‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ On PBS Frontline, May 11, 2015 ‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ is a documentary that examines the relationship between Wal-Mart’s rapid growth and its impact on the US economy ever since it blossomed in trade productivity in the mid 20th century. The documentary, published on February 2014 by PBS Frontline, conveys a deep understanding of how Wal-Mart changed the living standards of many Americans and took consumerism and retail logistics in the U.S. to another level; by cutting costs through offshore outsourcing to China and employing cheap Chinese labor. The documentary focuses on the changing relationship between big retailers and manufacturers and the transition in pricing and decision-making. Wal-Mart …show more content…
In Wooster, Ohio, a company called Rubber Maid who was once very successful around the year 1994 in producing plastic pails and waste cans of excellent quality, became one of Wal-Mart’s suppliers, which helped it grow and grow yet Rubber Maid was not able to sustain this growth since the price of its main raw material called Resin increased thus Rubber Maid had to propose an increase in its prices, however Wal-Mart refused that increase and Rubber Maid eventually sold out in the year 1999 and as mentioned in the documentary a 1000 jobs were lost. It is important to mention that Wal-Mart made it clear to Rubber Maid that if it wanted to stay in business it had to maintain low prices or else it would lose its major …show more content…
This seems like a smart marketing trick that is surely used in other retailers. And what really matters here is that the average American or even those who cannot afford buying things from regular superstores can actually enjoy shopping at Wal-Mart and buy just anything they need at preferential prices. This is the result of Asian-based imports where cutting costs helps Wal-Mart sell at the lowest prices possible thus being able to serve all classes of the
This allows Walmart to have a constant supply and always fulfill the demand of the customer. It changed the way that business operated in America through completing the shift to push production, where the retailer is in charge over the manufacturer. Through low-pay workers around the world, Walmart is able to get and sell their products for a low cost. Walmart told companies like Rubbermaid to lower the prices of their products if they wanted them to be sold at Walmart and if they could not meet the expectations Walmart set, their contract would be terminated and the products from that manufacturer would no longer be
So, Wal-Mart is good for most Americans by providing drop an average of 10 to 15 percent in markets than other retailer provender. For example, more than 30 percent the disposable diapers purchased in this country is sold in Wal-Mart stores. 30% hair care, 20% toothpaste, and 20% pet food purchase at Wal-Mart stores by American customers.
In this week’s lecture the theme of choice was “Consumerism and American Values”. When first hearing the word consumerism I tend to think of many things such as the economy, money, shopping, and etc. I thought it was a very interesting topic because Wal Mart was the target for this section. In the first essay titled “The Wal Mart You Don’t Know” the author attempts to persuade the audience that Wal Mart is nothing but a capitalistic company. Using the rhetorical appeals of pathos, ethos, and logos he conveys his argument that Wal Mart is capitalistic in a very good way.
In the article Up Against Wal-Mart, Karen Olsson exposes the largest retailer in the world by listing many of the retailer’s flaws such as worker mistreatment and discrimination. Throughout the article, Olsson uses anecdotes from employees that have worked at the company and statistics to support her arguments. Ultimately Olsson’s piece serves to harshly criticize Wal-Mart due to low pay wages, unpaid overtime, and gender inequality. From the start, Olsson relies on actual employee interviews to support her arguments against Wal-Mart. By introducing Jennifer McLaughlin, a young woman who has been working for Wal-Mart for three years but makes under $17,000 a year, the author builds tension between the worker and the company.
Some people may wonder how, with such low prices, Wal-Mart can sustain such a large profit margin. Well according to Jim Hightower, that answer lies within Wal-Mart’s workforce. Hightower believes that Wal-Mart is tricking its workers into thinking they are, “one big, happy family,” when in reality those workers are being exploited. According to Jim, Wal-Mart is diverting their workers from the actual issues such as, “fair wages, hiring discrimination, or unionization.” This is backed up in the 2004 documentary aired by PBS called, “Is Wal-Mart Good for America?”
Jim Hightower accuses Wal-Mart of many things, such as necessitating employees to work an extra hour, on average without compensation. Also, Jim Hightower states that Wal-Mart deprives workers of equal opportunity and a decent pay rate. Jim Hightower, in a bleak fashion, depicts an image of Wal-Mart that most people wouldn’t have known about. The reason he does this is to make people aware of how employees are actually treated in a corporate America business. In the documentary about
The everyday low pricing strategy works best in a broader store positioning strategy and supported with advertising. Hi-Value doesn’t need to be the lowest priced supermarket in the area for the everyday low pricing strategy to work. Lowering pricing needs to be used by all in the area or else Hi-Value will confuse our store image and positioning. Hi-Value must look at recent consumer research to see how we are positioned and how this pricing will change our image. There is potential to reduce operating costs.
“Is Wal-Mart Good For America?” affords viewers a thoughtful analysis into the dubious ethical methodologies employed by the Wal-Mart Corporation. Unquestionably, Wal-Mart is not infallible and their strict adherence to low prices has pushed other companies out of business. For example, Rubbermaid, as mentioned in the documentary, fell into Wal-Mart’s paradoxical low pricing trap and forfeited into a merger with a competitor.
In the essay titled “Labouring the Walmart Way”, author Deenu Parmar explains the unhealthy effects of Walmart, how to stop them, and the challenges of doing so. Parmar begins by detailing how Walmart has done little for local economies. By hiring financially vulnerable people, the franchise insures that no one would dare to unionize; thus ensuring employees will only earn the bare minimum, and thus out-competing local competition. Parmar also goes on to explain how a local community removed Walmart. They were able to do this through the use of fierce union protests that made the store unprofitable.
Walmart gives many different kind of deal that is less than other store in the
Walmart was founded in the summer of 1962 by Kingfisher, Oklahoma native Sam Walton. Although Walton’s original vision for the store was relatively modest, the half century since its founding has seen Walmart morph into one of the biggest companies in the world. Today headed by one Doug McMillon, Walmart boasts more than 5000 stores in the United States of America alone and employs more than 1.5 million people. Walmart is undoubtedly an American institution, yet each Walmart store feels like its own little country. Walmart seems to have its own laws and customs and the people who shop their on a regular basis appear almost primitive in their behavior as they go about raiding the store’s shelves and wrestling with fellow customers for discount flat screen televisions and bulk packages of two-ply toilet paper.
Walmart’s compensation strategy is mostly using base pay that follows the market rate. Employees get paid by hours they worked. Pay rates are different and depend on the job position and working department relative to the organizational structure. Walmart uses job evaluation systems to provide internal equity and determine the basis for wage rate. They evaluated the worth of each job in terms of its skills, knowledge, responsibility or duties required and converted into an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly wage rate.
Porter’s article has strong analysis and provides persuasive examples to support his argument. He carefully explains the five forces and demonstrates how they affect the competition in business. For example, when discussing about rivalry among existing competitors, Porter briefly mentions about different forms of rivalries and its intensity. After that, he analyzes the situations that lead to different level of intensity in rivalry carefully. Porter illustrates that “ The intensity of rivalry is greatest if: Competitors are numerous or are roughly equal in size and power…Industry growth is slow…
Amazon is number one in competing Walmart especially in online retailer and now opining fiscal stores starting with Amazon Campus store in 2015, available at several college campuses in US the Amazon Campus stores serve as a central hub where student retrieve deliveries from lockers and drop off returns, all free of charge. Over the past three years, while Walmart’s sales grew by 8.6 %, revenue at Amazon has nearly doubled. Then, Costco is also major competitor to Walmart, particularly to Sam’s because of its low price.
I. Introduction Walmart Stores, Inc. - the American corporation which was established in 1962, is well-know for the globe’s largest multinational retailer (Walmart 2016). Walmart owns a chain of grocery stores, discount department stores and hypermarkets with about 11,500 retail stores over 28 countries. In 1998, Walmart entered Germany with the acquisition of Wertkauf and Interspar chain (Louisa 2006). Despite having the strongest economy in Europe and the third largest retail market in the world, Germany was not an ideal place for Walmart to achieve its ambition (Knorr and Andt 2003). After nearly a decade struggling to grow, Walmart decided to pull out of German market in 2006 with the loss of one billion dollars (Mark 2006).