The Wal-Mart Effect

Wal Mart is just the result of a world where price and efficiency is the main religion, but it creates value for the consumer and therefore it is good for the market and the people. The company is public and respects the rules of the game, like any other institution.
It would be interesting to see if the performance would change dramatically if the system opens up.

Alessandro Da Corta’ Author of Vincere la sfida del Retail Management, Franco Angeli, Milan, March 2006.

My biggest beef with Wal-Mart is the way it allows Western shoppers to save money at the expense of others. I rang a Salvation Army bell outside a Wal-Mart this past Christmas season and a significant number of customers had no apparent need to buy things at such a discount. They obviously had money, evidenced by the cars they drove and clothes they wore, so their desire to shop at Wal-Mart was driven more by greed than need.

When this happens it merely serves to widen the gap between those who "have" and those who "have not." Allowed to play out, that scenario can only spell trouble in the future.

As a former retailer I know quite well Wal Mart's strength. When they moved across the street from me my low end business disappeared. Let me digress. Prior to Walmart moving in I was selling 75-100 $99.95 AM/FM stereo cassettes installed in your car per month. This business paid my overhead and I was doing quite well. When WalMart moved in my sales fell from 75 per month to less than 6. It destroyed my business. With the advantage of a 10-12 year look back I can see that even though it wasn't good for me, it was good for the consumers(my customers). They got a little better deal from Wal Mart, and even though I had to close the doors, our economic system spoke loud and clear. Wal Mart had the better deal. We have the best economic system in the world, the one that customer votes with his pocketbook, forget whether or not the customer is conservative or liberal, what he cares about is himself, not me or you or Wal Mart or anyone else. It is my opinion that in the long run Wal Mart will become bloated like Sears and a faster gun will displace them as the next giant in our ever changing economic system. Cheers to Wal Mart for their bringing the best price to their customers.

Businesses cannot compete with low prices. You have to offer something better than Walmart to survive.

wal mart cuts cost by forcing production of lower quality products. Tools get built with plastic parts instead of the metal parts used in the slightly higher priced same brand, same tool sold by the small dealer down the street. Don't for a minute think they are giveing equal value for equal pricing. Their service, and their ability to provide the service is weak at best. The jobs they displace are not recreated in kind or value. Their business model is set to stomp the community rather that build it up.
In general the big box effect is hurting our long term outlook.
I will give into the fact that they,... well, they don't so forget it.

Wal-mart is good for the consumer. its good for a local economies too, if you sell a product or service that compliments thiers.

You can compete with Wal-mart if you don't compete on price but with service, have a niche and carry higher quality products.

In less than 50 years Walmart has gone from a startup to where it is. Someone new will eventually come along and displace them.

I question the ingenuousness of the comments by "smoothie". The key problem is that over the past 20 years Wal-Mart has convinced consumers in America that low price is synonymous with best value, and this is simply not the case. Going by the Wal-Mart focus exclusively on price, the unspoken philosophy is that the objective of life is to purchase the maximum quantity of goods possible. It is my sincere hope that most if not all Americans realize that this is NOT the path to maximum happiness and fulfillment. Efficiency is good and admirable, but it cannot come at the expense of ethics, decency and good. In time, mainstream Americans will come to realize this and the power of Wal-Mart will be diminished.

They obviously had money, evidenced by the cars they drove and clothes they wore, so their desire to shop at Wal-Mart was driven more by greed than need.

Possibly they have money because they don't spend more than they need to for commodity products.

The comment about the salmon is the typical red herring that Wal-Mart bashers inject into this donnybrook of claims and counterclaims.

Those "farm-raised" salmon go through the same process, whether they're sold at Wal-Mart or any of the chain supermarkets. (To be fair, I've heard frequent criticisms about fish that are "farm-raised" instead of caught wild -- but that has nothing to do with Wal-Mart, any more than all the other places (and there are many) that sell the same fish, but charge more.)

To accuse Wal-Mart of being evil because their price is lower typifies the bias and unfairness of those who object to their way of doing business.

If you want to make a case (for or against Wal-Mart), stick to objective facts -- not emotional appeals or distorted statements that come from biased sources.

Wal-Mart is neither a disease nor is it evil. Wal-Mart is a successful business that thrives because it fills the needs of consumers. The problems blamed on Wal-Mart are due to the irresponsible buying habits of the American consumer. Consumers do not think about the consequences of where and what they buy. I don’t think that people ever think about what has to happen so that they can buy a widget for $1 at Wal-Mart, a widget that costs $5 everywhere else. Only when the American consumer buys responsibly will the problems erroneously associated with Wal-Mart be addressed.