I rarely step foot into Walmart. I'm always afraid I'll run into someone I know. I get sunflower seed there once or twice a year and nothing else. Maybe it's just our Walmart but the customers aren't exactly who you'd want living next door. I adore Target. Never miss a Saturday going there. Clean wide aisles, great products, love their household stuff. Nate Berkus is going to have a line there, and Rachel Ashwell sells her Shabby Chic stuff there. Our Target just opened a grocery section with wonderful produce way cheaper than the grocery stores. As for their carts..love them. I told my husband the other day, I wish our grocery store had carts that glide like these.

Neither......

Target reeks of popcorn...but the quality is so much better. Not to mention the clientelle.

Love the popcorn at Target.. I don't shop at either one but once or twice a year..and I would say Walmart because it is closer, Target has the worst selection of womens clothing of any store around. I don'tunderstand what people see at that store at all.

Walmart.
First, because they're non-union.
And, they have people who can help you find something and will even walk you there - not an employee in sight at any

Target i've ventured into.

Target prices are higher.

Yes, those red plastic carts are unmanageable.

Cashiers never smile - not my fault they hate their job.

That red and white makes me think i'm in a plastic box.

And again, they're union....I don't DO union.

Our Walmart has the best prices going on lightbulbs (floods, 3-ways, the odd little ones like computer desk lamps, plant grow lights). I get dental floss, cleaning supplies for the bathrooms, try to time my trips that I get enough for a few months so I'm just there a minimum times per year. Hate the store in general :)

Our nearest Target is an hour away, I rarely stop there. Although I have found brides registering at Target for wedding gifts and I've picked up presents off and on, a nice change from department store prices and so practical in todays economy.

Walmart's closer, and has many more products than Target. Target's a (slightly) higher end store, so the prices are higher. Which is not to say you don't have to watch Walmart--they aren't always the cheapest.

Walmarts mostly have fabric again--have never seen fabric in Target. Super Walmarts (at least in our area) have actual grocery stores, targets only have a few food items--you can't do your real grocery shopping there.

One of the HUGE things I hate about Walmart is the fact that 'they match competitor's advertised prices'. Walmart chooses not to spend their money advertising, but they have NO problem taking advantage of the advertising that other stores have PAID for.

Do always try to shop non-union wherever possible. Unions have been a big part of what's destroyed our country--and anyone who says differently doesn't understand the real harm they've done to people in every economic level.

So bottom line--mostly I go to Walmart.

Target is opening in Canada soon.....this spring.

June said that their clothing is the worst of any. Wow, I hope not. Walmart dumped all of their Penman's brand and everything is George and it's as thin as tissue paper.

I don't find any great bargains at Walmart. We go there sometimes, not regularly, and there is one a few blocks from me. Our Superstores are no bargain at all in the food department. Prices are better at the grocery store.

We have a super Walmart on one side of the street and a huge Target just across from it. The Walmart parking lot is always packed; Target's lot is never more than 2% filled. The Target prices are higher, assistance is non-existent, and since Walmart has groceries in addition to everything that Target has, I shop at Walmart.

I buy most of my groceries at Walmart, but I go to the local grocery store for sale items and meat.

I like Target much better but the prices are higher.

Our nearest Target is 50 miles away, whereas there are 2 WalMart superstores within 28 miles....both stores are clean, and the customer service in both are great. Their meat section is always kept nice and orderly and clean.

The times I ventured into Target, I found nearly none of what was on my list, and when I did, I found that it was higher than WalMart.
Most of our shopping is done at Sam's or WalMart.. and of course our local grocers and dollar storess for item we need now...

In our WalMart (four miles away) the clientele is most of the town. We buy everything there except meat. And we save a lot of money by shopping there. And when we can, we go to Sam's Club, but since it's over 60 miles away, that's not too often.

I prefer the atmosphere at Target, but I have a friend who does great at Walmart. She's much more of a bargain-hunter than I am. The best thing to do is, stay out of stores. Double your money by folding it over in your wallet.

There's a Wally World close to my house...our only Target store is not on my side of town..guess I've been there once or twice. Plus I have all my prescriptions at WM..the main reason I'm ever at that store. I prefer smaller stores.

WalMart is my one stop for most everything

Like Monica, if there's a choice I always select non union. Fortunately I live in a right to work state so, outside of education, there is usually a choice. Like the rest of the states I guess Georgia doesn't care about its children. Sorry, I got sidetracked! Anyway, we have a couple of Wal-marts of equal distance. The atmosphere of the two are very different though. One has indifferent parents with children acting like it's an amusement park while the other is just the usual mega-store. I wonder why that is? hmmmmmm

Walmart. Not just any though...the one nearest me is clean and I find the people who work there are helpful. Plus, I can check my own groceries. I do not buy their meat, except chicken necks for the possums. I buy most of my staples there...but stop at Krogers on my way home, it's at the edge of town, towards where I live, to buy meat and frozen items. I buy produce at both of them. I would rather shop at Krogers...also check my own groceries there...because it isn't as large as walmart, which can wear me out if I forget something and I am at the front of the store and I have to walk all the way back to get it.

We have an excellent farm store...family owned farm that sells produce and I prefer buying produce from them. Plus, they have the best sausage I have ever tasted. It is expensive, but worth it.

Target is about 20 miles farther away. I received a gift card for Christmas from Target....first time I had been in one in many years.

As for clothes...I don't buy clothes new very often. No more than what I wear...shorts, tops, jeans, sweats...I get them at Walmart.

WalMart, close to me, is in a very upscale area and I always, most always see someone I know.

I find ours most customer friendly!

One thing I do not buy is their meat.

Go to Publix or Fresh Market for that.

I should have given Walmart credit at the same time I was saying how I dislike the store...

Five years ago my niece on the other side of the country had a preemie baby girl - happy and healthy now! She wasn't ready for the baby thinking she still had 5 weeks, was still working when labor began (she's a sheriff's deputy and was on duty in her patrol car, made her own emergency call :))

Walmart was the only place within 50 miles I could grab an assortment of in-stock preemie clothing so I could get them shipped express mail. No one else, and I tried everywhere, had the tiny little things to be used briefly but still required.

Actually, my favorite store is TJMaxx. I'm a Maxxanista".

Target because I despise Walmart's business practices.

Walmart...There are so many reasons I can't even begin to list them...but one of then is the number of jobs that they offer to many people who would have no other opportunities. Yes I know it is not the best job in the world or the highest paying and they don't have benefits for many but I guarantee you that many of those people are happy to have those jobs.

Thank you also to Walmart for providing RV people a safe quiet place to stay overnight when you are just passing through and need a place to sleep.

Maybe I just enjoy the kind of people that snobbish people snicker about but I have never had a single issue caused by any one in a Walmart store.

Azalea 9 out of 10 stores price match and I don't know where the idea that Walmart doesn't advertise comes from...We routinely receive their flyers.

Walmart shopper here too. I like the fact that I can take an ad in and they will match it. With the price of gas I don't want to run all over town to get something on sale. I've tried that before and most times the store was out of the item and gave me a raincheck which meant more gas to go back only to save a few cents, not worth it to me. Our town is fairly small so you can bet your going to run into someone you know and I'm not the least bit worried about doing that, why would someone worry about running into somebody they know at Walmart?

I have done lots of comparison shopping and Walmart is definitely cheaper in the grocery department, and I shop there every week. I do, however, purchase produce at another grocery store - not Target. I am not fond of Target for some reason.

I was just reading the big Walmart ad that came in today's Sunday paper!
Joann

For some reason, my Wal-mart always seems dark and dirty and understocked. In contrast, my Target is clean, bright and fully stocked. I'll read a bunch of posts where people have found great seasonal decorations at Wal-mart and I'll try it again only to leave empty-handed. Yet, I rarely escape Target without spending money. I guess it depends on how well the store near you is managed.

Each has their pros and cons. Target's return policy has annoyed me more than once , so careful what I do buy there but definitely hit Walmart more often.

I also see ads from Walmart. I wouldn't know what company is union and which are not union but wouldn't play into my decision.

Definitely Target. I don't like any of the Walmart stores that I've been in, though to be fair that hasn't been many. There are also no Walmarts where I live, but we do have six different Targets all within a couple of miles of me, so it's definitely a Target-favored area.

I always feel I need a bath if I go to Walmart. I have been there at almost midnight, and yet there are fat tattooed men in wifebeaters with dirty toddlers and babies who look a few hours old. Clientele is MUCH classier at Target even though the stores are both super stores and three miles apart. Target gladly refunds anything and everything with store card , cash, or off your credit card. I know because I returned rotten raspberries last night. It's clean, bright easier to find stuff, a classy store. But I don't get the popcorn remark. Our doesn't smell like that. However Walmart has a decidely not so good smell.

Target.
I don't like WalMart and its policies over the years.

A few people mentioned the types of people that frequent Wal-Mart, and are shopping next to them. Why in the world would that matter to you? Are you going to socialize, hope you run into somebody important or impressive? You'd actually let the other clientele dictate where you shop? Good grief!!!! I don't care if the person next to me is green w/ purple polka dots, I'm going where I get the best prices. You wouldn't want the other shoppers to be your neighbor? Good golly, Miss Molly. How insane. That's so sad thinking.

Our Walmarts are all nice and clean. I also have not seen anyone remotely scuzzy, or unclean, etc. shopping there.

I agree with vannie and jasdip. Any store I have ever been in usually has customers that I would not care to be neighbors with, but that sure doesn't keep me from shopping in the store. All of the Walmarts I have been in have been clean, well lit, and well stocked with friendly, helpful salespeople.

Remember the greeter that found my purse in the shopping cart and took it to the desk?

He was there today, and I thanked him again. Made him smile and as I was leaving, he tapped me on my shoulder and said "bye bye".

I did buy their rotisserie chicken today, as it was right off the rotisserie.

Making white chili this afternoon.

Clientelle: it makes a chore I hate to do more or less pleasant. Our walnart routinely looks like a meth convention. People in trashy dress...ever seen the People of Walmart website? Its real. Its depressing. And I am an impatient judgemental woman who cant tolerate the sound of trashy parents barking at their children. I have not seen that at Target, but time and again at Walmart. Not all walmarts are created equal, and not all who shop at walmart are trashy, of course. But I hate hate hate shopping and am happy to pay more for a pleasant experience with more quality options. I never get help at Walmart and Target is so pleasant.

Clientelle: it makes a chore I hate to do more or less pleasant. Our walnart routinely looks like a meth convention. People in trashy dress...ever seen the People of Walmart website? Its real. Its depressing. And I am an impatient judgemental woman who cant tolerate the sound of trashy parents barking at their children. I have not seen that at Target, but time and again at Walmart. Not all walmarts are created equal, and not all who shop at walmart are trashy, of course. But I hate hate hate shopping and am happy to pay more for a pleasant experience with more quality options. I never get help at Walmart and Yarget is so pleasant.

I don't set foot in Walmart unless I have no choice. I don't like their business practices, I don't like the quality of their merchandise or trust where it came from. I don't like the way they treat their employees. I will not support a company that has as much money as Walmart has not providing health insurance or proper benefits for their employees. I don't like the environment of their stores. I dislike everything about Walmart and what it stands for. I feel bad that it's the only option for so many people.

Target, hands down. Worth paying a little more. I won't even go in to what I don't like about Walmart but it's a lot of things.

jude

Target, too many times a week! Love the place!

I usually go to WalMart. Our newest, super WalMart is next to Target. In CA, I always shopped Target but here, If I got to Target, they don't have what I need and I have to go to WalMart to get it.
I live almost exactly half way between the two WalMarts here. The older one has fabric.
Both stores are bright and clean. I don't see weird people there because there are few strange people in town.

I prefer Target.

Wal-Mart does not have the lowest prices on many items. The quality seems to be getting shoddier. Occasionally, they do have some good employees who appear to have normal lives, but I've never had a Target salesperson tell me a personal story involving drugs, a cult religion or use the description "baby daddy". Wal-Mart used to carry decent quality clothes, but I absolutely cannot stand their potato sack shapeless wear that they now now try to pass off as clothing. I don't buy my clothing at Target either since I like other stores better. There are also people at Target who help you find items on the shelves and answer questions. Wal-Mart does not have that.

I stillend up at Wal-Mart once in a while, but the majority ofy money gets spent elsewhere.

Ummm... If I absolutely am forced to go to one (I dislike crowds and shopping) I'd choose Target. I think they have better quality due to past experiences. For stuff around the house I really like Homegoods but that's off topic. LOL

Amy...exactly. Our Walmart does have characters from a meth lab. I'm not saying ALL Walmarts are like mine, but some disgusting people are always shopping there the few times I go there. I don't like their business practices either, and I hate the way they come into a community and pull their weight around and destroy mom and pop stores. There just is a very different clientele in our Target. Clean, presentable people with controlled kids.

Well, Lily...They're your neighbors. If the neighborhood is going downhill, don't blame Walmart.

Our Walmart is large, clean, and the people who shop there are cleanly dressed and are basically unremarkable in looks and demeanor.

Walmart if I want several of a thing, Target if I want a thing to last. People, workers, etc. are all similar here.

No, Monica, they are not my neighbors. I live at least ten miles from Walmart. They're mostly from a rural county and this is the closest place they have to shop. If they were my neighbors, I'd move in a day. They look like the posts on youtube people put up of Walmart people.

A couple years ago I would have given my vote to Target, based on better quality merchandise. Lately, I think they've been slipping, so I don't go there much anymore. Walmart is non-union, but it's also full of "made in China" products, so I'm not sure who we're helping/hurting. (Plus, my grand-dad told me too many stories about his union days to dismiss their value to the working person. Not to say greed isn't an issue, but I see it as a different issue.)

My strong vote, with my dollars whenever possible, is for locally owned stores over any big-box store, any day.

For decades my trips to Walmart were few and far between for a number of reasons I've outlined before. About 2 months ago a new "Super" Walmart went up not too far from from me. I decided to ignore the order given by one-who-shall-remain-nameless who ordered me to stay out of "her" Walmarts and I ventured in to look around. The big advantage is that it's open 24 hrs so I can go in during the middle of the night and avoid a lot of the traffic, although you do get the restock traffic which can be as bad.

At least in this area Walmart has been forced to clean up their act a lot from what I've seen and heard, especially since Target changed the smaller stores to P-fresh. They've also converted a few stores to "Super" Targets. Target has clearly made a concerted effort to take some grocery business from the competition and with the prices I've seen, they will accomplish that. So, back to the comparisons:

Carts, not much difference. Walmart's of course are new at this store so they *should* be in good shape. Target's were replaced not long ago and the plastic carts are all fine and seem to hold up a lot better than I thought they would. So equal ground there.

I'll say this for the new Walmart, it's still pretty clean, and quite well maintained so far so on that level, comparable to Target. Although I suspect there's some corporate big dogs in there controlling things during the break-in period at least when I've been there. Some very definite non-Minnesota accents floating around!

Pricing? Well, I've noted pricing so far on about 40 items in the local "big gun" grocery store (Cub), Target and Walmart and was quite surprised. I knew Target beat Cub on a lot of things and thought it'd be interesting to see how Walmart compares. They run a lot of TV ads comparing receipts from Cub & Walmart and claiming to be so much cheaper. I note they don't compare to Target and it's clear why. About 1/2 the items I've compared so far are identical in price. There's a number of things where Walmart is a penny or two cheaper. But there were also several things where Target was 25¢ to a couple dollars or more cheaper. I'm going to say that all in all they're pretty comparable (especially depending on what you buy, how much and how often of course). FWIW, over the past few years, a couple of the local TV stations have done their own price comparison of the stores and 2 out of 3 times Target beat Walmart quite significantly. The station's claim was you'd save $400/year at Target over Walmart in their comparison. The last one had them essentially neck in neck but an ever so slight edge to Walmart.

Two big differences though that I've seen. Meat and produce. Hands down better at Target in both departments. This has been a good year for grapes so I thought I'd get some while I was at Walmart last time, but after tasting one, and spitting it out, I guessed the season was over. Two days later, at Target, I bought 3 pounds of delicious grapes. I bought apples at Walmart and thought they should be good, after all they were Honey Crisp. Bought 3, threw two. I buy apples at Target year round and never had a bad one yet.

I guess I should add a third difference. Clearance items at Target. (Never really see anything on clearance at Walmart.) I like checking what's on clearance. I often seem to find something of interest and for things like cleaners and personal care items, when I have a coupon, I couple it with something on clearance and it's cheap for a good quality item. I dislike paying full retail for things like toothpaste, deodorant and the like when it's on clearance so often.

Couple other things I noticed: Walmart was cheaper on can coolers, but $2 higher on the same brand name underwear. Plus Target had a "value sized" larger count package available that made it cheaper yet.

The first time I was in the new Walmart, people were nearly tripping over themselves asking if they could help, which was *highly* unusual for my normal Walmart, uh, shall we say, "experience". But that situation is pretty much the same as at most of the other places around here these days. (The strategy is for every employee to make contact with every customer they can, and you don't just tell them where things are at, you bring them to it for the "personalized" touch and to help cut shoplifting since people will think they're being noticed in the store.) But I've noticed that is wearing down each subsequent trip in there. Maybe the employees are getting sick of it. Could have been that they just started the job and were excited to have the job at first, IDK. Hard to say, but I'm curious to see what will happen with that.

I haven't gone to other Walmarts around here for a long time so I can't say if they vary prices from store to store but they do vary at Target and I do find that a bit annoying. They're all within a few miles of each other but the prices can vary.

So will I be a Walmart regular? (Whether or not I'm "ordered" to stay out! LOL) I guess I might pick up a few staples during the middle of the night if I'm up. Not too sure I want to go there during the day. Target can be busy but still not the issues that I've encountered before in the W place. Have to wait and see I guess.

Our Wal-Mart is so big it drives me crazy. I only go (and then it's kicking and screaming) if I'm out of my Oil of Olay products or computer stuff like paper, printer cartridges, etc. I wouldn't buy meat there, but they have the best prices on food items around here. If it just wasn't so darned big and crowded, I'd be happy.

Always liked Target but hardly ever go there. It's about 8 or 9 miles away, in town. Our store has always been very clean and arranged to easily find things.

I don't have a Target in my area but have two Walmarts, one about 20 miles away and the other one app. 30 miles away. They both are always clean & so far I have not encountered any "Walmart types" there, although, I don't go shopping in the middle of the night either! lol! I don't buy clothes there and usually not any meat as I get that at the local meat market. So, after all that, I guess it would be Walmart.