here’s what walmart (and price chopper, and k-mart) do for their “great savings”
about 1-2 months in advance, they slowly mark the prices up… sometimes 10 cents, sometimes a dollar or two and it goes up until it’s about 50 cents under the brand name item… people buy the store brand because it’s still cheaper… at the same time they’re also increasing the costs of the brand name item around 15-30 percent… this spikes 2 weeks before the sale so that people see the sticker…
then they put the item “on sale”… and it’s still between 15 and 20 percent MORE than it was to begin with. Notice the “buy one get one” deals you’re only saving 50 cents to a dollar from the previous week if you’d have bought two of the item. it sucks but that’s the way it is.
I think WalMart asking companies they buy from to reduce packing and production costs is not a bad thing. I buy from local farmers markets whenever I can, but it’s just not practical on all things. Explain to me how Kroger jumped the price of milk from $3.49 gallon to $4.99/gallon in a week, but at Sam’s or Walmart it is still $2.75-$3.00? Same thing with cereal - box of cereal at Kroger went up to $3.99 and at Walmart still $2.66. My Arnold Whole Wheat Bread is almost $4 at Kroger and still $1.89 at Walmart. Our Walmart bring in palets of fresh veggies and fruit they buy from farmers. The “locally grown” at my Giant comes from Florida or Pennsylvania. I get that small stores don’t buy in bulk and cannot compete with Walmart, but I don’t see Walmart any differently than our SuperTarget, SuperKMart or PetSmart. All of these came in and drove small locally owned shops out of business, increased traffic, required widening of the road, new stop lights, broke water mains etc all that taxpayers had to fix. Now there’s no money in the budget to come out and pave my road.
When walmart forces a supplier to lower costs where do you think the lowered costs come from? They don’t just say ‘oh, we used to charge $1.00 for this, walmart wants it cheaper, so we’ll now only charge $.90.’ And poof, prices lowered!? No, they cut costs so they [I]can[/I] lower the price. That may be by using lower quality ingredients, going to a cheaper laboring source (child labor maybe?), or cutting out inspections.
When walmart lowers prices, the quality of the item is also lowered. Lots of companies that supply product to walmart have a separate production line just for the low-cost walmart stuff. If you’ve ever been a regular shopper for a specific item at walmart, chances are you’ve noticed a degradation of quality on that item over the years.
I’d hate to find out just how they lower costs on a gallon of milk. :shock:
The article at the beginning of the post explained it this way…
How? By pressuring vendors to take costs out of the supply chain.
“When our grocery suppliers bring price increases, we don’t just accept them,” says Pamela Kohn, Wal-Mart’s general merchandise manager for perishables. To be sure, Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) isn’t the only retailer working to cut fat from the food chain, but as the largest grocer - Wal-Mart’s food and consumables revenue is nearly $100 billion - it has a disproportionate amount of leverage.
I know there are a lot of Walmart haters out there…Have you ever noticed how many threads have been started about Walmart? kinda funny why a store would be so controversial… I guess I just think that they provide a good service to a lot of consumers, especially those on a fixed income… not to mention provide jobs to many who may not be able to find work…I think I heard that 3,000 people lined up in the Chicago area to apply for jobs there…it can’t be all that bad…
“When our grocery suppliers bring price increases, we don’t just accept them,” says Pamela Kohn, Wal-Mart’s general merchandise manager for perishables.
:!!!:they don’t just accept them??!? SO the supplier has to eat the increased cost of shipping (from every aspect of producing food products. feed for animals, shipping produce seeds ect) so that WM can make another buck.
I try my damnedest to NOT shop there. We buy most of our groceries from Win Co, Saar’s, or Albertson. WM has never saved us much on our grocery bill, and they almost never have everything we are looking for the few times we did shop there. Ive tried to convince my sister about this, but she is just sure that WM is cheapest (just because she can get Pantene cheapest there:??) I think I have about 6 different grocery stores within 5 miles (and countless more within 10 miles) so i have no reason to shop for my groceries there. Thank God!
not only are their suppliers expected not to increase their prices, often their contracts require them to reduce their prices over the length of the contract. Some companies have bankrupted themselves trying to meet the lower price and others just move offshore and layoff their American workforce.
The funny thing is I don’t even shop at Walmart… but I just believe they are no different than Target…
IMHO
If Wal-Mart is so bad, why do 100 million Americans shop there every week? Is a third of the population too dumb to know they’re acting against their own interests?
Wal-Mart employs 1.3 million people in this country. Yes, their wages are low, by and large. But if they could find better jobs, why are these people working at Wal-Mart? If Wal-Mart didn’t exist, why do you think they’d be paid higher wages?
Do small businesses - the fabled “mom and pop” stores you hear so much about - have a right to remain in business, even though they charge people more than Wal-Mart does for the same products? If so, what other professions have a right to charge above-market prices for their goods and services? Do I have a right to double my salary as a talk show host, regardless of how many people watch my show?
You attack Wal-Mart’s desire to beat its competitors. But how is it different from any other company’s competitive desire? How is it different from any professional athlete’s?
If Wal-Mart is so bad, why do 100 million Americans shop there every week? Is a third of the population too dumb to know they’re acting against their own interests?
…There are way too many reasons to list for this, and none of them are as simple as they are “too dumb.” I bet a lot of those people know that Walmart is not a good company. However, for some people, unfortunately their prices are the only ones they can afford because in some areas of the country, Walmart is the best deal. And a lot of people don’t think in the long run. All they care about is feeding their family on a budget, not about the state of the U.S. or world economy.
Yes, Walmart provides over a million jobs. But the conditions under which some of the jobs are worked are awful. So why should people support a company that has such policies? Why not push for a higher wage and better working conditions? Why should those people have to settle? Companies don’t have to be an awful employer in order to be successful. Research the company Patagonia. Working there would be awesome.
Me, too, you guys. I ALWAYS come out with more stuff from our local Kroger store, ALWAYS.
Then, again, I don’t have to have certain name brand items every week. I just get what’s on sale and stock up on those items for future use. And I use coupons from the Sunday paper which they double up to a buck.
Plus time is short for me these days. I don’t have 20 minutes to wait in line at Wally World.
In some places, walmart is the only place people have for shopping unless they drive an hour or so to another town. In effect, they’re forced to because the stores that existed before wm came in are no longer there.
It’s a matter of scale - yes Target is big but not compared to Walmart.
IMHO
often they have no choice. those that do, do not realize or do not care.
when 25% of our workforce was unionized, that was 50% of the population getting union wages and benefits since companies had to give their non-union workers similar wages to compete for labor. Now the unions have been so decimated since Reagan declared war on them, real wages have stagnated. Why do you think people should not be able to earn a living wage at any job they do? Doesn’t everyone deserve to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of what they do for a living?
Walmart often goes into a community, lowers their prices to the point of even losing money until the competition disappears, then raises prices again.
There is a difference between competing on even ground and unfair competition where Walmart gets tax breaks, special considerations, etc that others do not.
And the walmart discussion is never ending? don’t ya think??
procurement and labor practices that, according to the McKinsey consulting group, made Wal-Mart responsible for about 25 percent of the nation’s astonishing productivity increases in the 1990s. The low prices made possible by these practices have made Wal-Mart a significant contributor to low inflation. Warren Buffett says Wal-Mart has contributed more than any other company to today’s economic vigor.
Walmart accounts for 50% of American productivity growth over Europe in the last decade…
Productivity growth reduces poverty… we are all against poverty , right??
In free markets there are winners and losers… no business venture is guaranteed success… unless in you want a socialistic/communist society
I’m not trying to argue, but I just have to say something. Those little “mom and Pop” places aren’t always so great. I live in a fairly small town, and I love it, but it’s one of those places where if you’re not from here, you’re pretty much an outsider. Even though, I pay taxes, and make my home here, every time I’ve tried to shop at the little shops down town, I get treated the same way. All the little buddies, and old friends get together and talk with the owners, and I’m just left to fend for myself. And don’t think I don’t notice the “who the __are you?” looks that I get.
So, yes. I shop at Walmart and Kroger. Why should I pay extra to go into a little shop, and get treated like that? At least at chain stores, we’re all on equal footing.
Please don’t be mad at me. You’re all intitled to your own opinion, but I’m intitled to mine, too.
No need to apologize… free markets mean that we all get to spend our dollars wherever we want… without intimidation…I look at it as a right to vote for who is meeting the consumer’s (the little guy)
needs… the winner is the business who meets the consumers needs,whoever that may be… that way the winner is really the consumer (the little guy)…
In my opinion there is too much negative propoganda about Walmart
But that is just my opinion…I would never say we must all shop at Walmart…just don’t make the ones that want to feel bad about it…
But it’s okay to come on here and make people who dislike Wal-Mart and will not shop there for whatever reason feel bad about their opinion by posting Wal-Mart’s own propaganda?
Or is it only considered propaganda because you don’t agree with it? Do you consider the personal experiences other people have had with Wal-Mart that have been posted in this thread propaganda, too, because it doesn’t fit with your view of Wal-Mart?
People who don’t like Wal-Mart are entitled to their opinions just as much as you are entitled to yours. I don’t think you’re going to convince the world to stop hating on Wally World. I have not seen anyone in this forum intimidating another poster to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. The last time I was at Wal-Mart, I didn’t see people lined up outside trying to intimidate shoppers to not shop there, either. So I don’t understand where you get this from.
You said this:
free markets mean that we all get to spend our dollars wherever we want… without intimidation…
Free markets also mean that people are free to choose not to spend their dollars wherever they want…without intimidation.
just need to point out socialism and communism is not the same thing. there are democratic countries that have strong social programs. ie universal healthcare
If you read my posts you will see I support your position…free markets mean that we are all free to spend our dollars wherever we like…and we are all free to voice our opinion… I welcome you voicing your opinion. In fact in the above post I said “I would never say that everyone should shop at Walmart” I just felt a little bad that that lady was afraid someone would be mad because she liked to shop at walmart…so I was directing that last post to her…
I actually have found that I can save substantially on a number of items at WalMart. Plus, they have a larger selection than my regular/regional grocery stores around here. Since I am feeding 1 person, I’ll often buy microwave meals. Not the healthiest, I know, but definitely a convenience. They’re regularly 50 cents cheaper per item at WalMart. My veggie burgers? 50 cents cheaper per box at Walmart. If prices go up at WalMart, they’re usually also going up at the regular grocery stores.
I’m not too crazy about their employment practices, and I have a lot of friends who only go there in “emergency” situations (where it’s a choice of WalMart or a 50 mile drive one way for an item). Like someone upthread mentioned, too, there’s a nice anonymity to the chain stores in small towns which is helpful for newcomers.
Does Wal-Mart supports the free market? Honestly I think it destroys it. To have a free market you need competition. Wal-Mart wants to destroy competition and be a monopoly. Some people have said that there is no other choice for them than Wal-Mart. It’s scary! What’s the difference with a communist country where you need to get all your groceries at the only government-ran store available in your area? None. Instead of giving your money to a communist government (that you didn’t choose in general), you give your money to a single, insanely rich company (managed by a CEO you didn’t choose) who is protected by a pseudo-democratic government. That’s not a free market at all!:shrug: