Walmart

I am writing this review in regards to an order my wife placed. We ordered a nice swing set for our daughter and it was supposed to arrive on Tuesday. Well only 1 box out of 3 arrived. I spent the entire day today making calls to this store and NO one wanted to help me at all. I was hung up on, representatives answer the phone «hello?»… Very aggravating. I wouldn’t suggest this store to anyone unless you are in the mood to have a bad day. If I knew how to give the store 0 stars I would

Convenient location, with lots of parking. The fact that everything is spread out on 2 levels is nice, it helps to make things feel less crowded (for the most part)
Once you get used to the layout the store is pretty easy to navigate. The cart escalator is convenient, but seems to have issues with it working every other time I’ve been in there.
There are plenty of registers, but it always seems there aren’t that many open. Always seems like you can check out faster on the lower level.
You definitely get an interesting mix of shoppers in the store, but hey isn’t that part of the fun of Walmart shopping?

The Capital Region grocery scene has changed dramatically from 2008 (which is when I wrote my earlier review for Walmart). Do you know what else has changed since then?
Me.
A lot.
How did anyone take me seriously as a food writer or commentator on the local food scene when I publicly declared my use of organic soy milk!!! Thankfully, I’ve seen the error of my ways and have since gone back to full fat dairy.
Regardless, I still find myself shopping at Walmart for their everyday low prices, and to vote with my wallet to encourage mass market adoption of organic foods.
This is where I buy the vast majority of the family’s breakfast cereal and granola bars. Nature’s Path has eclipsed Cascadian Farm or Kashi as the brand of choice in our household. And Walmart always has the best everyday price on these staples. It’s also where I buy my favorite Heidelberg bread, and where i begrudgingly buy the squishy bread my children require for peanut butter sandwiches.
But now with Trader Joe’s on the scene, I find that I’m shopping here less and less. And I’m finding that some of Trader Joe’s products are better and cheaper than what I was able to find at Walmart.
So, I’m knocking it down a star.
Walmart remains a great place for national brands of household products. I can’t justify paying the premiums for the exact same stuff from local markets. And I do love knowing I can rely on the mass retailer’s aggressive pricing strategies generally working out in my favor.

Walmart doesn’t even price match their own website. Go to target to get better deals.

Today is 07/​21/​2014. Today after I left work I was in the mood for some M&M’s so I decided to stop by the local Walmart and pick some up. I went a head to purchase them, left and opened the bag to have some. I have a few but for some reason they didn’t taste right so I looked at the expiration date. According to the label they are best if eaten by ⁰⁹⁄₂₉₁₃. There is something wrong with the time frame, why are they still on the shelf? Some some reason I’m thinking it might be part of Walmart eat fresh campaign. If you do feel adventurous to go and get food from Walmart, checking the expiration date should be done first just in case.

Although I cannot argue with the excellent location for residents (including University at Albany students) nor the size of the store, there are many aspects that need to be improved. I for one have never seen a Walmart with employees that lack ANY form of enthusiasm or motivation to do their job. As I understand working at Walmart probably isn’t the most of entertaining of careers, the lack of help is unbelievable. It is almost as if the majority of employees are zombies. And, the ones who are not, seem to have a death wish for you.
With that said, there are a select few that work here that I would say do an amazing job and have that positive, up-​beat attitude everyone appreciates. As a student at the University at Albany for four years, I can tell you with all honesty that some major improvements need to be made here, and I wouldn’t want anyone expecting a top quality store when it is not.

The bathrooms are dirty. Hand rail on the escalator is grimy, and leaves your hands feeling like they have glue on them. I REFUSE to go to the dunkin donuts in this Walmart because an employee had his entire finger in his mouth chewing on it like a piece of gum while taking my order.

This is a great Walmart location. It is quite extensive in the amount of products that they have. The produce and supermarket portion is well stocked with many different items to choose from. The rest of the store was very well stocked as well. A great difference from what I am used to in the city Walmart locations. The only drawback was the wait to checkout. Once I got to the front and the cashier rang up my items, it was pretty quick. I would definitely return to this location again if I were in the area again!

Once the mecca of all Walmarts, when it first reopened as a supercenter. It is the biggest one ever built and the only one with two levels. It is now the most ghetto sh*thole of a store possible, even by Albany standards. Items are out of stock, thrown all over the place, the store is not well maintained and just plain dirty. Lines are always unbelievably long. Nothing could make me return here. I feel like I need a tetanus shot and chemical shower after leaving.

Well, if you’re a Walmart aficionado, then you need to make a pilgrimage here. This is the world’s largest Walmart! 260,000 square feet of Wally World on two levels! Load up the family truckster like Clark Griswald and set out on your own Wally World adventure with a visit to this place! What will you find when you get here? A big Walmart… that’s it.
When they supersized this place they added grocery items to the downstairs. I shopped here before it was supersized… now they basically have the same stuff they always did (except the groceries) but now its just spread out. So, it now takes a few minutes longer to actually get to the item you want all the while dodging bargain hungry Walmarters!
I actually usually avoid this place like the plague. I’m not anti-​Walmart or anything but this store has about 32,000 checkout aisles and at any given time only about 4 of them are actually open. At no time of year is this worse than during the Christmas shopping season. It always seems I get behind that one person who has to further complicate the checkout by arguing about a price or who needs to divide their order into three separate payments. «I’ll pay for these with a check, these with a debit card, and these with this huge jar of pennies!»
It’s Walmart, it is what it is!

It’s Walmart, and you get exactly what you expect. Cheaply made product for cheap prices. Being a grad student and all, I’m too poor to afford to shop anywhere else. It’s pretty much where I buy all my furniture, which I will subsequently break while moving to a new rinky dink apt (I do this about every year). I think I’m on my third Walmart desk by now. Anyhow the clothes, I have too make pride as a 20 something year old female to shop for clothes here. Although in a few years I might be pushing down my cart to the XXL t shirts, the only things that will fit me when I am overweight and middle aged. As for the food, I can’t afford to shop at Overpricedchopper or Hanacantafford. I guess my cereal for dinner budget is what really keeps me thin. Yeah, so… if you are like me, poor and destitute, then totally shop here.

This is a 2 level Walmart. Food is on the 1^st level along with toiletries and paper goods. Everything else is upstairs. Service is okay.

One of the few 2-​story Walmart buildings in the nations, this place is humungous. I love it! It’s got everything a person can possibly ever imagine. On one level, it’s got the grocery aisles, and the other level it’s got the other stuff. There is parking for this store via both levels. I don’t remember how the parking was assigned though, whether it was via a garage or not. However, there were more than enough parking spots for each and every customer they had.
One of the things I did find very amazing (cause, up until last year) was the 2-​story cart escalator. It was the first one I had ever used. But only use this if and when you need it. It’s there as a convenience item only.
On the overall though, the store is clean and clear of debris, and associates are walking around the store occasionally, looking to great customers and help them with their purchases. Both levels include cash-​register aisles. Signage is far outspoken in number (a few too many exist, for me, but that’s only my point-​of-​view-​as most WalMarts are set up pretty much the same).
Not sure where an elevator is in this store, but then again, I never needed it, so I never did look for one.
If I was ever found back in this area, I think I’d go back there. However, since I’m rarely in the area, I think I’d pass on this decision.

This place was incredible. I went to go for two things. Something in housewares and something in electronics. Electronics was a mess and looked like a tornado had hit. Staff was nonexistent and a person who I did find said «I dunno» when asked where I could find the laptop items.
In housewares products had the wrong price stickers and one aisle was completely closed off because someone spilled a bottle of bleach.
Try another store before going to this Walmart.
Parking lot in front.

Its walmart. Its the largest one in the world. I went there today, expecting to find what I was looking for. but I couldn’t. I ended up going somewhere else.
The place is a disaster. There is products all over the shelves, but some how most of it ended up on the floor. It looks like a bomb went off. Now I remember why I never shop there.

I remember reading about this Walmart — the largest Walmart in the nation with much hype. I finally got there and was horrified at what I found. I was expecting a beautiful new store but what I found was a gross, seedy, looking store with very questionable clientele. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and I have no plans to ever go back. If you’re in the Albany area, do yourself a favor and shop at the Saratoga Springs Walmart instead — Exit 16 on the Northway, turn right at the light and go straight. It will be on your left.

This store is humongous and has nearly anything you can imagine — household stuff, groceries, pharmacy, eye doctor, tax accountants, camping equipment, electronics, gym stuff, fishing licenses, paint, etc. etc.
The produce and meat are meh, but everything else is just fine –and insanely cheap. My grocery bill nearly cut in half when I decided to do my grocery shopping here. I also like that I can drop off my prescription, shop, then pick up my medicine in one trip.
I’d buy meat and fresh produce elsewhere, but everything else is just fine. Return policy is great too if you tend to have buyers remorse or if something breaks a few weeks later.

For all the evil and bad that Wal-​Mart stands for, this particular location stands out as a shiny beacon in a quagmire of devalued Americana.
I gawked in disbelief as I drove up to this location the first time (coming home from a Wedding venue hunting trip) and marveled at the size and glory. A tear escaped my eye as I put my hand over my heart. A bald eagle flew by.
Why is this Wal-​Mart so awesome?
It has not one but TWO STORIES OF CRAP THAT BREAKS THE DAY YOU BUY IT.
Home stuff, camping, automotive, and clothes upstairs.
Food downstairs.
We hadn’t planned on buying everything we needed that day, but we sure did! We even bought more frozen goods so we could huddle them together in the trunk to keep each other cold on the three hour drive back to NYC.
The store was one of the cleanest Wal-​Marts I’ve ever seen. The floors shined with hope and promise, the same hope and promise that shines in the eyes of the illegal residents many Wal-​Marts hire. The aisles were wide and spacious, like the freshly deforested wetlands demolished to build new Wal-​Mart stores. Even on a Saturday afternoon, it seemed like the store was ours.
Another joy of going to this, or any Wal-​Mart, is the people. Someone should buy «peo​ple​oft​wos​to​ry​wal​marts​.com» just to pay homage to the clientele walking around. My favorite conversation I overheard was a rather large woman talking to another rather large woman about birth control.
«…and I TOLD him that I was pregnant again and he was like no way that’s impossible and I just knew it.»
«Uh huuh.»
«Now I’ve got an IUD and if I get pregnant, I’m suing Dr. Smith the gynecologist who put me on this and the Ortho McNeil the manufacturer and everyone!»
«Uh huuh, that’s right.»
We were able to find some specialty goods here. I picked up Vital Wheat Gluten (to make Seitan), vegetable stock for $ 2 a carton, and some frozen vegetarian items. Wal-​Mart brand canned goods are of good quality and about $.65 a can.
All the prices rung up exactly right. After coming in contact with a few particularly shady Wal-​Marts right next to the city where I actually have to sit and watch as each item rung up (disparities in their favor of $.50 and $.75 on every other item, and oooh the clerks and people in line behind me get mad) it was refreshing to have everything ring up exactly as they were labeled.
All in all, this was one of the most joyous Wal-​Mart experiences I’ve ever had. My consumer confidence is high that Sam Walton would have been proud of this store.

Is it just me or does Walmart decrease your IQ points when you’re there?
A college student was jamming his cart in the do-​not-​enter side, my cashier bagged my meats with my produce and bread, the customer service rep is not friendly (she dropped a pen as she was about to give it to me, I had to pick up and she didn’t say anything) and none of the greeters actually greet you. And what’s up with that huge open area overlooking the supermarket section?
This place is HUGE but so’s the wasted space. If 10 clowns can fit in a car, they would be able to fit a roller coaster, mountains, chocolate water falls, and a dinosaur in here (in which case, I will wholeheartedly support this corporation). Maybe it just takes one to run this Walmart.

Wal-​Mart, I HATE to love you. Like Daniel B. mentions, it’s only fair to take off a star (or two) for Wal-Mart’s corporate evilness.
Actually, this corporate evilness deserves to have even more stars docked.
But the thing is, no matter how much I dislike their business practices, and how corporations like them have created the economic downturn we face today, you can’t fight with their prices, and their surprising quality.
Groceries here are cheap. And their house-​brand stuff is actually pretty good. This past week, I’ve been very much impressed with the quality of their produce, in addition to the wide variety of their home goods.
Since I got to Albany last Friday, I’ve been to this location almost once every day. Sometimes more. I have singlehandedly furnished my apartment with affordable goods online, using site-​to-​store (they hold items for 21 days, so when you’re making an awesome cross-​country move, you can make sure your shiz will be there when you are). If you properly assemble the furniture, it not only looks nice, but is at comparable quality to Ikea (not awesome, but generally not shit, either).
At this location I’ve picked up:
+ Groceries (produce, dairy, meats, frozen, etc.)
+ Furniture (site-​to-​store desk, chest of drawers, end tables, kitchen island, bed stand, chairs)
+ Lamps
+ Small storage boxes
+ A stick vacuum
+ Bathroom shiz (suction bath mat, shower liner, curtain hooks, shower organizer, washrags)
+ Grippy drawer liner
+ Toiletries (soap, shampoo, conditioner, loofah!, body wash, etc.)
+ Tap lights
+ Hangers
+ Phone
+ Swiffer Sweeper & other cleaning shiz
…among, I’m sure, lots of other stuff.
While they have a snazzy cart escalator that both scares and awes me – in addition to yet another Dunkin Donuts – the checkers don’t know crap about bagging stuff. NONE OF THEM. Every time I’ve been, and now it’s several times over, the checker seriously uses a bag per item. What a waste!
Moreover, many times I’ve had the audacity to bring my own reusable bags. I hand it to them, and they look at them like they have no idea what to do with it. Like I’m nuts or something. When I tell them to pack it full (these bags hold a lot, and won’t break), they still can’t go over halfway.
So here’s my verdict… prices and quality of items make this store a solid «5» in my book. It’s like WinCo with a home section. Great! Evil corporation deserves negative stars, but we’ll just say «1» because we’re not allowed to go any further down on Unilocal.Service? Meh. Maybe a «3.»
We’ll just give this place three stars and call it good. Okay? Okay.
PS: These mofos don’t have corn tortillas! What gives?