Poll Question: Can Wal*Mart be stopped?

Many recent posts examine the fact that low-paid workers bear the brunt of anything negative that happens to Wal*Mart, while all gains accrue to stockholders and executives. I see two opinions about whether this company's overtaking of most retail sales in all communities is inevitable: 1) People's consciousness will eventually be sufficiently raised to mount enough shopper backlash that the tide will be turned, and locally-owned businesses can flourish again, despite their necessarily higher costs and prices. 2) Wal*Mart is so much a part of the landscape and routine of daily existence that it will continue to do what it does, which is to gain market share with the blessing of those very ones who will be exploited. It is a natural anti-democratic process that has occurred throughout history.

like going to www.wakeupwalmart.com, signing up, and adopting a local store for a campaign.

Act locally, think globally.

People are used to being told what to buy. Wal Mart does that well. If you can't find what you need, its because WM doesn't think you need it and you should settle for something else.

Its a pervasive cancer. Not likely to change.

not stand them in good stead with others who are compassionately relgious, but involved in other faiths.

Happy Holidays is the way I'm going to go! Part of my family is Mormon and part is Jewish, with others involved with Catholicism (lapsed type) and Protestantism. I have to be one of the most ecumenical people I know -- why? Because it's required!

an angry, intelligent liberal. She and her family are also financially strapped. She shops at Walmart.

I don't -- but I don't have a family to support.

So no, I don't think they're going anywhere soon.

collapses (which might happen in part because of Wal*Mart).

When I explain to my mother I don't shop there if I can help it, she just looks at me blankly. Earlier someone called those who don't want to shop at Wal*Mart "elistists," whatever that means.

I'm financially strapped, for the most part. I am learning to live with less. I rarely buy CDs. The last CD I bought was American Idiot. Before that, it had been years since my last purchase. I've bought maybe two or three movies in the past year and no video games, even though I once was an avid gamer. As the economy tanks, we have less disposable income to spend on such things.

LH

Wal-Mart will change because it will be less expensive for them to reform than to continue being corporate bullies. Their prices will increase by a small amount. They will tell everyone how wonderful they are. And as long as they're not hammering the poor and drinking from the taxpayer trough, I won't get my hackles up about it.

--p!

What's with all the negativity people. Jesus... people have crushed civilizations. This is a corporation, not some unbreakable edifice.

In 1930 people were saying the same thing about A&p food stores.

Do you honestly think that people go to WM for unneeded luxuries?

WM also sells food, and the overall prices are about 20% lower than most other supermarkets. They concentrate on the everyday items that people need. That is why people keep going back.

It's true that many people on a tight budget can't get their basic needs at prices they're able to pay at a higher-priced store. There are also people whose emotional need is met by shopping, and often for crap they don't need. Unfortunately, sometimes these groups overlap.

The signs of it are already apparent.

Chipping away at thier consumer base and monkeywrenching to drive up thier costs can and probably will hasten the inevitable, but higher transportation costs will spell the end of Wal-Mart as we now know it.

replaced with another Walmart-like supermarket, because cheap works. So the likely outcome is that either they have to change a bit or will be forced to change and when that happens a new one will try to take part of the bottom market and that could very well be Aldi because they are the cheapest, stingiest and worst supermarket in the world. They are now the 12th supermarket in the world and rapidly expanding... There are 300 stores in the US (as Trader's Joe) right now and they are planning for at least 1,000 stores by 2010.

We have almost none of those in California although that's slowly changing.

While I don't doubt that Wal-mart's grocery biz is as likely to be taken over by another chain as not (at least in the short term, long term the current nationwide food distro model won't work if the peak oil folks are to be believed) the sale of cheap shit made in China is a short term strategy vulnerable to chages in trasnportation costs and changes int eh value of US currency. The sale of imported goods is what makes Wal-mart such a juggernaut, without it they're just a grubbier grocery chain targeting the low-end grocery buyer (which isn't where the profit or growth is in that sector.)

When looking up the data, I saw the list of and Wal-mart is huge, so the low-end buyer market is a top market.



Cut from an Aldi pdf (because they are to only ones Wal-mart fears after they kicked Wal-mart out of Germany and have moved to the US to kick them even more). Notice that the nearest competitor is 1/3 and the nearest US competitor is 1/4 of walmart. Also notice that the other companies are not bottom of the barrel companies but usually go for some more "quality".

The system works on several points: The cheapest products; the cheapest overhead; the cheapest workforce and the cheapest service. However it works because it literally drives away any of the 'normal' supermarkets. So even if the cheap imports are no longer available, they'll find cheap domestic suppliers and if a product has too much margin for the supplier they'll dump it for another product.

just want a "good deal". They have a limited budget and see Walmart as a way to get the goods they want for a price they can afford. Sad......

Which is the people who cannot afford to support their families unless they use Wal Mart

When they have consumed all other businesses, they will merge forming the ultimate monopoly....Hali-Mart or Wal-burton

Large organizations always do. As management becomes more estranged from the actual operations of the organization, they squander money, waste opportunities, and, ultimately, destroy the company.

Perhaps you recall AT&T. Once, it was a giant - now, it's a mere shell, soon to be acquired by SBC. And then there's GM, rumored to be heading toward chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Back more...remember Gibsons? Braniff airlines? TWA and Pan-AM?

Walmart is big - but things change. And, ultimately, Walmart will fall.

Didn't the Govt break them up? Once upon a time we had the best phone system in the world. Not anymore.

the CEO (one Robert Allen) proceeded to purchase company after company at an inflated price, then run them into the ground. Olivetti and NCR come to mind.

AT&T had lots of money, lots of business...and they squandered it.

Here's a link to a brief article: http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,1845684,00.asp

Short of the company imploding on it's own (ala Bushco), I don't see it going anywhere. All the talk of unionizing the employees, leaving carts strewn all over the store, leaving flyers for the janitor to clean up, or taking a dump on the merchandise aren't going to do a thing about the sheeple that will continue to patronize and enable the company (either because they have to or because they have the notion of "they're the cheeepest because they sed so, so I's gonna keep shopping there").

The idea of the whole companies low-end workforce unionizing is ridiculous in the current political/economic climate. It's hard enough to get 50% of the population to VOTE, never mind to get a majority of store employees who either don't care or are scared shitless of losing their job from doing anything about it.

hurt them any. People leave carts all over the parking lot and what does Walmart do? they police them up and return them to the cart parking zone, the same thing will happen to carts left in the store.

"Union"! And they close their doors immediately!
Works like a charm in Canada!

I think they have competition through ebay and other online outlets not even wal mart can compete with. When you can do away with workers and drop ship and make a living, or when you can buy a product and wait for it to come to you just a few days later, by saving nearly 80% on said product, it just comes naturally.

I think that wal mart's attempt at converting itself partially to a grocery store shows their competition with simple goods and appliances has definately been beat by these sources.

I think while most people DO inherently "care" about doing good, they never do it when it's not in their self-interest. They never have. It's much easier to be greedy and say "I'll let somebody else be moral."

model says that people will always do what's in their self-interest, and the "invisible Hand" will ensure that everything is hunky-dory through supply and demand. The problem is that one's self-interest as a consumer is very different from one's self-interest as a citizen. And as long as we define ourselves as consumers rather than citizens, we're screwed as a society.

It's way too powerful to "stop".

I think the current climate of criticism is a sign the Godzilla has stumbled. Look at their stock.

My personal theory is that fuel cost will invalidate their business model, where their only real cost is transportation (energy).

We'll just have to wait and see.

Once they have to actually pay their workers a livable wage and real benefits much of the problem will be solved.

They can't close down every store that unionizes.

Immediately take away China's free trade status with the U.S. If China objects, then declare that since Bush's alleged victory in 2000 & 2004 was a fraud, then the Bush Crime Family & the Republican Party will have to pay back the loans to the U.S. Government from all foreign countries from the time of the fraud to date.

1) Wal Mart will be under enormous pressure to actually compete for business that doesn't involve cheap imports.

2) The Republican Party will have to worry about their own survival, rather than doing any favors for Wal Mart.

- fair pay and benefits to employees
- sell USA made merchandise, or only sell foreign made merchandise if it can be established we have fair and equal trade with them.
- refuse to buy slave-labor products, thereby pressuring other countries to also pay their labor force a livable wage.

Or at least force substantial changes in the way Wal-Mart operates.

Right now, Wal-Mart runs roughshod over their suppliers. They will force you to allow them to examine your books (and tell you exactly what to cut and by how much to get products priced the way Wal-Mart wants them), demand price cuts on items that do not change from year to year, demand they install a certain kind of EDI system to accept orders from Wal-Mart, and otherwise run their companies for them. Google the FastCompany.com story about the gallon of Vlasic pickles.

There are some brands that you simply must carry if you're in a particular business. One that comes to mind quickly is Stanley--the hardware company. You cannot run a hardware department without Stanley's products in it. Stanley doesn't print a full-line catalog because you'd need a forklift to move it. There's a Stanley Tools catalog, a Stanley Builders Hardware catalog, a Stanley Entry Systems catalog...unfortunately, Stanley is being run by people who let Wal-Mart dictate price to them.

If Stanley, Nabisco, Coca-Cola, Kraft or Philip Morris** walked into Wal-Mart's headquarters and told them, "we don't give a shit what you want to pay. We set the prices, and we think you can afford to pay more than 12 cents for a can of Coke" Wal-Mart would be screwed. Wal-Mart cannot run their store without Stanley tape measures, Oreos, Cokes, any of the million products Kraft makes, or Marlboros on the shelves. If those five companies were to reestablish a normal vendor-customer relationship with Wal-Mart (instead of the way they run now, which is that Wal-Mart tells you they only want to pay $6 per unit for those George Foreman grills, and you either figure out how to make a profit selling them for $6 per unit or you figure out how to survive while selling GF grills to Wal-Mart at a loss) Wal-Mart would have to drastically reinvent itself.

Wal-Mart, from what I can tell, uses three tactics to show the profit margins it does:

* minimizing facilities cost through tax incentives, cheap land, cheap construction labor, energy conservation protocols, and very stripped-down, very spartan displays. Once again, field trip time: go to Wal-Mart and look at the makeup department. The higher-end products all use vendor-supplied displays, and Revlon's bay looks the same at Wal-Mart as it does at Walgreens. As for the vendors who don't supply displays? My caulking compound aisle has more aesthetic appeal.

* minimizing personnel cost. We discuss this until we're blue in the face.

* minimizing product cost. This is where Wal-Mart walks through the door, says they're going to pay this for an item and it's going to cost us this next year, take it or leave it. Most of their stuff is fairly interchangeable, but there are vendors Wal-Mart must carry and those vendors could act the part of 800-pound gorillas if they'd only try.

The cart thing isn't going to kill Wal-Mart. Sending your weekly receipts from other stores to Lee Scott, unless you're buying groceries for a prison, won't kill Wal-Mart. Sending the CEO of Kraft a bottle of "Absorbine Sr. Spinal Fertilizer," which makes you grow a backbone, just might. Or, at least, it would majorly impact their bottom line.

** I was going to add ConAgra to that list. I didn't for two reasons: most Americans don't know ConAgra, and in general they make interchangeable stuff. They own Swift, which makes the Butterball turkey. That is probably their only "unique" item--in about a week and a half there will be saturation advertising for Butterball turkeys. Everyone knows Butterball. But how about Act II popcorn? It's a ConAgra item, but if Wal-Mart decided to drop Act II almost no one would care. (Having said that, Act II has a microwave caramel popcorn that tastes good. I don't think anyone else makes a competing product.) ConAgra could play hardball on Butterball because lots of people won't buy any other turkey, but overall I think they'd be screwed if they tried.

But I think there is no end to the Wal Mart posts.

antiwallmart movie. They both on the tv show discussed how evil wallmart is.