Walmart is busy but efficient. As I enter one location in South Edmonton, I notice checkout stations spanning the two front entrances, not one station without a clerk. It’s 1PM on a Friday afternoon. Mothers with their toddlers load groceries onto the conveyor belts, glance at the magazine rack, and maybe take a Cosmopolitan or People. Fascinated children stare at the magazines’ colours.
Past the checkouts are rows of occasional cards, found before Walmart’s double-rowed book section. On the one side, I find paperback bestsellers: Insurgent, The Clockwork Prince, Grey. On the other, harlequins, family, health, religion. Kids' books make up a small section at the north end of the rows; there's LEGO Ninjago: A Team Divided. A man peruses a hunting magazine beside me. I check further down to find the niche magazines. Gamers and hunters’ reading.
Customer service calls Deana Anderson down from produce to talk to me about Walmart’s books and magazines. I know a company like TNG distributes for them, but I want to hear from the manager of a Walmart store. She leads me south past the men’s wear, toys, gardening, through a door to the back stock hallway and finally a small conference room.
Deana is one of three co-managers at this Walmart on Parsons Road, working under head manager for the store, Ergidio Pucci. She used to work at the Walmart in Windermere (nearly identical to the Parson’s Road location), and before that with Apple. She’s been at this Walmart almost a year now.
I ask her about the importance of selling books and magazines. It’s their job to make the shopper’s life easier, she tells me. When it’s late August and school is around the corner, they have school supplies, dictionaries, and other educational print on display at the checkouts. Home reno mags often find their way into shopping carts around this time too. Nearing October, they might have a new paperback thriller next to candies and Cosmopolitans. Books and magazines round off the shopping experience, answer the random questions like “what new furniture accessories are in for winter?” that come up while waiting in line.
Though the checkout stations' staple magazines take most of sales, top-selling books leave the store almost as often. Every Walmart has a print material organizer responsible for the cards, books, and niche magazines. She comes in weekly to restock the shelves, sometimes taking entire rows off. Head office is responsible for the print material organizers. HQ has contracts with several distributors (not just TNG), publishers, and book vendors, who deliver their product to a centralized location that ships orders to stores across Canada. Individual Walmarts don't know all the details--only when the book person comes in, unloads the new product, takes what has expired, and leaves.
Every Walmart is planned to sameness as much as possible, providing the most efficient shopping experience. It’s just easier to shop that way, Deana says. Later after the interview, as I browse the paperbacks again, I keep in mind the sticker that advertises “3 books for $10.” It would be interesting to see if that number changes at any of the locations overtime. Deana assures me that they try to format the same for every store. If you’ve seen it at this store you’d be hard pressed not to find it at the next one.
I ask her what she thinks most people in Edmonton read. Regarding Walmart, she says magazines. They’re quick, colorful, and easy. But people also really enjoy collections--a set of something, like Game of Thrones. I think back to the paperback shelves, remembering that sequels take up the majority of space. People follow a series and become attached to it. A lot of her coworkers read the Vue Weekly, another kind of series, a.k.a. the other Metro, as Deana calls it. They like to know what’s going on in Edmonton, and where.
What does she think constitutes popular print culture? Maybe what’s popular print is not always or exactly in print form, Deana reminds me. She finds that audio books take up a lot of transit reading; whenever people are on the go, the convenience of listening to a book rather than reading it just makes sense. I nod in agreement. That’s why Walmart has entire gift card sections for the Google store, iTunes, and the like. Then there's video game cards, DOTA 2. Books will never go away, according to Deana, but the way people consume them changes; we (Walmart) need to be available for every culture that comes into our store, so we try to have every adaptation available for our products.
