Mini Ethnography at Walmart

                I live really close to a Walmart store and that is the place where I do grocery every week. We all know about the funny and weird people of Walmart, like going in their pijamas or with slippers, but I have never met anyone like this. Even so, I decided to do my mini ethnography at this place, because I believe we can learn or just observe a lot about human behavior and relationships, everything in a (very) personal way, like doing their groceries, the things they eat and take to their home.

                Personally, I wouldn’t like to have someone stalking me and looking to the things I buy and I think mostly everyone shares the same opinion. Therefore, to fit in, I used my day of doing groceries to observe and take notes. However, I have to confess that I took one or two picks at others carts to see if I could identify a common product in there. No, I couldn’t. Although soda seems to be very popular, if I have to say.

                So there I was, pen and paper in hand, wandering in Walmart. Just a note before I start my description: I always have a list of what I need to buy, like milk, fruit, bread and so on. It was not my focus, but I couldn’t help noticing that I was the only one with a list. Some must think I was the weird one taking notes and crossing a check list in the middle of an aisle.

                Back to the ethnography. I decided to focus on the people that buy at Walmart and before I went there, I made a list of the aspects I should observe. I asked myself questions like: how many old people were in there? How many mothers with their children? How many couples? And what was the average age of the shoppers? In the end of my research, there were some things that I could identify clearly and that really stood out.

      First, I couldn’t find any young adults (and by young adults I mean from 20 to 30 years old). At least not by their own, because I could see a few with their family. I found it really interesting, because it is common to young Americans live by themselves (or with roommates) and they need somehow to buy their food! I concluded that the lack of youth, apart from me, at Walmart was due to the fact that it is located in an area where there are a lot of old people. It is not close to schools, universities or bars.

                The second fact that stood out was that there were almost no men by themselves. The only two or three I spotted were curiously with no cart and with just a few products on their hands. They were also in a kind of hurry. I really couldn’t think of any reason of this, maybe it was just a coincidence. However, that leads me to one other fact I could observe: the men with carts and that were actually doing grocery were with their wives (or girlfriends). By this point I had already concluded that it is usually a female job to do grocery and, in fact, there were more women than men at Walmart. Even the employees.

On the other hand, contrary to the hasty men, almost all of the women were in a slow pace, wandering through the grocery. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry and the majority of the women (apart from the ones with their children) were using their cell phones, which made me conclude that they were using it to chat or to entertain themselves. In this I might be very wrong and I can’t explain from where it came, but I couldn’t stop thinking that if they were working or solving a problem, they would be doing things more quickly! 

Although the wanderer women were the majority, there were a few that appeared to be in a quicker pace and curiously (or not) they were the ones with their children. And there was another common fact with those women that really surprised me: all of them had their kids inside the carts. It surprised me because I always go to Walmart and there are always a lot of children running, on the floor and so on. In this point I might have just another coincidence though.

Finally, I could observe at Walmart that the only couples I saw were composed by old people. Again, I live in an old people area, but I couldn’t even find a mid-age couple. Only the cutes old couples.

And that was the end of my research. In conclusion to my mini ethnography I could determine some patterns at the Walmart store nearby my neighborhood. First, it is a place mostly attended by people from 30 years up that go alone and the young adults are usually following their family. Second, it is a female activity and the men go there either to follow their wives (or girlfriend) or by themselves to by quick and just a few things. Least of all, I realized the women with children are more efficient doing their groceries and the women alone are never in a hurry, but always it a cell phone in hand.