dunno, I buy from the Dollar General, which has the same socks as WalMart, far as I can tell. Or, that is, I buy from them when I need to, which hasn't been this year. For a long while, I'd be too lazy to do my wash, and would stop in the 'General for some new socks instead, y'know, for the clean-socks-not-stinking-up-the-room factor. This left me with a hell of a lot of socks when i finally broke myself of this bad habit. A year of tromping about & wearing out socks still hasn't burned through the surplus, although I've tossed out over a dozen pairs for unacceptable holeyness in the last wash-cycle. We'll see when I finally get down to a three-weeks supply of acceptably intact tubesocks.

Is it possible that your activity levels in the last year or so have changed moreso than the socks themselves? It's been a year or two since you went from that sit-down job managing the dialup to the real estate gig as a daytime job. Maybe you're just wearing out socks at an accelerated rate? I know I've been doing that, and I know what's been doing it, and it isn't the degenerating quality of the material in the last year - I haven't *bought* anything in the last year, sockwise.

[cassandramorgan.livejournal.com]

I don't know if all the Hanes sock suck or not. I'll have to look at my husband's socks to see what he buys.....though I think it might be Hanes. You can try http://www.onehanesplace.com and try the socks from their online store. (Maybe they make special shitty socks for Walmart ;) )

If this link works properly....here are the men's socks:
http://www.onehanesplace.com/category/9040000000.html

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

(Maybe they make special shitty socks for Walmart ;) )

That seems to be the most logical conclusion. If you're a huge vendor, you can afford to make cheap crap for Walmart; after all, it's just another SKU as far as you're concerned.