Summary:
Wal-mart, the world's largest company, prides itself with a bright yellow smiley face leading millions of America's hard working consumers to a place of low price merchandise.
Jeannette Brewer
English 98
E. Spies
April 28, 2006
WALMART
THE WORLDS LARGEST COMPANY
Wal-mart, the world's largest company, prides itself with a bright yellow smiley face leading millions of America's hard working consumers to a place of low price merchandise.
Shoppers can buy everything from clothing, shoes, cleaning supplies, health and beauty aids, as well as food. They also have a large selection of home decor items, electronics, home improvement projects, automotive, garden, and so much more. Customers can save time by filling their prescriptions at the pharmacy, or visiting the eye doctor at the optical center, as well as getting new tires or an oil change for their vehicle. Wal-mart has become a convenient one stop shop and is the answer to anyone on a tight budget.
The secret to Wal-mart's success is due to the fact that they have leveraged their volume buying power with their suppliers, negotiated the best price from its vendors, and never compromises on commitment and quality merchandise. In addition, with Wal-mart's cutting edge technology of the cross - docking system, this has enabled them to track how people shop, and also allows them to buy and deliver goods more efficiently. As a result, by containing these costs, this allows Wal-mart to pass these huge savings onto their customers, therefore giving them those "every day low prices" they love.
Today Wal-mart has emerged as the industry's leader and the world's largest company. Besides 3,700 stores nationwide, they also have 1,500 stores throughout the rest of the world, and employ 1.6 million associates worldwide. The Wal-mart divisions include, Wal-Mart Supercenters, Discount Stores, Neighborhood Markets, and Sam's Club Warehouses. This mega- retailer is bigger than Exxon/Mobil, General Motors, and General Electric. Wal-mart's monthly revenue is larger than Sears, K-mart, JC Penny, Safeway and Kroger combined. They sell in three months what Home Depot sells in one year. Wal-Marts strategic sales and planning have made them the largest retailer in history.
On the contrary, these "every day low prices" have a tremendous impact on our environment, our workers, our wages, and in our communities. There is no doubt that Wal-mart is accelerating the loss of American jobs to lower wage countries such as China. At a salary rate of only 50 cents an hour, or 100 dollars a month, Chinese labor is an unbeatable bargain, not just for Wal-mart, but for all international business.
For several years now, Wal-Mart has been the single largest U.S. importer of Chinese consumer goods. Global outsourcing is now fully integrated into the company's operations, thus giving Wal-Mart, enormous leverage world wide. In fact, seventy percent of non-food items sold at Wal-mart have a Chinese component. The company imports an estimated 18 billion dollars in products from China each year. Furthermore, experts believe that Wal-Mart is China's eighth largest trading partner, therefor importing more goods than entire countries, such as England and Russia. Gary Geraffi, a Duke University professor, says "Wal-Mart and China are a joint venture, and both are determined to dominate the U.S. economy as much as they can in a wide range of industries.
To emphasize, now that Wal-mart dominates the consumer market so thoroughly, their pressure and presence simply crush the suppliers they do business with, forcing them to send jobs overseas. In addition, to survive these pricing demands manufacturers from blue jeans to electronics have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products overseas.
Wal-mart believes that they are raising the standard of living through lowering the cost of goods for consumers. Nevertheless, consumers are also workers -- who need to make a decent standard of living. However, the dynamics that create lower prices at Wal-mart, and other places are undercutting the ability of many workers to earn decent wages and benefits, along with having a stable life. With Wal-Mart refusing to pay its workers a family-sustaining wage, competitors and suppliers come under pressure to reduce their own wage and benefits costs to remain competitive.
Experts say we are shopping our way to the unemployment line -- fearing that someday
Wal-mart will have gobbled up all the local stores and there will not be anywhere else to shop. Truly, this may be an unrealistic fear. Yet, the new Wal-mart Super Centers, which have doubled in size during 1993, and again in 1994, will most likely make Wal-mart the nation's largest grocery retailer in the next few years. All in all, the United States is experiencing a race to the bottom- with Wal-Mart leading the way.
This is the complete article, containing 746 words
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