In Search Of...

My Melody Bag, originally uploaded by esmereldes.

Thanks to the influence of Flickr (I won't say good or bad... <.<) I seem to get sent off on shopping 'quests' these days. I'll see something is popular with folks on Flickr, and I'll get curious to see if I can find it locally. Most recently, it has been macarons. But often it is a looser sort of thing. I won't necessarily be going out of my way to find something, but I'll end up wanting to photograph something I see in a store because I know people have been talking about it. For instance, anything with an owl on it. Sanrio items tend to be a little of both. I always want to photograph them (or buy them... ^^;) when I see them, but I will also sometimes go out looking for a specific pattern or character if I read about them.

So, recently, I saw on someone's blog (and I'm sorry, I lost the link. I'll look for it again...) that there was a bunch of My Melody stuff at Wal-Mart. We don't really have those here, but I decided to look in CT where they do (I live too near the city, and I think Wal-Mart hasn't been able to get any property in the city. Makes sense - a big store like that would be really expensive!). I guess I am not lucky tho, because I found nearly nothing. Just this and some little kids' clothes. Ah well.

I used to be one of those wal-mart haters on principle, back when everyone hated wal-mart and starbucks. But I mellowed or something as I got older and decided that was stupid, and I should give it a chance. I gotta admit tho - I never seem to buy anything there! I think I bought some candy once. Meanwhile I may as well just surrender my wallet at the door when I go into Target. I guess I can see whose marketing is aimed most correctly at my demographic. For better or for worse...

I haven't done any side-by-side comparisons of prices, but I think that wal-mart is not any cheaper than Target for the most part. At least not for the things I personally buy - like cereal and contact lens solution - so it's really all a matter of the 'vibe' when you shop there I guess. Wal-mart is deliberately very warehouse-like and I find that depressing. I don't like to shop in the costcos and sam's clubs of the world either, tho in that case, the problem is more that I cannot find a use for 37 pounds of cereal at one time, even if it is cheaper that way. Buying in bulk doesn't do it for me. The stores seem dark and a little dirty to me somehow. Target meanwhile is very bright and has carpeting and reminds me of the caldor's and bradlee's of my youth. I actually work (sort of) in marketing, so I have read about Target's marketing strategies, and I can understand why they work on me, but it doesn't change the fact that I always seem to impulse buy in Target and never in Wal-Mart.