Memory is foggy, but I think they sold, or at least were trying to sell, the Mervyn’s chain of stores a year or so ago…
No, I’m pretty sure they haven’t sold Mervyn’s yet. But they have closed some of the Mervyn’s stores in the PNW recently.
Years ago I met a guy that started his own business making these safety cages that go around trampolines. He was selling through Wal-Mart, but one day they stopped ordering. Later, he went to a local Wal-Mart to find that they outsourced his design to a Chinese manufacturer and was selling that brand instead. They copied the product completely, even down to the design of the box. I don’t know the result of his lawsuit.
Continuing on the topic of manufacturing. A couple of years ago, Wal-Mart issued a decree that their suppliers must begin using RFID technology on their products by '06, lest they be dropped from their approved vendor listing (AVL).
Stupid.
The technology wasn’t really ready at the time and as is typical with many emerging technologies, is very expensive. They placed a pretty heavy burden on their suppliers to become RFID compliant, and now a couple of studies have shown that the ROI on RFID is probably something like 10 years away. Too bad their suppliers are shelling out millions to stay on the AVL. Who do you think is paying for that?
At the time Walmart made their RFID decree, the DoD had requested the same thing. Seems to me that should have been a big ol’ reg flag to Walmart that the technology was too young. The DoD is apt to push the envelope for emerging technologies and can pay the extra price to do so.
The price-slashing Wal-Mart on the other hand? I dunno, seems like a no-brainer.
And will fire those who won’t sign it. Only a start.
[As a part-time pharmacist at a Target store in St. Charles, Williams had refused to fill such prescriptions without incident for the past five years. But she also declined to refer physicians or patients to others who would fill such prescriptions.
“I just can’t be a link in the chain at all,” she said.](http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/F66D4B9D4D4E342E8625710300039083?OpenDocument)
THAT’S WONDERFUL!
I’ve been trying to get a small manufacturing concern off of the ground; wasn’t sure how to word the contracts (if I get that far) so that my products would never be sold at Wal-Mart (not that they’d really want it or couldn’t knock it off easily and bankrupt me if I complained). I won’t use RFID, so I can’t be at Wal-Mart. Hurray!
I live in a fairly small town (about 9500 people) and the only place to shop here is at the Wal-Mart Supercenter, where I also happen to work.
Good lord, sometimes I feel like I’m the smartest person who works there. They are SO big on “equality and non-discrimination” that they will literally hire anyone. They hire the lowest common denominator people. Not to be mean but you know how some people are just…not smart? They take forever to learn a simple task and forget things easily and generally walk through life in a constant state of stupor? Thats who they hire at Wal-Mart.
Also the pay is crap and they treat their employees like crap and the only reason I work there is because it’s practically the only place for a full-time college student to work in this town. In Wal-Mart’s defense, they do a great job of working around my class schedule, and the store that I work at is very clean.
Yes, the lines often get very long. We will regularly have all 20 registers open, and the six self checkouts open, and there will be still be lines. This goes back to the whole “Wal-Mart will hire anyone” thing. At least three of our cashiers are in their 80s, and the rest are retarted as hell. Cashier speed is based on your IPH number, which is the number of items you scan per hour. Store average is 409. Mine rarely drops below 650. It’s not hard to be fast but like I said, everyone that works there is stupid.
When I move to Manhattan, Kansas next year to continue my schooling, I am going to try to work at a Target instead of at Wal-Mart. It seems to be better based on what people in this thread have said, but I haven’t been to a Target more than three or four times in my life so I can’t really say.
According to this article, the sale of Mervyn’s went through last year for $1.65 billion (you have to read half way down the page for that info). And I had forgotten that Target also sold the Marshall Fields chain - a great store in Chicago!