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| Wal-Mart is financially successful by a number of measures. For example, Wal-Mart is now the #2 grocery chain in the United States, behind ]. Different explanations have been offered for this success. Some stress the economies of scale Wal-Mart brings to manufacturing and logistics; the purchase of massive quantities of items from its suppliers, combined with a very efficient stock control system, help make operating costs lower than those of its competitors. Some attribute Wal-Mart's success to the company's alleged tendency to sustain short-term losses through short-term aggressive pricing, in order to drive competitors out of business and increase market power. It should be noted that, while such a practice may make good business sense, many observers find it unsavory. | Wal-Mart is financially successful by a number of measures. For example, Wal-Mart is now the #2 grocery chain in the United States, behind ]. Different explanations have been offered for this success. Some stress the economies of scale Wal-Mart brings to manufacturing and logistics; the purchase of massive quantities of items from its suppliers, combined with a very efficient stock control system, help make operating costs lower than those of its competitors. Some attribute Wal-Mart's success to the company's alleged tendency to sustain short-term losses through short-term aggressive pricing, in order to drive competitors out of business and increase market power. It should be noted that, while such a practice may make good business sense, many observers find it unsavory. | ||
| Wal-Mart's chief competitors include the ]. | Wal-Mart's chief competitors include the ] and the ]. | ||
| Wal-Mart bears the dubious distinction of being the most often sued corporate entity in the ]. The legal department of Wal-Mart has a reputation among personal injury lawyers for extremely aggressive legal tactics, and the corporation has been sanctioned by several courts for failing to respond properly to plantiff discovery motions. | Wal-Mart bears the dubious distinction of being the most often sued corporate entity in the ]. The legal department of Wal-Mart has a reputation among personal injury lawyers for extremely aggressive legal tactics, and the corporation has been sanctioned by several courts for failing to respond properly to plantiff discovery motions. | ||
Revision as of 23:06, 29 October 2002
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world's largest retailer. In the fiscal year ending January 31, 2001 Wal-Mart had $191 billion dollars in sales. It employs over 1 million people worldwide and operates 4,500 retail units in 10 countries. Wal-Mart operates in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, China, Korea, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-mart, opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962.
Wal-Mart stores are large in area, usually constructed as part of a shopping mall in a low-density suburban centre. The stores sell a broad range of products, including, but not limited to, groceries (especially bulk junk food), clothes, consumer electronics, outdoor equipment, toys, hardware, and books. Its typical products are basic, mass-market equipment, rather than premium products stocked at specialist stores. Wal-Mart and stores like it are often referred to as "big box" stores because of the large, rectangular, featureless design of their stores.
Perhaps because large corporations can be abstract and alienating, Wal-Mart has taken certain measures to make its stores feel more human, both for customers and employees. Perhaps most famously, each Wal-Mart store has a usually elderly employee known as a "people greeter", whose primarily responsibility is to welcome people to the store. One Wal-Mart training video encourages employees to think of themselves not as employees but as "associates" and their superiors as "servant leaders." The training video You've Picked a Great Place to Work promotes the "essential feeling of family for which Wal-Mart is so well-known." (Ehrenreich pp. 143-4) Obviously, these efforts can be viewed with various levels of cynicism.
Wal-Mart is financially successful by a number of measures. For example, Wal-Mart is now the #2 grocery chain in the United States, behind Kroger's. Different explanations have been offered for this success. Some stress the economies of scale Wal-Mart brings to manufacturing and logistics; the purchase of massive quantities of items from its suppliers, combined with a very efficient stock control system, help make operating costs lower than those of its competitors. Some attribute Wal-Mart's success to the company's alleged tendency to sustain short-term losses through short-term aggressive pricing, in order to drive competitors out of business and increase market power. It should be noted that, while such a practice may make good business sense, many observers find it unsavory.
Wal-Mart's chief competitors include the Kmart Corporation and the Target Corporation.
Wal-Mart bears the dubious distinction of being the most often sued corporate entity in the United States. The legal department of Wal-Mart has a reputation among personal injury lawyers for extremely aggressive legal tactics, and the corporation has been sanctioned by several courts for failing to respond properly to plantiff discovery motions.
As of 2000, Wal-Mart, like many large American corporations with low-wage employees, screens potential hires through a drug test, in addition to a multiple choice personality test, which asks applicants to express their level of agreement with statements such as "rules have to be followed to the letter at all times." (Ehrenreich, p. 124)
In 2002 Wal-mart opened its 21st store in China.
External link
References
- Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. Henry Holt and Company, LLC. New York: 2001. Chapter 3, "Selling in Minnesota", includes a brief and cynnical first-hand account of Wal-Mart's hiring process. This is obviously not an unbiased source, but the information from Ehrenreich included above seems sufficiently NPOV to include.