30 Of The Wildest “People Of Walmart” Photos To Prove That It’s A Place Like Nowhere Else

You never know what you’re going to find when you visit a Walmart. While you probably go armed with a grocery list or one specific item in mind that you need (for my mother, it's always pumpkin spice coffee creamer because they stock it year round for some reason), the stores have everything. The massive stores are stocked full of produce, frozen foods, snacks, alcohol, cleaning supplies, shoes, clothing, accessories, electronics, jewelry, home goods, a pharmacy, school supplies, paint, plants and gardening equipment, and often even a hairdresser, a McDonald’s and sometimes even a section of guns.

If you’re not from the United States, the idea of a store housing all of these things at once might be overwhelming to you. And let me just say, it can be. The layout is not always the same, so if you go to a new Walmart, you can easily wander the aisles frustrated, unable to find what you need for 20+ minutes. But while you pace around the store searching desperately for the hand soap that seems to have vanished out of thin air, Walmart is a master at providing one more thing: entertainment in the form of people watching.  

When it comes to why Walmart attracts such an eclectic crowd, I have a few theories. First of all, Walmart is the largest retailer in the United States and the second largest retailer in the world. Because of this, it attracts massive crowds every day. Everybody knows the Walmart name, and almost all Americans end up there at one point or another. It’s not the fanciest grocery retailer, so it is possible to avoid it, especially in cities like Los Angeles where local chains far outnumber it. But with an average of 37 million people entering Walmart stores every week, there are bound to be some interesting characters.

Personally, Walmart has never been my favorite store, as some locations have taken a while to widen their range of plant-based food products. However, I have still found myself there many times. And with the reputation Walmart has, it is one of the few places where I wouldn’t feel the need to change out of my sweatpants or make sure my hair looked alright before going. Walmart is very much a “come as you are” store, which you could argue is sort of beautiful. And it breeds the perfect environment for capturing interesting “People of Walmart”. 

Many Walmart stores are also open until late hours of the night, or even 24 hours a day, which can certainly make the crowd more interesting. Teenagers and college kids might show up after a party for some late night munchies, or people who have not slept in days might feel that 5am is the perfect time to go grocery shopping in their robe. I’m all for running errands outside of peak hours to avoid crowds, especially during the pandemic, but being open all night can open stores up to a very wide clientele. A great thing about this though is that almost all Walmart stores allow overnight parking for free. Free parking can be extremely hard to find in the US, for homeless individuals living out of their cars or travelers moving through the country by van, but Walmart always comes through. This might be part of the reason the customers are so interesting, but it’s wonderful for individuals in a desperate situation who just need a place to park overnight.   

Walmart is an interesting enough place for us consumers who pop in to grab some fruit and milk, but these photos make me curious about what it’s like to work for Walmart. Surely the employees see some fascinating things on a daily basis, so I checked out this article from Business Insider about what it’s actually like to work for the retail giant. Apparently, staff members have mixed opinions, as 55% of employees would recommend the job to a friend. But as Walmart is a very large company, each individual in every store has many people working above them, in the same place or in an office far away. One employee who has worked for Walmart for 15 years told Business Insider that the management of their store tended to be “scared to death” of those even higher up in the company.    

Back on the topic of Walmart’s parking lots, apparently some employees have witnessed interesting things going down outside of the stores. One worker said they frequently saw fights, while another said that he had a problem with some customers’ driving habits. "I had a guy back out towards me while I was pushing a row of carts directly behind his car," the employee shared. "I desperately moved the line of carts around his car as he continued to back out. I ended up pushing them right up against the side of his car — scratching it." I cannot imagine how challenging it is to handle those massive stacks of carts, so if you see a worker pushing one, please just wait for them to pass.

Apparently, the people of Walmart aren’t always kind. As with any retail store, some Walmart employees complained about having to deal with rude customers as well. One employee suspected that customers tend to look down on Walmart workers, noting that there is a stigma around them and an assumption that they’re ignorant or high school dropouts. "I even had a woman ask me once, 'Do you even know what an electric can opener is?' after I showed her where the handheld ones were located," the worker shared. Another employee said, “I was in college and then graduate school while working there part-time, and still I'd have customers call me 'dummy' to my face because they were unhappy with something.” 

Although Walmart is associated with the United States, as it began in Arkansas and is most prevalent there, you might be surprised to learn that they actually do business all over the globe. Walmart actually owned the British chain ASDA for 20 years, before selling it in 2021, and currently owns a company called Massmart that allows them to do business through many smaller chains in Africa. In Mexico, the retail giant Superama and discount store Bodega Aurrera are both owned by Walmart. And in Japan, Seiyu, one of the largest grocery stores, is also fully owned by Walmart.     

In Argentina, Walmart owns the chain Changomas, which has three different stores levels, and in Honduras, Walmart has their hands in four different discount stores that carry a range of general goods. Walmart also made a huge investment in the Chinese hypermarket Trust-Mart in 2007. Walmart’s bulk goods store, Sam’s Club, even expanded to China. It is probably harder to find countries where Walmart doesn’t do business than where they do. Currently, some of the nations where Walmart does not have any stores are Russia, South Korea, Myanmar, Italy and Tanzania. 

I would love to say that what happens at Walmart stays at Walmart, as I have gone many times after midnight praying I don’t run into anyone I know, but obviously that’s not the case. What happens at Walmart always has a risk of being shared online, but that’s just part of the fun! Keep upvoting the pics that make you want to take a trip to Walmart yourself, and then let us know in the comments why you love (or hate!) the chain. And if you haven’t checked out Bored Panda’s last People of Walmart article, you can find that one right here.