10 posts tagged “wal-mart”

There was a great hew and cry when Wal-Mart dropped its layaway service and the impact that would create for their poorer customers. Looks like layaway has moved online, but that probably will not help those lower economic bracket customers. Springwise reports that although there are no really big online retail players involved yet, the service looks promising. Customers pay a percentage upfront and when they complete paying eLayaway the goods get delivered. 

Steven Silvers at scatterbox writes that Wal-Mart must use advertising to keep its reputation from falling further. The three main reasons given are: its the only wany to communicate with masses of people without being torn to shreds,  it has become poliitcal fodder, and  the attacks are hurting their bottom line. 

This is the end of an exchange about whether or not Wal-Mart is having a management crisis. Makes an interesting read, but the Business Week online columnist comes off as an apologist for Wal-Mart in this exchange.

Blue Nile is an online diamond merchant that is rising the hackles of a lot of jewelery stores. The New York Times article on Blue Nile also mentions the entrance of Wal-Mart, Costco and other big box stores aiming at the low end of the diamond market for the  impact on the mainline stores. The NYT also says that Blue Nile is having little impact on the top diamond sellers - Tiffany & Co., and Zales. "So far, the Blue Nile effect has been felt mainly by mom-and-pop jewelers on Main Street and in malls; much bigger, high-end retailers like Tiffany have been affected only on the margins. And Blue Nile’s influence is limited largely to diamond sales, particularly diamond ring sales, but those are often the cash cow for smaller jewelers, accounting for a disproportionate share of their revenue." A bit later, "many smaller jewelers have been threatening to boycott wholesalers that supply online retailers. At the same time, consultants have been earning a handsome living advising retailers struggling to compete with Blue Nile — teaching them to “romance the stone,” as one consultant, Shane Decker, put it, using industry-speak for stressing the whole diamond-buying experience over merely the price."

MSN Money points out that Wal-Mart's energy bills over a year would power the entire country of Chile. It is a $1 billion expense and Wal-Mart is doing something about it. Over the next two years, a couple of Wal-Mart stores implementing some energy saving shifts will be monitored by The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Some of the things Wal-Mart is testing, and or looking at, include LED lighting for display and freezer cases, evaporative cooling, solar panels, waterless urinals, and sensor-activated sinks.

A few items below is a bit on MS giving away laptops loaded with Vista to bloggers who are big enough, powerful enough, and willing to sell their credibility in exchange for favorable reviews of Vista (an operating system that TOTALLY screws up any computer with preexisting microslut systems on it) so they can get positive reviews.  B.L. Ochman points out, that once again, the three-ring whore master behind this caper is none other than Edelman, the folks who brought you the Wal-Mart flog.  

I saw this report on MSNBC and my immediate take was, yes, you ignorant fool, he would shop there. If these ministers are too damn dumb to get it, maybe they should turn in their pulpits and figure the following out:

First, Wal-Mart makes it possible for a lot of income strapped families to have a Christmas of any kind. Too bad Wal-Mart did away with their layaway plan that helped serve these strapped customers. Jesus would be walking among them and shopping there were he of them, although I think the idea of Christmas as we have it today would be abhorrent to him.

Second, no one working at Wal-Mart left a better job to work there.

Third, if Wal-Mart was not employing these people, they would be unemployed (or working an equally miserable job at some fast food operation). Were they unemployed, see number one.

Too bad some good ministers are being sucked into a quagmire they do not understand by political web spinners who do not like Wal-Mart because of their own agendas. God forgives fools, even those from the clergy.

I wonder how many of these employees can even register the fact that were it not for Wal-Mart employing them, they would be unemployed. Not a one of them left a better job of any kind to work there, did they? I guess they like cutting off the hand that feeds them. 

The Economist's Free Exchange blog has a weighty piece on why the chain stores are good for local economies. Given the San Diego City Council's myopic decision to bar Wal-Mart superstores, they might need to read this article as a refresher in retailing and the benefits of these stores. There is a comment posted in followup and it echos exactly what I saw in Gunnison, Co, when Wal-Mart moved in. The old-line businesses that survived their coming had put pencil to paper and figured out how to niche Wal-Mart and did it well. They, at least, read the writing on the wall, figured out what to do and did it. Those that didn't got hurt because they refused to adapt to the changing situation. My only gripe about Wal-Mart is why are their parking lots always the most trashed of the large stores?

In a separate posting, Wal-Mart is credited with helping smaller foreign businesses get their products into the US (and presumably other) market. This link talks about Mexican soap manufacturers. Here is a link to the NBER paper abstract.

Nothing real big here, the press has mentioned Wal-Mart's failure with its high-line fashions and their hustling to reestablish themselves with their core customers -- the low income consumer.. Only one problem that I have seen and that is they have yet to pick up the one service those customers liked and used often - layaway. That is the service Wal-Mart dropped like a hot potato. Hmmmm, the mind boggles. Or did I miss something?