Walmart recieves chilly welcome in California

[Motorbike]

Looks like Walmart is not so welcome to build more stores there . Seems they are putting other grocery stores out of business and more .


http://www.dsausa.org/lowwage/walmart/nyt_edit.html

Screw em anyway . In Oklahoma one cannot find made in Oklahoma products such as Watonga cheese , Selmon Bros Barbque Sauce and more and I try my best to buy local or USA made products when feasable .

I was told they for example want multiple truckloads of motor oil given to them in advance and only after every last quart is sold will they pay the supplier . Using others money to make money so to speak .

I know we have members here who work for them so please no offense meant towards you who do but ..

Is Walmart an Evil Giant that lost it's soul after Sam past away ? Just curious as to others opinions on Walmart . I just know what I read and have been told .

 

[Shannow]

read after me......"free market is always good"

Some even believe that corporations have our best interests at heart.

Same thing is happening down here. Reduction of choice at the majors, increase of prices and profits.

 

[gmttr1]

Motorbike:
I think you are engaging in way too much hyperbole. I doubt that Wal-mart or any other retailer has a payment arrangement with a vendor where they pay "after the last quart is sold". On the other hand, it is industry-standard practice to pay the vendor X number of days after delivery. X variees from 30 to 90, depending on the retailer, the vendor and a host of other factors. From what I have gathered from business publications, Wal-mart is super-sophisticated in its IT-integration and always pays the vendor on the promised time schedule. Yes, it pays very little, yes it arm-twists the vendor and yes it tries to extract every last concession from the vendor but no, they don't have a funny payment arrangement of not paying the vendor unless the last quart has been sold!!

 

[paulo57509]

Nowadays, payment arrangements between a buyer and a suppler are often structured such that payment is made AFTER goods are sold to the end-user, or after a pre-determined time interval such as 25 days.

This is becoming (or has been for a while)industry standard. I think the reason for this is to artificially make the buyer's books look good; they can choose not to show the goods as inventory since technically the supplier still owns it.

It's not really making money using someone else's money in a negative context; the arragement is agreed upon buy BOTH parties before any goods exchange hands.

Of course in todays economy, I'm sure a big buyer like Wal-Mart uses it's leverage to persuade a suppler to agree to terms such as these. For the supplier, it's either make the sale or lose it.

I shop at Wal-Mart and I also try to support the smaller retailers in my town. IMO, boycotts of large corporations doesn't really hurt their bottom line, but it does hurt the people that work for them.

 

[TooManyWheels]

For a pretty good take on what Wal-Mart is doing to the economy, check out - http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by paulo57509:


It's not really making money using someone else's money in a negative context; the arragement is agreed upon buy BOTH parties before any goods exchange hands.

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That argument could be used to legitimize ransom.

 

[JohnnyO]

I shop at K-Mart (even though selection sucks) when I can because it is in my town and the two local Wal-Marts are not. I don't know about other states but in PA there is a "business priveledge tax". It's a very low rate, but think hidden sales tax that goes to the town. I'd prefer my money go to the (depressed) town I live in instead of the two other communities with Walmarts that are doing a lot better economically. I'm not saying they're doing better because of Wal-Mart, but I wonder.

I paid an extra $5 for my Mobil 1 this week by going to K-Mart, but I kept some of my money local.

 

[moribundman]

I don't go to Walmart, a place where the employees are underpaid and consequently uninterested and totally unhelpful. Can't really blame them, but only the company who squeezes their workers in order to afford those low prices. Naw thanks, I won't support that sort of business.

 

[Gary Allan]

quote:

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It's not really making money using someone else's money in a negative context; the arragement is agreed upon buy BOTH parties before any goods exchange hands.

That argument could be used to legitimize ransom.

---

Let's spin this the other way around. I'm a producer of goods and I want to move as much as I can as fast as I can ...so I "consign" massive amounts of my product to a large retailer to vend, collect, and deliver my money to me. They extract a fee for this service. Their "self interests" will manipulate the retail price of the given product to extract the highest yield in $/time ..which also mirrors my desires as well. I'm moving the maximum amount of my product through that given market that can be had ..any lower price will not yield more volume ..and any higher price yields less time weighted profit. I have the option of not managing my product this way ...but with the competition having the exact same modality of marketing ..I must match them or risk losing market share for their willingness to market in this manner.


Sound better??

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Allan:


Sound better??

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Yes.

 

[k1xv]

Other than the motor oil shelf, I seldom shop there. Even if there is a small price penalty, I prefer to try to keep my small business neighbors solvent.

WalMarts seem to be rather impersonal places these days, and it seems everything there is from China.

 

[JohnnyO]

quote:

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Originally posted by k1xv:
WalMarts seem to be rather impersonal places these days, and it seems everything there is from China.

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Really. If Wal-Mart ever went bankrupt, China would go under by the end of the week.

 

[Ugly3]

Well, here is what you should do. Shop at Wal*Mart and get the best prices.

On the way home stop at all the small local shops and drop off 5 dollar bills to help keep them in business.

 

[k1xv]

quote:

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Originally posted by JohnnyO:

quote:

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Originally posted by k1xv:
WalMarts seem to be rather impersonal places these days, and it seems everything there is from China.

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Really. If Wal-Mart ever went bankrupt, China would go under by the end of the week.

---

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I read somewhere that 12% of Chinese exports of consumer goods to the USA are sold through WalMart affiliated companies.

 

[moribundman]

quote:

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Really. If Wal-Mart ever went bankrupt, China would go under by the end of the week.

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And 20 million American children would go toy-less. WAH-WAH-WAH!

I feel stores like Walmart and Kmart are outlets for imported goods. I'm all for open markets and I love imported goods, but we've reached a point where some products come almost exclusively from China. I wish there were locally produced goods of at least equal quality, as I'd prefer to buy those. I'm mostly talking about toys, electronics, tools, and knick knacks. When you buy a $10 plastic patio chair and it's imported from China, you really have to wonder why a comparable product can't be made competitively right here.

 

[Ugly3]

Because no one here is willing to work for $1.50 an hour. The plastic costs everyone about the same per pound. The difference is all in the labor costs for production and support services.

 

[Gary Allan]

Besides a few items (maybe clothing, boots, motor oil)...the vast majority of the stuff sold at WallMart is junk. It's cheap this and cheap that. The $19 CD/radio is junk. You don't care if it works more than a year...same for the $5 ..what are they called ..lawn/patio torches on bambo shafts.

How many Rubbermaid totes can you buy to fit all of your other junk in? Now you've got well organized junk.

I have little reason other than the oil section to ever visit the place.

They have little to offer in the terms of quality. They are there for those who have a need to consume for no good da@n reason. Look at them as a barometer of our economic health. Now people still "shop 'til they drop" ..but they only buy junk.

 

[JustinH]

ditto for me. The only thing I buy there is motorcraft oil and filters.

And some jugs of drinking water.

Everything else is pretty much junk.

Walmart around here put alot of places out of business, they forced them to compete with the evil empire and they could now.

Kmart closed all but a few stores within a 100 mile radius, kmart sucks anyway.

We are getting some good targets around here though. I like target alot and support them all the time. Their oil selection sucks though, and no oil filters, what is that all about?

 

[brianl703]

quote:

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Originally posted by moribundman:
I wish there were locally produced goods of at least equal quality, as I'd prefer to buy those. I'm mostly talking about toys, electronics, tools

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As far as tools go, there are US made tools, but you won't find them at Wal-Mart, and they cost about double what the made-in-China stuff costs.

But I think they're worth it. Poor quality tools can quite literally be painful.

 

[moribundman]

brianl703, regarding tools, I was more thinking along the lines of scissors and maybe screwdrivers, household tools if you will. As for "real" tools, I buy mostly German tools (Rahsol/HAZET, Bosch), because they last. There isn't a Craftsman or Husky tool I can't break in 5 minutes. If I need a tool only a few times, I may go to Harbor Freight...