Shoppers angry over Walmart charging more for plus-size clothing

Zelenogorsk · Aug 27, 2018

mrmoose said:
Ok, I see it now.

I don't see how pointing out the relationship between people's diets and how much they pay for clothes is "disgusting". The solution here to lose weight and buy cheaper clothes, that'll be a lot easier than convincing the clothing companies to sell you a product that uses more materials for the same price as a product that uses less materials.

Deleted member 135 · Aug 27, 2018

Thurston Last said:
I mean it is more fabric...

The actual cost is negligible.

It's also a problem for tall clothing. The extra cost of fabric for tall sizes is negligible yet the prices consumers pay are significant. Prices aren't different between S-M-L.

Its greed and exploitation, pure and simple.

Canucked · Aug 27, 2018

I've been working my arms. Can I get this sleeveless for $5 off?

rstzkpf · Aug 27, 2018

These clothes are a different, non-standard size that is probably manufactured in a separate lot. I don't see the issue with this; specialized products always cost more.
Maybe if you're so fat that normal human-sized clothes no longer fit you, you should take that as a sign to try to lose some weight?

Red Arremer · Aug 27, 2018

arecibo said:
This is effectively not all that different from a sugar tax.

Excuse me, what?
It's absolutely not similar to a sugar tax.
You can make the conscious decision to eat sugary foods, or avoid them. Taxing sugar is like taxing tobacco or alcohol, it's essentially a tax on a legal drug. You can live your entire life without consuming any added sucrose.

Increasing the price for larger clothing sizes does not help overweight people at all to be dissuaded from being overweight or eating less sugar - not only do you need clothing for, you know, actually living, working and not getting arrested, having less money to spend on food means there's less money available for healthier diets; after all shitty food is much cheaper.

What you're basically doing here is saying that overweight people - including overweight children that may not even be responsible for what they are being fed - should be punished for being overweight by charging them more for essential items of living, rather than getting assistance in losing weight.
Your suggestion would be akin to charging fat people more rent because they take up more space in an apartment.

Samenamenick · Aug 27, 2018

Some WM cost analyst saw that margins on plus-size clothing was dipping, an executive ran with it, and then someone decided Canada be used as a pilot program to see how it would fly. If I had to bet, it will become more widespread. Fiduciary responsibility and all that.

Z-Beat · Aug 27, 2018

This doesn't seem Wal-Mart specific.

adamsappel · Aug 27, 2018

I don't generally buy clothes at Wal-Mart, though I do shop there (my Wal-Mart is actually nice and clean, and has a pretty good grocery), and if the clientele is anything to go by (including me), they could probably save money by not carrying the XS or S sizes at all. Is 1XL just the typical Extra Large, or one size up? XL seems like a pretty common sizing.

Sanjuro said:
Would you pay extra money for a large beverage over a medium?

I'm not sure what you're saying. When you buy a meal from McDonald's, you pay more if you get a medium instead of the $1 large drink. I hate it; I don't want to carry around that much liquid, much less drink it (particularly if you're eating in, when you can serve yourself free refills). The proliferation of larger soda sizes for cheaper price is a very direct cause of our obesity epidemic.

LCGeek · Aug 27, 2018

tabris said:
It just makes sense, it's more product you are buying.

I say this buying plus size clothing from makers who charge decent for customizing and what size you get. If the 2$ was 20 i'd complains but that is within reason and range.

Zelenogorsk · Aug 27, 2018

rstzkpf said:
Maybe if you're so fat that normal human-sized clothes no longer fit you, you should take that as a sign to try to lose some weight?

That would actually take effort, it's easier to just get mad at Wal-Mart.

Sanjuro · Aug 27, 2018

adamsappel said:
I don't generally buy clothes at Wal-Mart, though I do shop there (my Wal-Mart is actually nice and clean, and has a pretty good grocery), and if the clientele is anything to go by (including me), they could probably save money by not carrying the XS or S sizes at all. Is 1XL just the typical Extra Large, or one size up? XL seems like a pretty common sizing.

I'm not sure what you're saying. When you buy a meal from McDonald's, you pay more if you get a medium instead of the $1 large drink. I hate it; I don't want to carry around that much liquid, much less drink it (particularly if you're eating in, when you can serve yourself free refills). The proliferation of larger soda sizes for cheaper price is a very direct cause of our obesity epidemic.

You're using a very specific example. I just posted that it's a scenario of perceived value. It costs more for a large, the advertise it costing more, but they run specials where it is less than a medium in some cases.

Either they are balancing inventory costs or they are using it as a promotional tool.

Elderly Parrot · Aug 27, 2018

adamsappel said:
I don't generally buy clothes at Wal-Mart, though I do shop there (my Wal-Mart is actually nice and clean, and has a pretty good grocery), and if the clientele is anything to go by (including me), they could probably save money by not carrying the XS or S sizes at all. Is 1XL just the typical Extra Large, or one size up? XL seems like a pretty common sizing.

I'm not sure what you're saying. When you buy a meal from McDonald's, you pay more if you get a medium instead of the $1 large drink. I hate it; I don't want to carry around that much liquid, much less drink it (particularly if you're eating in, when you can serve yourself free refills). The proliferation of larger soda sizes for cheaper price is a very direct cause of our obesity epidemic.

Man at my McDonald's it's one dollar any size. Which means you still get the large lol

rambis · Aug 27, 2018

Thurston Last said:
I mean it is more fabric...

Its a negligible difference the vast majority of times. Clothing is dirt cheap to make, cotton is less than a buck a pound. They're gauging fat people because they can;

thewienke · Aug 27, 2018

A lot of those nerd T-shirt sites I'll buy stuff from charge up to $8-10 more for a "tall size". I've been used to the Big and Tall tax for years sadly.

HellforLeather · Aug 27, 2018

This has been the case for a lot of motorcycle gear for years. The base price covers the most common sizes (S,M,L) then the XL sizes usually go up in price.

adamsappel · Aug 27, 2018

SG-17 said:
The actual cost is negligible.

It's also a problem for tall clothing. The extra cost of fabric for tall sizes is negligible yet the prices consumers pay are significant. Prices aren't different between S-M-L.

Its greed and exploitation, pure and simple.

Aren't XL and up sizes just scaling the pattern, whereas Tall sizing needs a new pattern and has to cover a range between tall-and-skinny and tall-and-fat? Big and Tall stores seem very specialized, but there are a lot of average-height fat people around.

DarthWalden · Aug 27, 2018

Welp, time to lose some weight.

Reverse Giraffe · Aug 27, 2018

Wal Mart isn't trying to fat shame.
You'd be hard pressed to go into a Wal Mart without seeing a morbidly obese person in a motorized scooter.

arecibo · Aug 27, 2018

Red Arremer said:
Excuse me, what?
It's absolutely not similar to a sugar tax.
You can make the conscious decision to eat sugary foods, or avoid them. Taxing sugar is like taxing tobacco or alcohol, it's essentially a tax on a legal drug. You can live your entire life without consuming any added sucrose.

Increasing the price for larger clothing sizes does not help overweight people at all to be dissuaded from being overweight or eating less sugar - not only do you need clothing for, you know, actually living, working and not getting arrested, having less money to spend on food means there's less money available for healthier diets; after all shitty food is much cheaper.

What you're basically doing here is saying that overweight people - including overweight children that may not even be responsible for what they are being fed - should be punished for being overweight by charging them more for essential items of living, rather than getting assistance in losing weight.
Your suggestion would be akin to charging fat people more rent because they take up more space in an apartment.

Nope.

All I'm saying is that overweight people pay more for shirts and would also theoretically pay more for sugary drinks. The end result is overweight people are being charged more. Thats all I'm saying.

Landy828 · Aug 27, 2018

SG-17 said:
The actual cost is negligible.

It's also a problem for tall clothing. The extra cost of fabric for tall sizes is negligible yet the prices consumers pay are significant. Prices aren't different between S-M-L.

Its greed and exploitation, pure and simple.

You're correct. Cost of the fabric used from one size to another is literal pennies for every few hundred shirts.

Ribs · Aug 27, 2018

Does Walmart even carry sizes S and M at all? They always seem to start at L .

Red Arremer · Aug 27, 2018

arecibo said:
Nope.

All I'm saying is that overweight people pay more for shirts and would also theoretically pay more for sugary drinks. The end result is overweight people are being charged more. Thats all I'm saying.

You should try not wearing any clothes at any given time, then. Godspeed.

DJChuy · Aug 27, 2018

I thought this was the norm? I've seen other retailers do it, and I always thought it was because it was a "special order."

When my company used to order shirts for everyone in the office, we had maybe one or two people order 3XL and 4XL while everyone else ran from Small to XL. They would charge us more for those shirts since it wasn't common seeing these sizes, so they had to do a custom order.

marrec · Aug 27, 2018

SeeingeyeDug said:
What you're saying is true, but I agree with the other posters who have worked at Walmart. This is just so they can claim a lower price on popular sizes. Instead of just having a slightly higher price across the board to cover sales of all sizes, if they create this separation line, they can sell the smaller sizes for less and claim lower prices overall. Then adding a 20% increase on the higher fabric sizes can also be used to subsidize that lower price they're advertising.

That only works logically if they're selling enough of the larger sized clothes to make up the price difference... which it's likely that they aren't if they intentionally reducing the price of the "popular sized" clothing.

It's simply the economy of scale. You don't have a dedicated factory resources for XXL or XXXL or XXXXL so you have to use existing factory resources which means you aren't using those resources for the higher volume product which means you have to charge enough to make up that difference.

John Rabbit · Aug 27, 2018

This isn't remotely new, but it's new to the average Walmart shopper.

Deleted member 9241 · Aug 27, 2018

Lundren said:
"Fuck off I have it worse!"

If this forum were ever to get a slogan, this one gets my vote.

StrangerDanger · Aug 27, 2018

John Rabbit said:
This isn't remotely new, but it's new to the average Walmart shopper.

Yea, this.... A lot of the places in the mall i go around with my gf with have extra prices for those sizes.

Speaking of which, low key target and walmart i've noticed have stepped up their clothing game, actually some good material and clothing available. Their shoes are still shit however

rstzkpf · Aug 27, 2018

arecibo said:
Nope.

All I'm saying is that overweight people pay more for shirts and would also theoretically pay more for sugary drinks. The end result is overweight people are being charged more. Thats all I'm saying.

Uh, thin people would also have to pay the tax. Or are you seriously trying to argue that people who buy more soda having to spend more money on soda than people who buy less soda is a bad thing?

gcwy · Aug 27, 2018

I don't see anything wrong with this. In fact, they should start charging us less for smaller sizes.

Swauny Jones · Aug 27, 2018

At the end of the day you're paying for the fabric. People are just too dam sensitive about nothing these days.

Ashhong · Aug 27, 2018

TitanicFall said:
Well if you aren't going to do it across the board then it looks bad. Think about shoe sizes. You aren't charged more for wearing a size 12 versus a size 9.

This would be amazing. Finally an advantage to my small feet

srhltmr · Aug 27, 2018

Does Walmart even carry sizes S and M at all? They always seem to start at L .

Yes.

HardTimesFamilyPride · Aug 27, 2018

Walmart is now exploring ways to reduce the extra costs involved in making plus-size clothing to lower their retail price, Malik added.

oh what employee benefits are they thinking of cutting now?

EDIT: what the hell is going on in this thread lmao

AndyD · Aug 27, 2018

Thurston Last said:
I mean it is more fabric...

I don't even think it's a fabric thing, but a design and supply chain thing.

The regular sizes are so universal that they buy stuff in "bulk". The plus sizes are rarer, so they are designed separately and likely made, ordered, transported in smaller batches, which does not reduce the cost the same way. It's a bit like Petite in women, and Big and Tall for men, where selection is narrower, prices are higher, all based on more unique body sizes rather than the norm.

marrec · Aug 27, 2018

Swauny Jones said:
At the end of the day you're paying for the fabric. People are just too dam sensitive about nothing these days.

It's not the extra fabric, that is pennies, it's the factory resources that would be dedicated to producing more popular sizes but have been dedicated to less popular but still requested sizes.

If they charged the same price for an XXL as an L, they would lose money on every XXL because they aren't produced or sold in the same volume.

arecibo · Aug 27, 2018

rstzkpf said:
Uh, thin people would also have to pay the tax. Or are you seriously trying to argue that people who buy more soda having to spend more money on soda than people who buy less soda is a bad thing?

I'm not trying to argue one way or the other.

The sugar tax is an explicit attempt to adjust behavior. Charging more for larger shirts, while being an unintentional consequence, will also adjust behavior (if you assume price affects decisions re: microeconomics). Thats the similarity I'm trying to draw.

PhazonBlonde · Aug 27, 2018

Ribs said:
Does Walmart even carry sizes S and M at all? They always seem to start at L .

Idk about men's but for women's yes they do carry xs and s

Razgriz-Specter · Aug 27, 2018

SG-17 said:
The actual cost is negligible.

It's also a problem for tall clothing. The extra cost of fabric for tall sizes is negligible yet the prices consumers pay are significant. Prices aren't different between S-M-L.

Its greed and exploitation, pure and simple.

A product taking up space in shipment and then limited retail space that doesn't move as much as the lower sizes is money

XL not so much but 2X and 3X definitely

Same goes for shoes, I wear 14s which get a noticeable bump over the price of 13s.
It's understandable because hardly anyone is buying over 12 and 13 at most

Swauny Jones · Aug 27, 2018

marrec said:
It's not the extra fabric, that is pennies, it's the factory resources that would be dedicated to producing more popular sizes but have been dedicated to less popular but still requested sizes.

If they charged the same price for an XXL as an L, they would lose money on every XXL because they aren't produced or sold in the same volume.

At the end of the day every company is squeezing extra dollars out of us all. Whether it be downsizing the portion sizes of food and keeping them the same price or DLC for shit we use to get for free a generation ago. At least an upcharge for more fabric makes more sense from a visual standpoint and is justifiable. People calling it fat shaming just don't get it. It's about profits at the end of the day and that's it. Nobody gives a you know what if you're fat or not.

Titik · Aug 27, 2018

Xl and xxxl sizes also cost more to ship and store, etc. It all adds up.

ToddBonzalez · Aug 27, 2018

Well, if the clothing requires more fabric and thus costs more to produce, I don't really see an issue here.

Gatti-man · Aug 27, 2018

Samenamenick said:
Some WM cost analyst saw that margins on plus-size clothing was dipping, an executive ran with it, and then someone decided Canada be used as a pilot program to see how it would fly. If I had to bet, it will become more widespread. Fiduciary responsibility and all that.

Exactly and this is hardly Walmart specific. You don't have size prices that's too much signage and confusion. It's pricing on brackets based on cost. Whoever thinks Walmart is fat shaming really needs to wake up. That's a large portion of their base. Walmart provides rock bottom prices at a profit. That's what this is.

RoninChaos · Aug 27, 2018

ToddBonzalez said:
Well, if the clothing requires more fabric and thus costs more to produce, I don't really see an issue here.

How come a size 9 shoe costs the same as a size 15 shoe?

Deleted member 11822 · Aug 27, 2018

more fabric, costs more money. makes sense to me.

marrec · Aug 27, 2018

RoninChaos said:
How come a size 9 shoe costs the same as a size 15 shoe?

A size 9 shoe generally doesn't cost the same as a size 15 shoe

Titik · Aug 27, 2018

RoninChaos said:
How come a size 9 shoe costs the same as a size 15 shoe?

Shoe boxes are all largely the same regardless of shoe size so they all fit neatly and occupy the same space regardless. Larger shirts on the other hand especially in bulk, all require more space in a shipping container.

I suspect that this added cost is more about logistics and shipping more than anything else because material costs are negligible.

LiK · Aug 27, 2018

Sanjuro said:
This is usually the norm everywhere. I know a few people that print shirts. Once you hit the XL sizes it generally will cost another buck or so.

I read about this too.

killdatninja · Aug 27, 2018

I'm not sure I understand this line of thinking, just buy less of these sizes and have them cheaper so you get them off the floor quicker... so they're not taking up all the damn space. And double up on the medium size orders... it's a pain in the ass to shop for Medium when it's always sold out.

When I go to to a store to check the clothing clearance section I always see the XL & Up see at least 2-3 racks. Meanwhile the Small-Medium-Large section is one rack total... There's no reason to charge that much for something taking up that much floor space and ends up being clearanced anyway...

mrmoose · Aug 27, 2018

RoninChaos said:
How come a size 9 shoe costs the same as a size 15 shoe?

It doesn't?

Razgriz-Specter said:
Same goes for shoes, I wear 14s which get a noticeable bump over the price of 13s.
It's understandable because hardly anyone is buying over 12 and 13 at most

marrec · Aug 27, 2018

killdatninja said:
I'm not sure I understand this line of thinking, just buy less of these sizes and have them cheaper so you get them off the floor quicker... so they're not taking up all the damn space. And double up on the medium size orders... it's a pain in the ass to shop for Medium when it's always sold out.

When I go to to a store to check the clothing clearance section I always see the XL & Up see at least 2-3 racks. Meanwhile the Small-Medium-Large section is one rack total... There's no reason to charge that much for something taking up that much floor space and ends up being clearanced anyway...

If they charged less it wouldn't sell any faster it would just reduce the already small margins.

And again, it's not just physical inventory space, its the entire production and logistics.

Shoppers angry over Walmart charging more for plus-size clothing

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