Conversation on Wal-Mart pics with a mom ...

ryant35 wrote in post #11511293
We got Walmart studio photos done before I was into photography, and they were all crap. You start with the under $10 package, but then they take more poses and get a couple that are really good luck catches and then they up sell you on the higher package.

I guess whoever too this lady's photos did a better job.

The actual images were 'ok' at best. There was a head/shoulders shot and a full body shot. As mentioned, both were lit and in focus, but neither were what I'd call anything close to 'flattering shots' of the young lady.

Get what you pay for.

dave

Gatorboy wrote in post #11511633
Not sure the point of the thread.

It was an observation based on an encounter with a customer at a Wal-Mart. Nothing more, nothing less.

dave

John the Geek wrote in post #11513856
Yeah, it really hit the news when the 2004 Forbes top billionaires list had 5 Walmart-affiliated heads in the top 10. Meanwhile, employees weren't getting decent benefits because there wasn't enough money.

Four of those 5 inherited the money from one man, the founder of Walmart. Also, why are we bashing Walmart... way off topic. I'm sure there's plenty of other forums for that. We're just responding to an observation by the OP. Oh and the $9.4k/hr wage is wrong. The CEO gets paid a salary, and I guarantee he doesn't work 8 hours a day. But still, a salary like that is incentive for me to get an education and work hard!!

I thought Wal-Mart used the same printers, paper, and ink as every other lab. Fuji Frontier or similar, Kodak/Fuji CrystalArchive or whatever it's called and all that.

Gatorboy wrote in post #11511633
Not sure the point of the thread.

My thoughts, exactly.

Geez, take your diatribe elsewhere. The CEO of a corporation that large is supposed to make a good salary, they make million-dollar decisions every day with investors breathing down their back. My spouse worked at Walmart for a couple of years and the "no insurance subsistance wage" crap is exactly that - crap. We had better insurance from Walmart than we do now at a small privately-held firm. Many families couldn't survive without the low-priced stuff at Walmart, it saves the average shopper THOUSANDS a year. If you don't like their wages, don't work there. Walmart promotes within, jerk, so people without even high school educations have been promoted to pretty good positions (happened where my wife was working).

Bob Hasty wrote in post #11509865
99.999% of the crap in walmart is from china, I'd never shop there unless I absolutley had to. The ceo makes $9,247.00 an hour. Times that by 8 hours a day and he makes more in one day then a fulltime employee makes all year. That employees salary is also just under the poverty scale and 50% of them have no health insurance. Dont get me started lol

Bob Hasty wrote in post #11509865
99.999% of the crap in walmart is from china, I'd never shop there unless I absolutley had to. The ceo makes $9,247.00 an hour. Times that by 8 hours a day and he makes more in one day then a fulltime employee makes all year. That employees salary is also just under the poverty scale and 50% of them have no health insurance. Dont get me started lol

Believe it or not, I'm starting to find more and more USA made products in Walmart. Quite a bit of wrapping paper they carried this year was USA made, a lot of plastic storage or household products such as left over containers, laundry baskets, etc. Rubbermaid makes their products in Cincinnati Ohio I believe. A lot of Manco Duck products are USA made. Certainly not 99.999% of their items made in China.

Walmart is very good on seeing trends and only stocking what sells. If you keep buying products made in China, they will keep stocking products made in China. If you buy products made in USA (and pay a little more for them probably) they are likely to stock more products made in USA. USA customers are as much at fault for letting manufacturering jobs go overseas by willfully buying those products because they come with a cheap pricetag.

BestVisuals wrote in post #11517055
Geez, take your diatribe elsewhere. The CEO of a corporation that large is supposed to make a good salary, they make million-dollar decisions every day with investors breathing down their back. My spouse worked at Walmart for a couple of years and the "no insurance subsistance wage" crap is exactly that - crap. We had better insurance from Walmart than we do now at a small privately-held firm. Many families couldn't survive without the low-priced stuff at Walmart, it saves the average shopper THOUSANDS a year. If you don't like their wages, don't work there. Walmart promotes within, jerk, so people without even high school educations have been promoted to pretty good positions (happened where my wife was working).

So you can make a living on what your wife made at Walmart?

Since Walmart is now the largest employer in the US, they are the new Chrystler. You would expect them to lead the way toward improving the American way of life. You can't complain about the state of the US economy and not blame these CEOs who are making billions with employees making less than a living wage. To defend them is insane. 30 years ago it was the opposite. CEOs weren't trying to out-billionaire each other and employees were paid well. That mentality has dried up, and the rich are keeping more and more to themselves now.

Now it's about shaving every penny. Run with a skeleton crew. Replace people with machines. Put as little money into consumer's hands as possible and then complain that consumers aren't spending as much anymore and it's messing with your stock. Cry me a river.

-John

A neat flip of production levels. Not long ago, we were only importing McDonald's Happy Meal toys and Barbie heads from the Chinese mainland. Now we're making the low-tech products.

I don't recall voting at that stockholder's meeting. I was quite happy to continue buying IBM Thinkpads before they sold to Lenovo, quite happy to buy dogfood and drywall made in the US, and I'm quite happy to continue flying the remaining American-flagged airlines that still do depot maintenance in the US instead of China.

While American unions have certainly had their excesses, I'm amazed at people maintaining that labor no longer needs to be organized. There is certainly no evidence that business has suddenly become any more moral than it was in the late 1800s--if anything, it's not only just as amoral but has gotten stupid to boot. As Teddy Roosevelt was finally forced to acknowledge, "Labor had better get organized, because big business certainly is."

I forgot what the original topic was...oh yeah, cheap photography which happened to occur at a WalMart

To the OP: There will always be a market for a $12 photographer. The bigger question is "Do you want to be that $12 photographer?" (Say no) If so, you'll end up working long hard hours with a paper thin profit margin(if you can have one at all).

So, let someone else be the $12 photographer while you work on the clients that appreciate a professional's work and are willing to pay for it.

Naturalist wrote in post #11522847
I forgot what the original topic was...oh yeah, cheap photography which happened to occur at a WalMart

To the OP: There will always be a market for a $12 photographer. The bigger question is "Do you want to be that $12 photographer?" (Say no) If so, you'll end up working long hard hours with a paper thin profit margin(if you can have one at all).

So, let someone else be the $12 photographer while you work on the clients that appreciate a professional's work and are willing to pay for it.

That's why I said up above: Walmart gets the people who won't pay for Sears, Sears gets the people who won't pay for Portrait Innovations. Walmart is so far down the chain I don't give them any mind at all.

Ernst-Ulrich Schafer wrote in post #11509989
WalMart could care less what you spend on their portraits...

From what I can work out, Wal-Mart probably don't care at all.

RDKirk wrote in post #11522871
That's why I said up above: Walmart gets the people who won't pay for Sears, Sears gets the people who won't pay for Portrait Innovations. Walmart is so far down the chain I don't give them any mind at all.

Sorry, you already have, and a few times in this thread. In fact many posts in this forum is about the "ankle biters" getting into the business and under cutting the photography business.

Hogloff wrote in post #11523949
Sorry, you already have, and a few times in this thread. In fact many posts in this forum is about the "ankle biters" getting into the business and under cutting the photography business.

You haven't seen me in this thread or any other complaining about Walmart as an "ankle biter" undercutting my portrait business.

Now, you might see me otherwise talking about the role of Walmart in labor relations or the international balance of trade, but you haven't seen me kvetching about undercutting my portrait business.

i got married when I was 21, i had no money but my good job allowed me to pay for the wedding. Can you believe we opted to go into Sears for 4 wedding poses? We were elated. Cost about $75 dollars in 1987. ( I still have those pics too).

So, i guess, in the end, photographer for hire is a tough business for small operators who charge fair prices for great quality, when quite often, budget dictates where consumers will ultimately get those pics taken.... and if consumer is happy with the result... well, hey.