Walmart Supermarket Audit Even though supermarkets are less than 100 years old, they have greatly expanded and are located all over the world today. The supermarket has come a long way since it first began in the early 1900s. To show just how popular and vast supermarkets are, the “total amount of profit Walmart makes every minute is $34,880” (Walmart Company Statistics). I chose Walmart to do my observation, because a shopper can purchase items such as pet food, clothes electronics, as well as groceries all in one trip. It is also where I prefer to shop and I wanted to learn more about this store and the food it sells. The Walmart I chose was located in a growing industrial part of Athens. The store has an overall easy to maneuver layout
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By placing the essential foods furthest from the entrance, customers are required to walk past all the aisles of processed foods in order to get the essential items they came for. This results in impulse buys of processed foods which are more profitable, thereby increasing profits for the store. Another observation I thought was interesting about Walmart’s layout is the location of freshly baked food, which is located in the front of the store. When I was observing this part of Walmart, I could smell the freshly baked chicken wings and home style breads that made my stomach growl. After further research, I realized many stores do this so that when shoppers walk in and smell the fresh food they will become hungry, and hungry shoppers are more likely to buy more than they came for, thus increasing profits for the …show more content…
Bourdieu’s theory of habitus explains how, “choices aren’t just rational. They flow from our sense of cultural identity and social status,” through economic and cultural capital. Economic capital is how much money a person has. Cultural capital is how much educational and cultural training a person possesses. A person’s habitus shows up in the places they shop. “Habitus is instrumental to social differentiation: telling us how we fit in society. And through our performance of habitus, we reproduce that social order.” Habitus can be seen in the customers who shop at Walmart. At Walmart, there are always a variety of people. I saw many of them using coupons and buying items on sale. The vast majority of people who shop at Walmart are probably lower and middle class looking to save money. People who have higher economic capital would probably shop at a higher end grocery store. When people think of Walmart they perceive a wide variety of items at a great value, which attracts people with a lower
By placing the essential foods furthest from the entrance, customers are required to walk past all the aisles of processed foods in order to get the essential items they came for. This results in impulse buys of processed foods which are more profitable, thereby increasing profits for the store. Another observation I thought was interesting about Walmart’s layout is the location of freshly baked food, which is located in the front of the store. When I was observing this part of Walmart, I could smell the freshly baked chicken wings and home style breads that made my stomach growl. After further research, I realized many stores do this so that when shoppers walk in and smell the fresh food they will become hungry, and hungry shoppers are more likely to buy more than they came for, thus increasing profits for the …show more content…
Bourdieu’s theory of habitus explains how, “choices aren’t just rational. They flow from our sense of cultural identity and social status,” through economic and cultural capital. Economic capital is how much money a person has. Cultural capital is how much educational and cultural training a person possesses. A person’s habitus shows up in the places they shop. “Habitus is instrumental to social differentiation: telling us how we fit in society. And through our performance of habitus, we reproduce that social order.” Habitus can be seen in the customers who shop at Walmart. At Walmart, there are always a variety of people. I saw many of them using coupons and buying items on sale. The vast majority of people who shop at Walmart are probably lower and middle class looking to save money. People who have higher economic capital would probably shop at a higher end grocery store. When people think of Walmart they perceive a wide variety of items at a great value, which attracts people with a lower