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Worried about Wal-Mart -- and shopping anyway
Two recent stories about retailing giant Wal-Mart unleashed a flood of e-mails to MSN Money, and their message is an angry one.
By MSN Money staff
About 1,400 readers fired off replies after reading Forbes.com's "Wal-Mart's next victims" and CNBC's "With a small-town culture, Wal-Mart dominates," two stories detailing the Arkansas discounter's relentless growth.
Wal-Mart has its defenders, but they were greatly outnumbered by worried or outraged shoppers, employees and small businessmen. For many in rural areas, Wal-Mart is the only option left. Others simply can't resist the prices, even as they profess to detest the company.
Read a sampling of their comments below.
Wal-Mart's next victims
The world's largest retailing machine is always looking for new worlds to conquer. Here are 5 that look particularly vulnerable, including banking and electronics.
I have already been affected by the stranglehold Wal-Mart is putting on the grocery stores. I have two family members who work (husband now retired) in the grocery business that were involved in the five-month strike that recently took place. Contracts negotiated adopted the Wal-Mart two-tier system, paying new employees basically minimum wage as a starting salary. This came about because of the "super stores" that Wal-Mart is trying to build all over California, and the country at large.
If Wal-Mart is successful in their 'mowing down' of this country, then we will, in effect, become a ghost town business-wise, with virtually no ability to choose where we want to shop and what we want to buy.
Some cities are resisting Wal-Mart's efforts and have been successful (Inglewood being one here in California), but many others are not. The unions have been trying to make the American public aware of this for a long time -- because of the grocery strike, I think it is now coming to light. We must not let Wal-Mart be successful in their greedy endeavors.
Yes, Wal-Mart is big. Yes, Wal-Mart is successful. Yes, Wal-Mart has plans for this and plans for that, but nobody wants to admit they shop there. I work with high school and grammar school kids. They hate Wal-Mart. They call kids who wear cheap clothes "Wal-Mart kids. They would never ask their friends to meet them at Wal-Mart. At some point, the negative must catch up with the price-a-tive.
Although my example is a small one in terms of population, if kids all over the USA think like these kids do, then the future of retailing isn't Wal-Mart.
What will happen in the future as these kids have kids? Eventually, Wal-Mart will be seen as the place where the dumb, uneducated, no-money, no-good-jobs, stupid people shop. At some point, this is going to catch up to Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is working because that's what people want, plain and simple. With small children, I don't have to run to a bunch of different stores to get the items that I want. They have competitive prices and good service. Their pharmacy does their job in an expedient manner and isn't a huge hassle. If all of that's a problem for other retailers, then maybe they need to get their acts together.
Just like many Wal-Mart towns in America, we're considered a "small" town. The nearest Toys-R-Us is about one hour and 15 minutes away. The nearest electronics retailer of any decent size is 45 minutes away. Why on earth would I want Wal-Mart to go away? I have to admit that I used to think of Wal-Mart as a cheap store that sold inferior products. That was before I started shopping there more regularly and found out that it's a decent store and is convenient. It seems to me that the other stores are just whiners. It's called competition -- play the game guys and change your style if it's not working.
Oh, by the way, the grocery store complains about the Wal-Marts and Costcos selling food items -- why on earth is it then that I can buy patio furniture at the grocery store!
Why don't you comment on the fact that Wal-Mart is one of the largest importers of foreign goods? Can't blame either Republicans or Democrats if jobs move overseas. The only ones we can blame are ourselves for shopping at major import retailers like Wal-Mart. George Bush and John Kerry probably do little shopping at Wal-Marts and the like. When are consumers going to quit passing the buck on the responsibility of why jobs are going overseas?
In a very short period of time, consumers have made Wal-Mart the largest corporation in the world, per Fortune 500. Politicians didn't do that as much as consumers did. Some of the most profitable Wal-Marts are in the industrial states where unions also have a strong representation. So much for the argument that union people buy American made products. The figures just don't support that claim.
Your Forbes article portraying Wal-Mart as some kind of demon conglomerate set on the destruction of retail as we know it is a joke. What's wrong with a success story like Wal-Mart? If they were so bad, why are they so successful? Why do millions shop there? I shop there because I am sick and tired of the stupid gimmicks of the other chains like Fry's and Safeway and their silly "cards" that they make you sign up for to receive their so-called "discounts.
No, Wal-Mart is no-nonsense and that is what consumers like. Cheap prices, decent-quality products with no "discount" cards to carry around in your wallet before you can receive the discount. I long to see Fry's and Safeway be blasted into oblivion by the Alexander the Great of all shopping behemoths -- Wal-Mart the Supreme.
I despise what Wal-Mart has done to small-town America. Wal-Mart and its counterparts such as Super X, Revco and CVS have closed down almost all the mom-and-pop stores that once populated our small town of Harlan, Ky.
Their parking lots are always filled, and they laugh all the way to the banks they use in other cities -- certainly not the banks in small-town America. I try my best to stay out of those voraciously hungry consumers of everything that smacks of a gentler time in America.
If only Wal-Mart would get into the following industries: airlines, real estate, automobiles and health care. Then we could all afford live in America.
I don't know if Sam Walton is spinning in his grave, or dancing on it. I used to like shopping at Wal-Mart because of its "American-made" policy and the reasonable prices. I used to drive out of my way to shop there. Now, I drive out of my way to avoid shopping there.
They use shady tactics and unscrupulous methods to override the desires of communities who do not want them locating in their towns. I lived, and voted, in a town that voted down Wal-Mart three times and they blackmailed their way in anyhow. They sneer at the mom-and-pop stores and accuse "the little guys" of being paranoid of the competition. It isn't paranoia when you know that even when you have a loyal customer base, you can't compete with a company that undercuts your every move. They even put a stranglehold on military exchanges, citing, of all things, unfair competition.
Their employment practices are also an issue for me. I know that they do not always schedule enough employees for each department and they do not always promote the most qualified person. Shopping at a Wal-Mart store for my family is a last resort. We do not mind paying a few pennies more to get what we want, if it means not going to a Wal-Mart. They have taken a good thing (Sam Walton's dream) and corrupted it beyond all recognition.
I just want to say that I work for Wal-Mart and am proud of it. I have been with the company for 12 years. I have excellent benefits (85% covered by the company), I have dental, stock, 401(k). Yes, I work hard and could probably make a bit more somewhere else (state-certified horticulturist), but the company makes up for that with all the benefits. They treat the associates well and we are a "family. Every day someone asks me how I am doing, on a personal level. You don't get that from any other company.
With a small-town culture, Wal-Mart dominates
The company had to learn to do many things on its own because it started in little Bentonville, Ark., but that helped it become a retailing power. Has it gone too far?
Wal-Mart does a great job of spreading rhetorical comments and communicating through a very strong PR strategy that they are efficient, etc., while still earning huge profits, making their managers rich. The hypocrisy is so pervasive and part of the organization that most of the buying public just doesn't get it. It is a shame that Wal-Mart accomplishes all this through the mantra of being down-home folk, when they are in practicality absolutely antithetical to such an ideal.
I must admit that until last week, I was a hypocrite: hating Wal-Mart's huge corporate invasion strategy, but shopping there anyway (I think a lot of customers feel that way). The one-stop shopping seemed appealing to me. But this week I stopped. Anymore the store simply seems so much like an eerie corporate charlatan ready to slice the throat of any in its way, hypnotizing its host with claims of good deeds while draining it of its very essence."
You really dont want to know my opinion on Wal-Mart, but I will tell you this. I am a little independent grocery owner in the small town of Fulton, Miss. Our population in the city is around 3,400 and the county is around 10,000.
We had a regular Wal-Mart since 1979 (I think), but five years ago they opened a Super Center. It really hurt our business and nearly put us out! But we did a lot of praying and switching around our grocery programs. Now Wal-Mart will not match our ads and that has helped a whole lot. I hope now we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
My husband and I both work at our store and we have 21 employees to worry about. We also have three children to support and put through college. I get so sick of hearing how great Wal-Mart is! I hope one day they get too big for their britches and go under for what they have done to all the independents like us.
It scares me that only half of the country sees how dangerous Wal-Mart really is. For the first few decades, they concentrated on destroying small businesses. Now, as your article indicates, they're out to topple all retail businesses.
Many, if not most, retailers in our nation are unionized. How is it possible that not even a single Wal-Mart store has had a "vote" on whether to unionize? I'm not pro- or anti-union, but acknowledge that the unions have helped to raise the standard of living for millions of Americans.
What about all of the big class-action lawsuits against Wal-Mart? Why have they not come to trial? How can they be so powerful unless there is underlying corruption and payoffs?
They're not playing on a level field with other retailers, because they cheat, not because they are better.
You would have to have grown up and lived in one of the small communities being serviced by Wal-Mart to really appreciate its positive impact on the economy. Those people living in rural areas of America were at the mercy of small mom-and-pop stores that overcharged customers for products with little selection. Yes, maybe the mom-and-pop's were overcharged by the manufacturers, but it didn't keep most of them from being the ones living in the newest homes in town . . . the ones with the in-ground swimming pools . . . the ones whose children could afford college. Wal-Mart is the answer to rural America's underprivileged, both in terms of employment and in terms of living affordably. You could call it the "revenge of the poor." This issue also arises for those in the impoverished neighborhoods of our metropolitan areas.
The large corporations that have failed in the new economy find it easy to lay the blame at Wal-Mart's feet, but I don't buy that. I blame bloated incompetent executives for these companys' failures. I believe the media moguls can gross all they want to and can continue to throw dispersions, but the public will continue to support and rally behind those providing goods and services in a convenient way at a fair price.
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