walmart does not exist to feed and provide medical care to all employees. its objective is to add shareholder value. thinking about buyign some walmart stock after watchings this video. seems like they are playing the game like its supposed to played.

but yea i dont shop there, its way too trashy.

 

hmm...do you sell a commodity consumer item or is it unique? do you have competitors?

walmart, by the way, don't dictate the prices, but they will tell you when your pricing is out of league with the industry (along with every other buyer in the category from target to meijer to dollar general). ever since i walked into the retail industry i've had the luck of doing MASS consumer electronics, so you compete on only a few fronts: brand equity (if any), price (90% of the time), and design/features (which BTW your friendly retail buyers make the decision for the millions of americans on what they see on the shelf).

if you have a product that VARs (dealers) can loyally and effectively sell for you in the QTY and margins you feel comfortable with, that is simply awesome. however, in the industries i've been in, it's nearly impossible to do.

anyway, the point i've been trying to make is that it's OK to hate walmart, it's OK to bash it, it's OK to not shop there, but don't treat it like some kind of monster because it really isn't if you deal with them regularly. the buyers are usually very nice though firm on their low cost objectives (some buyers are very attractive but that's beside the point), you can choose NOT to sell to them if you don't want, and i've even had the pleasure of talking with eduardo castro-wright personally and found him to be quite pleasant a man. toughness in business don't make them evil (well, maybe microsoft is an exception but walmart doesn't have anywhere near the marketshare MS has in the retail industry).

 

curious what you guys sell....

 

I buy oil and ammo there because it's the cheapest.. I bought some replacement razors once too, and a bathroom scale. I think that's about it.

 

I lub Walmart....one of my first investments....as a DRIP investor in Walmart.

So, ya'll should shop Walmart and if you like.....Worship it. Walmart is god. LOL..

 

walmart saves my ass for those late night emergencies.

 

I am an agent and importer for a British water filter manufacturer. I sell other water filtration equipment as well, but WalMart came to us directly for the products from England.

It is somewhat unique, it is a ceramic based water filter that does more than just reduce chlorine and heavy metals, so it's far and away better than say a Brita or Pur piece of junk that they have been selling. Their argument was that a water filter is a water filter and in order to compete, our prices would have to be reduced. Their idea of reducing the price was for us to move our manufacturing facility elsewhere (read Asia or India) in order to lower the price of the product. That is not going to happen, our filters have been manufactured in the UK for over 160 years and quality and consistency have been our selling points for many years. Another issue we had with them was them comparing our product to their current offerings to which they claimed ours were too expensive, you cannot compare the products because they do very different things. WalMart was focused purely on price, water filters need to be educated to the consumer, and their employees to have no chance of doing that.

The electronics industry is totally different, it is sold mainly on price in big box stores and WalMart competes well in that category, but as far as educating consumers for buying the right product for their needs isn't going to happen.

WalMart's idea of driving down prices for the consumer is a good thing, but sending manufacturing overseas to do so is a bad thing. The US will end up being a commodity buyer and not a commodity maker, we will then rely on every country but our own for goods and services.

 

Im not a big fan of Walmart, but they are handy for us that work in remote locations. We pull up the locations on a Garmin, and use the
nearest one.

 

Their wash sink in the restroom looks very strange. When you are drunk, it looks almost like a urinal instead.

 

Walmart isnt the only over seas employer. So I dont know why some people have it out just for Walmart. . Oh and I shop at walmart when I need fishing supplies. Same brands as the expensive fishing stores and I dont get ripped off.