I have recently started playing foursquare on my iPhone and was bestowed the honour of being Mayor of Walmart in Cambridge, after I had checked in there twice on consecutive days. Upon this happening it was tweeted to all my Twitter followers this dubious achievement. At this point you would expect much of the anti-Walmart sentiment was aimed squarely at me after broadcasting my achievement.

As I’ve stated before on this blog, I don’t have a beef with Walmart. I know it’s the cool thing to do to bash Walmart. It’s just human nature. People hate the New York Yankees just because of what they stand for, and Walmart is no exception. After shopping at Walmart my wife Corina and I grabbed dinner at McDonalds and the topic of why Walmart is #1 came up. To me this is a question people don’t actually give nearly enough thought to.

My feeling is that Walmart is just simply way ahead of the curve when it comes to changes in retail sales. I see lots of innovation on Walmart’s part when I enter their stores, stuff that you simply don’t see from the competition. We have a brand new Walmart Supercentre in Cambridge, which seems to have lots of things that set it apart from the competition.

• They have 2 giant entrances for improving the flow of traffic in and out of the store.
• Where they have the carts is loaded from the outside of the building in, so you don’t end up with some flunky pushing 45 carts in and blocking the front entrance for customers for 2 minutes.
• They have an express checkout queue with 8 registers, usually with at 3 registers open simultaneously.
• The debit/credit machines use a paper-less digital signature pad for credit cards
• They have greeters at either door that can answer questions, or put a sticker on a product you’re returning(which I did the other day)
• They have carts, mini-carts and baskets available for you to shop with so not everyone needs to be bumping into each other with big carts

Those are just the things I’ve noticed. From what my friend Dan has told me(he works for a company that supplies Walmart), these types of innovations don’t stop at the store, but go all the way down the distribution chain when compared with their competition.

In Canada Zellers is the next biggest retail chain and they are just laughable by comparison.  The one in Cambridge is one that is attached to a mall and is the same old dingy store its been for the last 20 years.  Sure they’ve rearranged things in recent years, but you know what they say about polishing a turd.  I rarely find the same deals I would find at Walmart, aside from when items are on clearance.  If you do find a deal, then you have to wait 20 minutes in line while they check out the 5 old ladies with carts full of items and expired coupons to use on said items.

As I mentioned previously, we were at McDonalds, which is another market leader that draws the ire of many people.  Why are they #1?  The same reason, innovation.  I think almost all the McDonalds in Cambridge have been renovated or rebuilt in the last few years.  Much of what they’ve done has been rather interesting.

• They have multiple drive-in ordering lanes, which cuts down on the lineup waiting to order
• The drive-in register automatically spits out the correct amount of change to give back to the customer, reducing room for employee error and speeding up the payment process
• Big, visual, uncomplicated menu boards
• They’ve updated the decor making it more inviting.  They’ve taken a page from coffee shops and added comfortable leather furniture and fireplaces to make it more of a place you want to spend time and chat with friends

I find going to a place like Harvey’s in Canada some of the decor looks like plastic versions of your parents 80′s pastel couch set, with the artwork to match.  You go to Burger King and Wendy’s and stand in their hamster maze of a queue to order from the one cash that is open during Whopper Wednesday.

Walmart and McDonalds are proactive to many of the issues that plague retail service.  Much of their competition is not.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, there is a reason why people keep coming back to these companies.  Customer loyalty is something companies have to work hard at and as far as I’m concerned it’s more the competition failing to keep up with Walmart then Walmart crushing the competition.

Now I was told when blogging this, I had to mention that my friend Kitchen in fact enjoyed his breakfast sandwich. I suspect that he might have been on strong hallucinogens at the time, as I can’t really see how this is possible.