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(Shary Skiles/McCook Daily Gazette)
The roughly 155,000-square-foot McCook Walmart opened at its present location in 1995. The remodel project began July 19 and is scheduled to be completed on Sept. 30. The project is going very well and is approximately two and a half weeks ahead of schedule, according to store manager Nate Henning. Even so, they will not finish the project ahead of schedule; instead they will use the extra time to finesse the remodel.
Henning, who became the store manager in 2008, knew that the remodel was in the works when he accepted the transfer to McCook from a store manager position he held in Iowa with Walmart. He came to McCook because he knew the store was well-established and its associates had a lot of experience and a good work ethic. He also felt that McCook would be a great place to raise kids, something that is important to the father of four children ranging in age from 1 month to 7 years.
(Shary Skiles/McCook Daily Gazette)
One goal of the remodel project is to achieve a clean, open and accessible floor plan. By removing features from the aisles and lowering counters, customers will enjoy a more pleasant, uncluttered, and comfortable shopping atmosphere. The new wood flooring in the apparel department provides a clean and sleek environment.
The McCook store normally employs about 220 to 250 associates, but during the remodel process they temporarily added 68 more people to staff the remodel crew. Originally, about 90 percent of those temporary staffers were local people. As the project progressed, many of the local temporary workers were called back to their permanent jobs, so the remodel crew now consists of many out-of-towners from North Platte, Lexington, Kearney and Grand Island. "They are in McCook staying in our hotels, eating at our restaurants, and purchasing gas here in McCook," says Henning.
Walmart has taken a green approach to the remodel project. The lights in the new freezers are LEDs which will use less electricity. The newly installed floor tile is made from 30 percent recycle grade tile. When the old tile is removed, it is scrubbed clean and loaded into a container which will be taken to a tile manufacturer and ground up to produce more new tiles for another remodel project.
Much of the debris from the project is loaded into containers on the south side of the lot for recycling, thus reducing waste at the local landfill. "If all the debris from this year's remodel projects company-wide were gathered," said Henning, "it would fill a building the size of the McCook store from floor to ceiling, corner to corner." It is very important to the company to reduce that debris in every way possible.
Some major changes are yet to be completed. The north wall that currently separates the garden-center area from the rest of the store will soon be coming down. The pharmacy is currently in a temporary location while its permanent location is under renovation. When the pharmacy location is completed, the vision center will move to a temporary location during its renovation. Once the temporary locations come down, more registers will be added.
Henning credits the success of the remodel so far to the impressive staff, both permanent and temporary. "They have a lot of experience and a great work ethic," said Henning. Customers are encouraged to come out and see the changes while they are in progress.
New fixtures and lower shelving in the small appliance department gives the store a more modern, open and accessible feeling.
Comments
From experience of selling to WaMart in the 1970s and 80s, they would ALWAYS take U.S. made products over imports, if quality was equal to or superior to imports.
As an Independent MFG. REP, scheduling a day in WalMart's Arkansas buying rooms, was a reduced margins experience. The one-year volume contracts made it worthwhile.
I quickly learned to go in with "exclusive" items at a guaranteed factory cost, plus 5%, or with products I could prove to be of superior quality at competitive pricing. I presented nothing less and offered nothing else.
WalMart only started buying imports when the rest of the nation's retailers had started stocking the cheaper imports thinking that was the way to compete with price only and forced closure of many U.S. factories, with most of those producers moving equipment and managers offshore.
Many of those U.S. jobs moved to the "Special Tariff" areas along the U.S./Mexico border. The machinery and line jobs crossed the border, many managers lived in the U.S.
I shop my local, old-style hardware store first, because he provides service no chain retailer can offer. Shop two grocery stores first-- because of their meat, fish and produce, while some packaged items in WalMart's private label brands are identical to their "Brand Name" counterparts on the same shelf [As in produced on the same machines, in the same production line, by the same people as the Brand Names] -- AND the WalMart branded products are often 40%-60% less expensive.
The reason WalMart stocks imports -- is the rest of the U.S. and world retailers were buying from Taiwan, HongKong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Latin America and the Caribbean, and in some cases from Africa.
Often, these major retailers own the "sweat shops" producing their ultra-expensive models.
As for quality -- You buy cheap products anywhere, all you get is a cheap product -- and this includes a huge percentage of plastics in all areas.
These are the "USE ONE TIME -- THROW AWAY" products.
Buy cheap and expect lifetime wear -- GROW UP.
I am wearing WalMart slacks which are ten years old, Shoes purchased in the 80s, have tools from the 1960s.
WalMart has always offered quality products and the other stuff people want instead of quality.
Buying the cheapest and expecting decades of service is like Buffalo Bill Cody buying a dead horse and expecting to ride across the Louisiana Purchase in one day.
IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!
WalMart is getting ripped over how they "treat employees."
If it is the only job someone can get and they are only stay around for less than two years before running away to Tahiti with the person their parents hate -- The 47 piercings and 25 tatoos (only six are flagrantly sexual, obscene or profane) might have something to do with the parents' disapproval.
It that is the case, WalMart's current $9.47 isn't going to buy a first class ticket to Tahiti.
But, there are a bunch of high school graduates, some dropouts and a bunch with GEDs, who started with WalMart decades ago -- who are retired millionaires today.
Sam Moore Walton, the man who grew up in just-past-frontier Kingfisher County, Oklahoma as a farm boy working 14/7 year round, established a system whereby people who joined him for the long haul could share in the wealth.
This was a man, who in the years he was the richest man in the world, would drive up to a store during a major weekend promotion, walk in and find the staff swamped with shoppers and work.
He would roll up his sleeves and mop, clean and resupply the men's restrooms, because it needed doing, and with all the local staff overloaded -- "He was the only one around working for this outfit who didn't have an assigned job" at the time.
The WalMart system is set up on providing the best available products on every level, at the best price, and providing the best customer service -- with OPPORTUNITY for average people to share in the annual profits and secure stock options to gain from the company's growth.
For people who just work week-to-week, and only for a paycheck -- it is not a great job. With WalMart, if you are going to stick around, you will work, you will place customers first and you will use common sense and plan your future and acquisition of WalMart stock through your position as an "Associate."
Sam regarded every WalMart Associate as just that. He insisted upon First Class, Complete training of every employee before they pinned on their WalMart badge.
Store Managers who tried to short cut that system when Mr.Sam was coming around in his pickup truck didn't last long.
Back in 1985, in Western Kansas, about 5:45 a.m. I stopped at a WalMart to make and receive telephone calls at the payphone outside the store.
Waiting for one return call from an East Coast vendor, I saw a older man gathering shopping carts from the previous days shoppers which were still scattered around the parking lot. Then I spotted one pickup truck parked to the side -- and recognized the Arkansas plates on the pickup.
Double take out in the parking lot -- It was the world's richest man out there before 6 a.m. bringing in shopping carts.
In all probability that was the last time that store manager allowed carts to be scattered around all night. If he survived the critique.
Mr. Sam and his favorite dogs are long dead now.
And I'll bet it has been a long time since WalMart's Number One employee cleaned store bathrooms or gathered carts.
Whoever he is, it might be educational for him to get a pickup truck and just drive across Mid-America for a week, lending a hand while inspecting the business and meeting the customers and all of Mr. Sam's beloved "Associates."