I'm sure having better paid, less miserable employees is good for business.

When I used to think of Walmart vs Target, the biggest difference to me always seemed to be the store itself. Walmart always seemed cold and uncaring like a large warehouse. Target always, despite its size, seemed to have a welcoming cozyness to it that walmart couldn't match. I've since moved to a more affluent area with newer walmarts. As far as the feel of the stores go, they're more pleasant to be in than many of the Targets in my area.

There does seem to be one quality remaining that hasn't changed, though. Employee happiness and friendliness has a huge disparity. No matter how nice the building itself feels about 60% of the walmart employees seem to resent just being in the store. As far as Target goes, I can't think of a single employee that has ever had less than some amount of enthusiasm for their job.

I take that back. I can think of one guy at Target that wasn't super excited. He didn't have legs and couldn't reach the self-serve checkouts to put in his employee code so I think he had a decent excuse.