Recently I took a survey about my shopping habits. When questioned about why I do not shop at WalMart, I replied with the following:
“Firstly, I would like to comment concerning the manufacturing of the products WalMart distributes. I am originally from the South, and grew up a loyal WalMart customer. From the earliest time I can remember WalMart was proud and vocal that all of the products sold by WalMart were “Made in America.” However, the ads and storewide banners proclaiming this patriotic declaration dissapeared after the death of the beloved founder, Sam Walton. It saddens me to see what WalMart has recently evolved into-the exact same kind of soulless, multi-million dollar conglomeration that Mr. Walton detested, and which inspired him to create a chain of stores that stood against such blatant commercialism. Of course, all thriving businesses must indulge in healthy capitalism, but Sam Walton’s heirs have left behind what put WalMart into the “thriving” catagory in the first place. A simple, and often only implied, ideal, “We use American labor and American products. We are here to offer the everyday Joe a good value for his money. We are here in support of this nation, and of the American public.” This statement resounded with the buying public, and WalMart was soon considered as all-American as baseball and apple pie. So, why doen’t we outsource the Yankees to Taiwan…”
My question is this; am I alone in feeling this way? Any thoughts, opinions, or outragous comments? :eek:
Well, it seems that Walmart still does buy most of its stuff from the US - checking their website Wallyworld purchased $150 billion worth of goods & services from US based operations; in comparison, they purchased $18 billion directly and indirectly from China.
A one time ALL Walmart products were "made in America’ and were four square against “blatant commercialism”? Interesting.
You’ve not alone, but its just kind of well… “silly” I guess is the most polite word. If I had to buy all American made products my purchasing dollar would shrink substantially and so would my standard of living. There are practical economic reasons why some products are made overseas. I don’t want to be riude, but aren’t the reasons for this overwhelmingly obvious given the relative strengths of more technologically advanced nations with higher labor costs vs less developed nations.
(1) Most everyplace stock the same Chinese made crap.
(2) They pay their workers better than Mom & Pop, and they have a good reputation for hiring disabled & elderly people who would otherwise not get any work.
(3) I very strongly believe that if I buy a product that isn’t best-suited to my needs, I am enabling failure and postponing the consequences. Screw patriotism and nationality… look where it got Ford, GM, and Boeing.
I don’t do -all- my shopping at Wal-mart, besides. Their schemes are pretty transparent; they have a few popular items, items that people are most likely to buy (eggs, milk, Windex, cat food) and those serve as their loss leaders. They then jack up the price of everything else and count on people’s laziness and reclutance to go to other stores to put them over the top. I’ll be willing to bet they loose money on a number of surprisingly common items.
If it makes you feel better, I think Wal-Mart jumped the shark quite recently and will be in free-fall. Just call it a hunch. Anyone else noticed that their shelves have been quite understocked, selections cut back, and their stores overall less-maintained since Katrina?
I’d like to get up on a high horse about Wal-Mart, but I’d have to be willing to put my money where my mouth is, and that ain’t gonna happen; Wal-Mart has some of the best prices on earth for a lot of the household necessities I buy, and I don’t make enough money to be proud of where I spend it.
I’m with you. I haven’t shopped at a Wal-Mart in, oh, I’d say two years. The town 20 miles away from me just had a new Super Center open up. You would have thought it was the second coming of Christ, people were so excited. I don’t really make it a point to bring up that I don’t shop at Wal-Mart, but sometimes someone will make a comment that requires an answer, and mine is, “Oh? I’ve never been in there?” If you’ve never known what it feels like to be looked at like an alien from another planet, say you’ve never been to the new Super Wal-Mart.
The town I live in has a population of about 2,500, and believe it or not, I can get most of what I need and want right here, at locally owned businesses: groceries, prescriptions, home decorating items, and clothing. Granted, the clothing at the local shop is a little over my price range, though it is beautiful and I wish I could afford it. Maybe someday I’ll be able to stop shopping at Goodwill and shop there instead! Other than that, the prices quite comparable at my hometown stores, especially considering the price of gas as of late and what it would cost me to make a 20-mile trip for deodorant. Seems silly when I can buy it at the drugstore downtown for $1.69. I do know people who make the 40-mile round trip at least once a week. I simply don’t get it. I’ve got good prices and hometown service right here, and I’m more than happy to give them my money over Wal-Mart any day.
Surely your area has locals who can do better than Wally’s.You have a phone and a phone book, don’t you? Use them!
I almost never buy groceries in Walmart Super Center because there are locally-owned supermarkets that are consistently cheaper on almost everything I buy.
Last year, I bought a new car battery from one of the two locals who beat Wally’s price quote.
2 weeks ago, road junk ruined a tire. I went to the independent tire store 3 blocks from my house and beat Wally by $15.
I grocery-shop at HEB, which is a homegrown Texas chain of grocery stores based here in San Antonio. I grew up shopping there, so I never buy food/groceries at Wal-Mart; their layout, their brands, their "logic, " etc., confuses and irritates me.
And I avoid their supercenters anyway. They’re too big.
But if I’m shopping for household chemicals, toiletries, etc., I go to Wal-Mart. The items that I buy there are generally at least 20% cheaper than they are anywhere else; when I’m spending $100, that means I save at least twenty bucks.
Twenty bucks is twenty bucks. I don’t make very many “esteem purchases.” I buy what I can afford, and there are things that I need, on which I’d like to spend as little as possible, so that I have money for those purchases I do “splurge” on.
I’m not going to pat myself on the back or apologize for that.
Isn’t Rubbermaid a Fortune 500 company with thousands of products that they sell to retailers like Wal Mart? How’d I miss Rubbermaid going out of business? And how did a single customer (albeit the largest retailer in the world…) cause then to go under?
I should have been more specific. Wal-Mart’s pricing schemes have forced Rubbermaid to close many of its factories and put thousands of American workers out of work. Most significantly, they forced the closure of the Rubbermaid plant in Ohio and moved all the jobs to China.
The way I understand it is that Wal-Mart insisted that wholesale prices at a minimum go down by 5 percent every year. Well, rubber is a limited commodity with a variable cost. Rubbermaid tried to explain input costs but Wal-Mart threatened to pull Rubbermaid products from its shelves. The only thing left to do was to trade well-compensated American labour for Chinese labour.
Wal-Mart is not just the biggest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart now controls so much of the retail market that it can effectively dictate terms to wholesalers.
Wal-Mart can and does force companies that won’t cooperate with its high demands out of business. Here is an interesting article about how Wal-Mart deals with companies.
The L.A. Times won a Pulitzer Prize for this series of interesting articles. This site (from PBS) has quite a bit of information, plus links, on Wal-Mart as well.
Wal-Mart has accumulated a long list of labor law violations; I won’t shop where workers are treated that badly.
I saw a former Wal-Mart manager interviewed on NOW on PBS. He said most of his employees were paid so little, they qualified for government poverty subsidies. He showed the section of his Rolodex devoted to charities and county offices. He had been encouraged to help his people apply for welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies, charity foodbank, etc.
In several locations, Wal-Mart was caught forcing mandatory, unpaid overtime. In other words, “You didn’t finish the work I gave you. Go clock out, and get back here to finish the job. If you go home before you’re done, don’t bother to come back.”
They’ve been sued again and again for not promoting women and blacks.
There’s more, but that’s enough for now. I won’t set foot in a Wal-Mart.
