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Walmart Is America's Worst Retailer

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: November 3, 2023 7:54 am

Ahead of the holidays, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) decided to release a report card of retailers. The firm may believe this will help shoppers.

Forrest Morgeson, Associate Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI, said, “Customer satisfaction will be even more important as retailers compete for the more carefully allocated holiday purchases of price-sensitive consumers.” The report is titled “American Customer Satisfaction Index’s Retail Holiday Preview.”

The results are divided into different retail categories, both online and brick and mortar. These include department stores, specialty stores, discount stores and several e-commerce categories. Another is called “hypermarkets.” These are big-box retailers, and Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is in this category.

Walmart is at the bottom of two categories. One is hypermarkets (which also includes Target), and the other is online multimarket (which includes Amazon). This would suggest it is fair to call Walmart America’s worst retailer. (These are 11 things to never buy at Walmart.)

Across all brick-and-mortar retailers, the average score is 77. Walmart’s score is 73. Among all online retailers, the average score is 80. It is 77 at Walmart. Although Dollar General scored 72 among brick-and-mortar companies, it received no online grade and is not included here.

Walmart is America’s largest retailer by far. It has a global revenue of over $500 billion and has over 4,500 locations in the United States. In its home market, it employs over a million people. One could make the argument that the larger a company, the more chance it has for low grades from consumers. That will not help Walmart repair its overall image as America’s worst retailer.