Razor Blades and Wal Mart

[MossRoad]

It's interesting to me that there has been several posts about lower paid workers knowing what they were getting when they signed on, but nobody comments on a CEO making $30 million.

One of the local banks has been in business over a hundred years and had their best year in 2008. They made about $3.3 million dollars. So one CEO has made 10x the earnings of a bank that has been in business for 100 years....

O.K. then.... At what $ number do you say someone is making too much?

If someone offered you $100,000.00 to work, would you take it?

What if they offered you $500,000.00?

At what $$ number would you stop taking the money and tell them that is enough?

 

[jinman]

Walmart grocery is the cheapest around me, but it's too big a pain to go there just for groceries, plus you have to park a half mile away.

I think I know what you mean by "park a half mile away." Of course, I don't think you ever park even 1/4 mile away from the front of the store. I don't think I've ever seen a Walmart or Sam's with the farthest point in the parking lot being more than 1000' away from the front of the store. At my local Walmart, I regularly park no more than 100' from the door and almost never exceed 200' from the front door. At a bigger store where we sometimes go, the average distance is probably 250' to 350' from the door.

The reason I'm making any issue of this is that statements like yours get quoted too many times on one-sided websites. You know, sites like walmartsucks.org. I won't even go to a site like that. I know what's going to be there by just reading the name.

I think you have a point that Walmart can be a busy place and we all want that first or second spot in the parking lot. There's a natural dread when I see a parking lot full of cars. I try my best to stay away from Walmart on Friday afternoons and all day Saturdays. I pulled into Walmart yesterday and got the first space nearest to the door. My wife wanted me to buy a lottery ticket on the way home.

 

[scott_vt]

The reason I'm making any issue of this is that statements like yours get quoted too many times on one-sided websites. You know, sites like walmartsucks.org. I won't even go to a site like that. I know what's going to be there by just reading the name.

Good Mornin Jim,
I dont really think I want to get involved in an argument about the good or bad of a particular store ! But I did hear on the news yesterday that Walmart was giving out millions of dollars to its employees in the form of bonus checks !

 

[kthompson]

I do buy from Wal Mart, but will from local store first if possible. As to their produce, here some of Wal Mart's is coming from local farmers, know them. They have their labels on the melons and such. Now, they say it is not how many they deliver to Wal Mart they get paid for, only how many their computers show they sold. No doubt Wal Mart can not use the person who only had an acre of this crop or such. This week was in Wal Mart and needed a computer cable. Looked at what they had and thought..Office Depot will have better selection. Had none at all. So went to Radio Shack, they were also out of the cables. Trip back to Wal Mart to pick up the cable I was hold an couple of hours earlier.

Now for you price shoppers, did you know that each Wal Mart has some flexibility in setting the price for their store? Did you know each store competes with the others? If you have more than one store and buying high price item, shop it. As to benefits, at least with regards to health insurance the states of SC and NC place 30 hours a week as full time for health insurance benefits. No idea on other benefits.

 

[chh]

My Dad always got a kick out comments when the 70+ year old locally owned hardware, appliance(sales and repair) and misc bit of everything store went out of business 2 months or so after Wal mart opened it first little store in our town. Everyone screamed that WM ran them out. WM didn't even compete with them in the market except on small bolts, tools and maybe toasters. Dad always claimed he was escaping before the lynch mob figuired out how much he had been ripping of people over the years. They employed 5 or 6 people total, paid next to nothing in wages or taxes and charged exhorbitant prices. Walmart employeed about 50, had to pay to get hooked up to services. The city refused to help hook them up like they did for any other company, because they where out of the city limits by a few yards. Of course the city annexed them in as soon as construction was finished. Of course the owner retired after he divided the building up and ir currently rents it out to 3 other small businesses now.

It is a comical situation in a way, the city leaders all claimed WM would destroy the small business's, be a burden on the city services, ect, ect. The sales tax they have collected has done more for the city than anything else they could have ever done. Money that was being spent in larger towns, was suddenly being spent at home, more people where working and soon more small business opened up in town selling thing that did not necessarily compete with WM and some that do in a way.

 

[MossRoad]

I think I know what you mean by "park a half mile away." Of course, I don't think you ever park even 1/4 mile away from the front of the store. I don't think I've ever seen a Walmart or Sam's with the farthest point in the parking lot being more than 1000' away from the front of the store. At my local Walmart, I regularly park no more than 100' from the door and almost never exceed 200' from the front door. At a bigger store where we sometimes go, the average distance is probably 250' to 350' from the door.

The reason I'm making any issue of this is that statements like yours get quoted too many times on one-sided websites. You know, sites like walmartsucks.org. I won't even go to a site like that. I know what's going to be there by just reading the name.

I think you have a point that Walmart can be a busy place and we all want that first or second spot in the parking lot. There's a natural dread when I see a parking lot full of cars. I try my best to stay away from Walmart on Friday afternoons and all day Saturdays. I pulled into Walmart yesterday and got the first space nearest to the door. My wife wanted me to buy a lottery ticket on the way home.

I don't think I've ever seen a Walmart parking lot that is over 200 yards long, really. But I do enjoy complaining!!!!

I remember when a Meijer's store came to town (think Walmart, only cleaner) and some local tade unions were picketing and crabbing because the contractor company wasn't union. They put on radio commercials about why would anyone want to shop there in "Aisle after agonizing aisle".

 

[Bird]

did you know that each Wal Mart has some flexibility in setting the price for their store?

I've had no idea how much flexibility they have, and I really haven't paid much attention to the higher priced items, but I can't avoid seeing the signs and differences in their gasoline prices and produce prices. And of course, I never knew whether it was individual managers who had the flexibility or whether the home office dictated different prices.

It used to be that you could quite easily negotiate prices on things, such as major appliances, at Sears and J.D. Penny.

 

[Scooby074]

On top of their questionable labour practices, Walmart is leading the downward spiral in manufacturing and quality in general. Look on their shelves... mostly china products. Dont kid yourselves, they've played a major role in forcing manufacturing to go offshore or lower quality. Look at Stanley, once they stood for something, now its crap. I wont buy new chinese stanley, but ill use the US made hand tools handed down to me by my carpenter grandfather

I dont know if anyone bothered to read the link i posted in #79, but it shows Walmart's mentality... Cheaper, no mater what the cost to your business or reputation.
From the Article :

"Wier is too judicious to describe it this way, but he looked into a future of supplying lawn mowers and snow blowers to Wal-Mart and saw a whirlpool of lower prices, collapsing profitability, offshore manufacturing, and the gradual but irresistible corrosion of the very qualities for which Snapper was known. Jim Wier looked into the future and saw a death spiral."

""As I look at the three years Snapper has been with you," he told the vice president, "every year the price has come down. Every year the content of the product has gone up. We're at a position where, first, it's still priced where it doesn't meet the needs of your clientele. For Wal-Mart, it's still too high-priced. I think you'd agree with that.

"Now, at the price I'm selling to you today, I'm not making any money on it. And if we do what you want next year, I'll lose money. I could do that and not go out of business. But we have this independent-dealer channel. And 80% of our business is over here with them. And I can't put them at a competitive disadvantage. If I do that, I lose everything. So this just isn't a compatible fit."

The Wal-Mart vice president responded with strategy and argument. Snapper is the sort of high-quality nameplate, like Levi Strauss, that Wal-Mart hopes can ultimately make it more Target-like. He suggested that Snapper find a lower-cost contract manufacturer. He suggested producing a separate, lesser-quality line with the Snapper nameplate just for Wal-Mart. Just like Levi did"

 

[Bird]

Jason, it seems to me that you think Jim Weir is a good guy (for not selling to Walmart?) and Walmart is the bad guy. Am I missing something?

Weir mentions he had to drive around hunting a parking space? What does that have to do with anything? Does he think they should have had valet parking for someone of his importance?

And then the offices were just not furnished plush enough for a man of his importance. I guess he thinks Walmart should be spending more money on fancy offices and equipment (as he and many, many other CEOs do) even if it does mean they'll have to charge consumers more for their products.

One place in the article mentions that Weir is a "man who dresses casually" but then it also mentions him "dressed in a suit" sitting on a chaise lounge at Walmart.

He mentions that he "felt I owed them a visit to tell them why we weren't going to continue to sell to them." Wonder why he didn't send a letter with an explanation. My guess is that he hoped to convince them to come up to his price and keep selling to them. Otherwise, why would he have been "uncomfortable" and perspiring?

Now for Snapper, it says "the productivity of every factory worker is measured "every hour, every day, every month, every year", productivity is 3 times what it was 10 years ago, only half as many people working there now, and they've cut out the middle man; i.e., did away with 52 regional distributors. An ignorant person, such as myself, might get the impression Weir was trying to be a capitalist, like Walmart, and make a profit.

Now of course, Weir, as with any other manufacturer, had the right to refuse to sell to Walmart; nothing wrong with that. He had the right to set his own prices. But Walmart also had the right to request what, in their judgment, their customers want and are willing to pay for. I can't see this as a good guy/bad guy scenario; just a business decision on the part of each company.

 

[JohnDeere4300]

News about the evil uncaring Walmart: Wal-Mart awarding $2B to U.S. hourly employees, report says - USATODAY.com. I wonder how many other companies are awarding profit sharing and bonuses to their employees. Mine sure isn't!

You must not have read why they gave those bonuses out.

One reason was because 77% of people that start working for them, will quit within a year, and they are getting to a point that they can't hardly get anyone to work for them.

They main reason was, because Walmart employees are on food stamps.
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Why does it say in this link that the workers are worse off today, than they were 4 years ago??????????


Wal-Mart痴 Wages Increase in China, Rollback in US