WalMart is Pure Evil

Wal-Mart vs. CostCo

2008-07-01T08:08:00.002-07:00

Slate's article, Wage against the Machine details the case of Wal-Mart's employment practices against CostCo's.

It's not hard to make a case that Costco pays employees more. The most relevant comparison is between Costco and Sam's Club, Wal-Mart's membership warehouse, since both business models rely on membership fees for a large percentage of revenues. A Sam's Club employee starts at $10 and makes $12.50 after four and a half years. A new Costco employee, at $11 an hour, doesn't start out much better, but after four and a half years she makes $19.50 an hour. In addition to this, she receives something called an "extra check"—a bonus of more than $2,000 every six months. A cashier at Costco, after five years, makes about $40,000 a year. Health benefits are among the best in the industry, with workers paying only about 12 percent of their premiums out-of-pocket while Wal-Mart workers pay more than 40 percent.

(emphasis is mine).

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, pay, comparison

Wal-Mart Doesn't Care about Shoplifters

2008-07-01T08:03:00.002-07:00

Police say Wal-Mart snubbed efforts to cut shoplifting

Mesa police are using the equivalent of two full-time officers to answer shoplifting calls at Mesa Wal-Marts, but efforts to help the big-box retailer curtail theft have largely been pushed aside.

Thefts at Wal-Mart's seven Supercenters rose 89 percent from 2006 to 2007, police records show. Police estimate thefts will rise 117 percent this year if the January-through-May numbers continue at their current pace.

Police were called to Mesa Wal-Marts on 376 shoplifting thefts in 2007, with thieves generally targeting electronics, clothing, beauty products and alcohol.

The article goes on to describe some prescriptive measures Wal-Mart can take to help curtail the shoplifters but Wal-Mart has implemented exactly none of those suggestions. They appear to be happy to use two up two police officer positions to try and fight their internal crime.

Another example of Wal-Mart foisting costs on the locality where they are rather than doing it for themselves.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, theft, shoplifting, tag

Wal-Mart to Pay $1.60 Per Share for Adidas Copies

2008-06-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive: Adidas Poised to Win $1.60/Share on Wal-Mart Copycats

The world's second-biggest sporting-goods maker may collect at least $326 million in damages, the equivalent of $1.60 a share, if a jury agrees Wal-Mart copied Adidas's three-stripe sneakers by selling shoes with two- and four-stripe motifs as Payless did.[Note: Payless had to pay Adidas $304 million in May for infringement.]

Never let a little thing like copyright infringement stand in the way of profit taking, eh, Wal-Mart? Say goodbye to those profits.

Of course, $326 million is just a couple of days worth of revenue for the mega-giant corporation. But I would imagine shareholders are pretty damned pissed off about it nonetheless.

The fact that this is the third go-around where Wal-Mart's copied Adidas' design is a pretty good indicator of the mentality of the company and that they should pay a rather large sum in penalty.

I'm sure the Wal-Mart knockoffs just looked like Adidas and were made of crappy bottom end materials by sweatshop labor overseas, most likely in China. Heck, the shoes should probably be tested for lead.

Great news for Adidas, their brand security and future. Bad news for Wal-Mart's knock-off business model.

West Dundee, Illinois Residents Fight Against Wal-Mart

2008-06-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart Supercenter opposed in West Dundee

Citing concerns about traffic, noise pollution and around-the-clock deliveries, West Dundee homeowners rallied Monday night against plans for a Wal-Mart Supercenter slated for an undeveloped 31-acre site near Spring Hill Mall.

"It's not fair, it's not right, and I do not know a single redeeming value that Wal-Mart is going to bring to our village," resident David Stokes, 59, said at the meeting.About 100 people jammed into a fire station, where the Village Board moved the meeting in anticipation of the large crowd. The seven-member board decided Monday that it will vote on the plan next week.

Why let a little thing like being unwelcome stop the retail monster that is Wal-Mart from imposing itself anywhere they choose to? Answer, they don't let it stop them, Wal-Mart doesn't care what the residents think or want. They'll keep doing what they feel is best for their stockholders.

The Wal-Mart Effect

2008-06-01T08:36:00.002-07:00

Are Wal-Mart’s Products Normal?

Quoting from Emek Basker in the article.

In this note, I estimate the income elasticity of revenue for Wal-Mart and Target over the last ten years. Because some consumers are likely to view each discounter’s products as normal while others view them as inferior, the aggregate relationship could go either way and depends on the size of the two groups as well as on the magnitude of their elasticities of demand (positive and negative).

I find that demand for Wal-Mart’s products exhibits a negative income elasticity and Target’s demand exhibits a positive income elasticity … For the average consumer, then, it appears that shopping at Target is perfectly normal, but shopping at Wal-Mart is not.

"Given Basker’s estimates, it is probably no surprise that the current slowdown is good news for Wal-Mart, but bad news for Target."

One of the commenters notes that there really aren't substantial differences in price between a Target and Wal-Mart and that one of the reasons people do go to Wal-Mart when the stores are filthy is because they perceive it is a cheaper place to shop and the prices will be lower. When the reality is that its just a filthy store with disgruntled, underpaid and overexploited employees.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, Target, elasticity, recession

Roanoke Slips Wal-Mart's Fatal Embrace

2008-05-20T16:07:00.002-07:00

No Wal-Mart for Clearbrook area of Roanoke County though the reason for the pull-out isn't clear. The lawsuit brought about by the locals was thrown out of court and they'd resigned themselves to a big, ugly 24/7 soul-sucking Super Wal-Mart blighting their landscape.

I'm glad they prevailed against the retail megalith.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, Roanoke, blight

Worst Company in America Voting

2008-05-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

Round 41: Wal-Mart vs Citibank with Wal-Mart carrying a healthy 66% of the vote.

Some of the comments are excellent indictments of the company.

"To me Wal-Mart is the epitome of everything that is bad in our country right now. Outsourcing of jobs to China. Low quality dangerous goods. Putting mom and pop stores out of business and making the entire country look like a homogenized genericana wasteland."

"Walmart is actively evil. Eviscerating middle class family stores? Evil. Workers rights violations, shoddy pay, dangerous products made for the poor, ironically made by the poor of the third world. Evil. They make a profit off of screwing people over."

Let me be clear. If you shop at Wal-Mart then you are funding China's human rights abuses. If you shop at Wal-Mart then you are condoning the homogenization of America into schlock retail crap. If you shop at Wal-Mart then YOU are part of the problem.

Unwelcome, Wal-Mart Fights On

2008-04-15T08:40:00.002-07:00

City officials say they expect the megastore to appeal a decision blocking it from building on Lady's Island which is another way of saying that Wal-Mart still plans on imposing its unwelcome presence on yet another community that recognizes Wal-Mart for the cancer it is.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, appeal, zoning

Apple passes Wal-Mart in music sales? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

2008-04-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Apple passes Wal-Mart in music sales? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Still a rumor for now but its a good sign since Wal-Mart feels compelled to tell customers what they can and cannot listen to.

Retail censorship is wrong and another arrow for my quiver of reasons to never cross Wal-Mart's threshold.

The Many Reasons to Hate Wal-Mart

2008-03-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

A Stand Against Wal-Mart and, for Now, a Victory details the efforts of people in the town of Monsey, New York who have successfully thwarted the infestation of their locality with an enormous Wal-Mart. The reason the people of Monsey do not want a Wal-Mart is because they fear the influx of outside influences (lovely turn of phrase there).

There are many reasons to hate Wal-Mart. From the Walton family being tightwad billionaires to the exploitation of global supply chains to foisting healthcare costs on the neighborhoods and states to forcing employees to work overtime for free to sending massive amounts of money into China for poisoned and just badly made pre-landfill junk.

Don't limit yourself to just one, take the variety pack and hate Wal-Mart for a whole bunch of good reasons.

Japanese Wal-Mart Bleeding Money

2008-03-04T11:09:00.002-08:00

Life gets worse for Wal-Mart in Japan

The world's largest retailer did have a tough time in the big Asian market last year. The operation there said "it now expected to post a group net loss of 20.9 billion yen ($196 million) for calendar 2007, instead of its previous forecast for a loss of 10.4 billion yen, " according to Reuters. Same-store sales for the year dropped just over 1%.

Bad for Wal-Mart, bad for its shareholders but good for the universe in general.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, Japan, net loss

Wal-Mart Sucks, Officially

2008-03-04T10:28:00.002-08:00

Wal-Mart Ranks Lowest Among Discounters in Survey and even lost ground over the last year.

Customers may be increasingly dissatisfied with the goods Wal-Mart is carrying, said Claes Fornell, the professor who led the study. Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott has turned the company's focus back to groceries and household items after an ill-fated attempt to boost sales by luring fashion-conscious shoppers with silk camisoles and distressed jeans.

Which made no sense since nobody ever thought of Wal-Mart as the place to go for high quality (read that, high margin) items. Wal-Mart is the bottom of the barrel, is in lockstep with Chinese manufacturers and delivers low cost, low quality pre-landfill crap. Oh yeah, with crappy customer service and, usually, really messy and disgusting stores.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, survey, rank, dissatisfaction

Lawsuits, Fines and Exploitation, Oh My!

2007-12-30T14:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick round up of news.

From Minnesota: Hastings residents involved in lawsuit against Wal-Mart - more illegal wage shaving and abuse.

From California: Air board fines Wal-Mart $250,000 for noncompliant gas cans for the fourth time in the last few years.

From New York: Wal-Mart vigil protests wages, health benefits in that, this is a company that makes billions of dollars per year but refuses to pay for health care for its workers.

From Arizona: Group: Ornaments made in sweatshop in China, naturally. The National Labor Committiee said employees included children who were forced to work 16-hour shifts and were paid below the Chinese minimum wage.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, lawsuit, wage+abuse, healthcare

Wallyworld Whimpers Away from Video Download Service

2007-12-29T15:06:00.000-08:00

� Wal-Mart Quietly Drops Video Download Service because, well, it sucked and nobody used it. But, so long as your computer never dies, you are able to watch the movies you have purchased forever. But you can't transfer them to another machine or a portable player. And we all know hard drives never, ever fail, right?

Wal-Mart's attempted foray into video downloading was poorly conceived, poorly executed and has now been poorly canned.

We can only hope the rest of Wal-Mart's initiatives fail in similar fashion.

Wal-Mart Depresses Wages, Study Finds

2007-12-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

The Hometown Advantage - Wal-Mart Depresses Wages, Study FindsThe study "focuses on stores that opened between 1992 and 2000 and concludes, "Opening a single Wal-Mart store lowers the average retail wage in the surrounding county between 0.5 and 0.9 percent."

Currently, more than of Wal-Mart's employees earn less than $10 an hour.

Think about that for a moment. This is the world's largest company and the majority of its employees earn less than $10 an hour. They made $11.2 billion in profit last year, they can afford to pay a (more) livable wage. They choose not to because it would cut into their profits, which makes them greedheaded jerks.

That is both pitiful and infuriating.

The rest of the article has quite alot of interesing and useful information (among the juicy bits is the breakdown of raising their wages and the effect it would have on consumers, which is to say not much).

I'm not anti-Wal-Mart per se, I'm anti-exploitation and Wal-Mart is the world leader in worker, supplier, locality and consumer exploitation. And they do it on purpose to make every last penny they can for their stockholders.

A Succinct Indictment of Wal-Mart

2007-12-10T13:25:00.001-08:00

Co-Op American's Responsible Shopper Profile: Wal-Mart:

"'Always low prices', always low standards for corporate responsibility. Wal-Mart dominates the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican markets and is currently China's eighth-largest trading partner. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart confines its leadership to the realm of sales and in other areas promotes the attitude that virtually everything--products, workers, or even communities--can be disposable . Wal-Mart may drive prices down, but it drags the quality of life for millions of people down with it. With hundreds of employees dependent on public assistance to meet their basic needs, American taxpayers subsidize Wal-Mart's low prices at the rate of roughly $420,750 a year for every 200-employee store by paying for low-income services. Women working for Wal-Mart have been denied equal opportunities for advancement. Wal-Mart hurts U.S. communities by undercutting local merchants and increasing urban sprawl, and its suppliers have been cited for labor and human rights violations."

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, quality of life, violation

If It Doesn't Play At Home, Try It in Foreign Countries!

2007-12-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

Argentina: Wal-Mart Faces Accusations of Anti-union Practices

Not that accusations are anything new to Wal-Mart.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, Argentina, anti-union, accusation

The War Against Wal-Mart Roundup

2007-11-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

There are numerous skirmishes all over the nation and world where places do not want Wal-Mart to infest itself upon the populance. Here's a quick roundup of the action.

California: Solano Co.: Airport Land Use Commission Votes Against Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart may try to go smaller in Atascadero

Texas: The City Wins This Round in the Fight Againist Wal-Mart

Florida: Planning board blocks Venice-area Wal-Mart

That's it for this installment. More to come, as always.

[Update: Georgia: Wal-Mart makes its revised pitch Dec. 1 (thanks for the link and news, Bob, I had to use the AJC link because yours wasn't working for me).]

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, California, Texas, Florida

Wal-Mart Ordered to Pay Legal Fees

2007-11-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart to pay Pa. plaintiff legal fees

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) Stores Inc. has been ordered to pay $36.4 million in fees and expenses to attorneys representing Pennsylvania employees who won a class-action award for working off the clock.

The award entered in favor of the plaintiffs including fees and interest now totals $187.6 million, Common Pleas Judge Mark Bernstein wrote in an opinion issued Wednesday.

Which is an expensive and daunting precedent for all of the other class action lawsuits across the country.

Maybe Wal-Mart is starting to realize that screwing over employees is just bad business? Probably not.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, precedent, class action, forced overtime

Buyer Confusion is Wal-Mart's Gain

2007-11-05T22:39:00.000-08:00

How lame is Wal-Mart?

So lame that they had a knock off game made to look like a Wii remote controller so that confused parents might accidentally buy the piece of crap.

One of the Worst Toys Ever Made at a Wal-Mart Near You

File this one under confusion-based retailing.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, knock off, lame, Wii

One Down, Far Too Many To Go

2007-11-05T21:30:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart closing Clarksville, Texas store

I guess they'd bled the town dry and were ready to move on. Actually, the residents of the town petitioned against the closure which makes me think of Stockholm Syndrome.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, closure, one down, Stockholm Syndrome

Pretty Sneaky, Wally

2007-11-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

David versus Goliath: Austin residents take-on Wal-Mart

In the past, locals in an area targeted for retail assault by Wal-Mart have been able to get a headstart on the battle by keeping tabs on land purchases and zoning change requests. How very weasely of them!

But Wallyworld has learned a new trick, instead of buying the land, they lease it and let the landowner file the paperwork for them. It keeps them under the radar a bit longer and makes it that much harder to fight them.

Residents’ frustration over Wal-Mart’s hushed move-in was compounded by the city’s atypical approval process of Wal-Mart’s site plan. By granting the developer an “administrative” site permit instead of a “conditional use” permit—which RG4N says is required by city law because of Wal-Mart’s outdoor garden center—the city-council wasn’t required to hold a public hearing.

Wal-Mart will also stoop to lying to town councils about their personal culpablity (i.e. they are told that they will have to provide their own legal defense on their own dime, something that's pretty much never happened before).

Wal-Mart is the disease and information and the dissemination of their misdeeds and exploits is the cure.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, weasel, circumvention

Wal-Mart's Assault on Duluth Continues in Appeals

2007-10-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart battle continues with appeals board

On Wednesday night, the six-member citizen board will hear four appeals to several rulings about a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

Three come from residents challenging decisions made by Shelley Stiebling, former Interim Director of Planning. One comes from Wal-Mart itself, contesting the city's refusal to issue it a building permit.

"We don't think the city's planning department had the authority to reject this application," Sheppard [Wal-Mart's hired gun attorney] said.

I mean, really, how dare the town decide to deny a special variance for Wal-Mart to build a huge box store when the town's zoning laws require pitched roofs and particular building materials. Don't they know that Wal-Mart is always right? Silly citizens, I'm sure the high priced attorney from Wal-Mart will set them straight. Or not.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, Duluth, planning board, appeals

Wal-Mart Gets Victimized By Its Own Success

2007-10-24T11:41:00.001-07:00

Watch out for falling technology: Wal-Mart’s IT issues

“Wal-Mart today is caught between two worlds: Sam Walton’s, where a zealous commitment to ‘everyday low prices’ is enforced (despite Walton’s skepticism about computers) by IT-assisted decisions made in Bentonville, and a new global marketplace in which the retailer’s sheer size is not as big an advantage as it once was. Competitors such as Target and Tesco can match Wal-Mart in technological sophistication and surpass it by innovating in new retailing segments with higher-margin goods.”

Looks like it's time for a complete computer overhaul and upgrade. Not that it'll happen since the cost would run into the billions and the stockholders would never stand for it. So other retailers with better and more up to date systems will continue to chip away at Wal-Mart. Which is, of course, fine by me!

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, information technology, competition, innovation

Always Low Prices? Sort Of

2007-10-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart Price Differences

This is a good illustration of what a weasel company Wal-Mart is. The guy bought a DVD player at his local Wal-Mart for $139 and then found it on the Wal-Mart.com website for $127 with free shipping. He went back to ask for a price adjustment and they refused because, well, they already had his money.

Try doing the same thing at Target or another major retailer and they will almost certainly refund you the difference. Why? Because its good business to treat customers fairly.

Wal-Mart doesn't care about good business, they care about their profit margins.