Wal-Mart Goes ‘Back to Basics’: A Cautionary Tale for the Left
After suffering seven straight quarters of losses, today the merchandise giant Wal-Mart will announce that it is “going back to basics,” ending its era of high-end organic foods, going “green,” and the remainder of its appeal to the upscale market. Next month the company will launch an “It’s Back” campaign to woo the millions of customers who have fled the store. They will be bringing back “heritage” products, like inexpensive jeans and sweatpants.
Few may recognize it as such, but this episode should be seen as a cautionary tale about “progressives” and social engineering experiments on low-income Americans. This morning’s Wall Street Journal article is blunt:
That strategy failed, and the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant now is pursuing a back-to-basics strategy to reverse the company’s fortunes.
The failure, in large part, can be pinned to Leslie Dach: a well-known progressive and former senior aide to Vice President Al Gore. In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.
Out went drab, inexpensive merchandise so dear to low-income Americans. In came upscale organic foods, “green” products, trendy jeans, and political correctness. In other words, Dach sought to expose poor working Americans to the “good life” of the wealthy, environmentally conscious Prius driver.
Dach’s failure should be a cautionary tale for President Obama: last week he scolded a blue collar man in Pennsylvania for driving an SUV, and he has previously admonished Americans to get out of their gas-guzzlers and into electric cars. Dach’s failure should also put Michelle Obama on notice; she has been pushing her White House organic vegetable garden as a model for working Americans.
Like other real-world experiments, the Wal-Mart story exposes the failure of progressivism in the marketplace, as the Dach strategy has been a fiasco: the merchandising turned off low-income (and largely Democratic-leaning) customers. Says former Wal-Mart executive Jimmy Wright:
The basic Wal-Mart customer didn’t leave Wal-Mart. What happened is that Wal-Mart left the customer.
Dach convinced the company to steer away from founder Sam Walton’s core values. At the core of Dach’s campaign was to prove that Wal-Mart was “going green.” He brought in Vice President Gore to speak about environmental issues: they actually screened his global warming film, An Inconvenient Truth, at a quarterly meeting of Wal-Mart empl0yees and invited environmental groups. Expensive organic foods were showcased in their produce section. Trendy and pricey environmentally safe products were put on the shelves.
ANd is Detroit listening?
How are the sales figures for the Chevy Volt coming along?
Is the Pentagon listening?
How many hundreds of thousands of open homosexuals have battered down the doors of the recruiting stations to sign up and fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya?
These are “uncomforable” questions for open-minded progressives, (sic), to answer, so they never get asked by “the right sort” of people.
So other progressive ideas, like Federally underwritten subsidized homeownership, itself flacked to rescue the cities from the effects of progressive “urban planning” are birthed and end up bankrupting us all.
Shall we talk about progressive notions about public education?
Oh, yes, is Detroit listening?! The president thinks that I should chuck my ’93 Ford Taurus station wagon with the 3-liter V-6 for a $41K Volt sedan that gets a whopping 40 miles to a charge before the itty-bitty gasoline engine kicks in. That won’t even get me to work and back. I think I know better about what I need than either the community organizer in the white house or the liberal who nose-dived Wal-Mart the last couple of years.
I looked at a Volt…it doesn’t have 4WD and doesn’t haul firewood worth a damn. When I asked the salesman about it’s towing capacity, he looked at me like I had a penis growing out of my forehead.
The progressive base, which I ken to be mostly urbanized, should try to be a little open-minded about how a great many of the rest of Americans live…in communities that don’t get snow cleared for days, and where land is just…land, not some municipally-designated “greenspace” named after some past graft-champion politician or other.
But in their open-minded and tolerant way, progressives simply sniff about “gas-guzzling SUVs”, while remaining supremely ignorant of the fact that SUV’s were created by the automakers, (Lee Iacocca’s Chrysler, actually), in order to market a “station wagon” that the EPA enforcing the CAFE fuel economy laws, (Thankee, Jimmeh Cawtuh!), would not count as “cars”, but rather as “trucks”.
Here again, the latest whacked-out moonbat meme is a response to the problems created by the LAST great moonbat meme.
The Alleged Hawaiian is fine with this, though, since electric everything will make his masters at General Electric a big heaping pile of money.
my nomination for post of the year – well played, sir!
Thankee, sir…gosh,and it’s only April!
I have to confess that I fibbed a little…I wasn’t REALLY at the Chevy dealership to look at the Volt.
I was primarily there to drool over the Camaro SS, (which doesn’t have 4WD or haul firewood worth a damn EITHER, but if I’m going to drop over 40 grand on a 2WD non-firewood haulin’ sled, and I chose the Volt over the Camaro, I WOULD have a penis growing out of my forehead!)
I’m with Jim
The short-range, low-power vehicles like the Volt would fit perfectly into the compact communes the progressives have planned for us. Look up the “Wildlands Project”, if you are not already familiar with it; see how many places people are “allowed” to go, and you will understand how these cars are ideal for this plan. That, and these compact communes (which our TP folks hereabouts call “rabbit hutches”, but – to call a spade, a spade – are just ghettos grown out of FEMA camps) are never going to put you outside of that range.
Tell your friends and neighbors; the pieces are coming together, and the picture ain’t pretty.
Bigeman,
It’s “Thankee,Sai”
You ken?
That could explain why the One can state that eventually high speed rail will be available to 80% of the population. We’ll be forced to move to high density urban centers where the high speed rail stations will be. Thus if we are even allowed a car we’ll only be able to own Volts or maybe SmartCars (or perhaps SmartGoKarts).
While I agree with your theory, Lee Iacooca did not invent the SUV .. He created the mini-van … and thus saved Chrysler from a sure death. (Capitalism – supply and demand!!) Otherwise, from whence
did the “Texas state car”, the Chevy Suburban, and the AMC (remember American Motors?)Jeep Wagoneer come? Please give credit where credit (or blame) is due. I love the big SUVs but I drive a 1994 Chrysler mini-van !! Still running great at 275,000 miles and it gets about 25 mpg !!
The mini-van is not what saved Chrysler the first time around. It was being awarded the M1 Tank contract that saved Crysler. That’s what a Government Bailout looked like back then, they didn’t just throw money at a company, or take it over, they threw contracts at them. If Chrysler had not gotten the M1 contract, they would not have been around long enough to produce the mini-van.
If memory serves, Lee Iaccoca was the force behind the Mustang for Ford but also the “wonderous” K-car for Chrysler. That’s when the government, arm twisted the states, countys and cities follow it’s lead and buy nothing for it’s public fleets but the K’s, Diplomats and Grand Furys. Problem was that the company had yet to instill any quality control values. Just a snapshot of government intervention friends.
A Chrysler with 275K? Give us a break!
Thanks for that; laughter and humor are incredibly healthy for the soul.
Yuppers, those people in Wash DC, are so out of touch. This if you don’t like the gas prices get a car with better milage. RIGHT! I make $8.00/hr. So Mr. Oblama, what car do you recomend? Oh, I live in a rual area, no busses, no trains, sometimes an Amish Buggy goes by, but they don’t carry many passengers. AUGH!
Bilgeman; in a reply to a reply you stated, ‘I was primarily there to drool over the Camaro SS, (which doesn’t have 4WD or haul firewood worth a damn EITHER, but if I’m going to drop over 40 grand on a 2WD non-firewood haulin’ sled, and I chose the Volt over the Camaro, I WOULD have a penis growing out of my forehead!)
I maintain that you would have no penis at all.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms, CA
Zing! I think I would actually rather be seen in a Volt. People might take pity on me, nobody likes to mock the developmentally disabled. But a Vette? Then you are just a middle-aged idiot with a flaccid penis and nobody has empathy for those turds.
I bet you were looking at a Vette with Automatic transmission too, right? Do they even make those for grownups (aka manual transmission)?
….Not to mention the Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX) where he and his cronies (like Al Gore) stand to bilk hundreds of billions of dollars out of citizens for using any product that is fossil fuel based. Google it and look at the names of the people that stand to make fortunes on it and then match up the names to one ones tooting the horn of the global warming scam. As usual, the dishonest lefties are trying to get their hands even deeper into peoples’ pockets.
I believe that the CCX died out last year. Here is a link to the story on Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/09/collapse-chicago-climate-exchange-means-strategy-shift-global-warming-curbs/
Not only that, but batteries do really, really poorly in cold weather. That whopping 40 miles might only be 25 (if that), and if the battery freezes thats the end of it.
Every year, my company ask for “volunteers” to participate in Earth Day. I mistakenly attended one event and discovered that it was not the place for a “down to earth” guy like me. On the other hand, it’s a great venue for those trying to promote left wing causes.
Bilgeman or Bilgerat.
You are absolutely on the money. Great posting.
OUTSTANDING analysis of our national problem. Stupid voters.
Bilgeman, that makes sense. I have been telling other “progressives” I know that not everything in the world is as it in in our neighborhoods. I drive a Prius so You can be able to drive your truck. I don’t need a truck. You need a truck. It evens out. (Let’s not talk about the small peened men who drive the biggest possible 12-wheel-drive, 2 mpg monster truck around town. They do not count.) So, I stick up among my Lib friends for a way of life that has nothing to do with mine. And you can do the same for me, okay?
“After suffering seven straight quarters of losses”
The above line in the article is false.
Walmart makes over 3 billion a quarter. They are making money in America, they are growing.
To correct the statement, Walmart says stores are declining In America in the group of stores that have been open over 1 year. I can go to work and church and pass 3 walmarts. If I go to a new one, an older one loses sales. THis is called cannibalizing. An older store loses sales to the freshly opened one. So Walmart is bring back popular products that may have cost them some sales.
Just some trivia. Walmart sold massive amounts of ammo when Obama was elected. Fear of gun control. Could that have been significant?
I vomited when I saw fat First “Lady” Moochelle was on t.v. strong-arming Walmart, the Chicago Thug way. So sad Walmart had fallen!
I have grown tomatoes and peppers along with lettuce for years and have had bumper crops, until last year when I purchased my starter plants from Wal-mart. I had one tomato plant that grew flowers to have them fall off the next day. No fruit from that plant and the others had to be altered as the seeds from them (planted in January) still haven’t sprouted. I went back to my old seeds and now have plants that are flowering and fruit is starting to grow. Wal-mart plants are about as usefull as this administration start out sounding great but in the end they are totally faulty.
Wal Mart carries a lot of weight in the country and the do gooders knew it! That’s why they spent so much of Al Gores time on this project! The First Lady too! These people wouldn’t listen to the normal folks in the country so they tried this! I’m suprised that it took Wal Mart this long to figure this was wrong for the American people! Sam Walton wasn’t stupid…..he knew what the customer wanted! These Progressives and far left Liberals don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground! Now Wal Mart knows for sure why Sam Walton did what he did! I’m sure we see other companies following suit. These electric cars will break them and only the rich can afford them and even they won’t want to waste their money on them! Now tell the idiots that the gas is too high and we may start riding our old nags to work!
Yeah and maybe Walmart will actually go all the way back to their roots of selling American made products. I refuse to shop at little China.
Walmart will not succeed unless they go back to American Made and promote that heavily. Their hardest task is to get quality American Made products at a reasonable cost. Unions have ruined pride in workmanship and quality in American products by promoting laziness with the security of knowing lazy or unskilled union members cannot be fired.
You have to understand. When the government comes knocking at the front door, you have to answer and let them in. Microsoft learned that lesson the hard way. No tribute, we sue you. Pay your tribute to the government and the lawsuits stop. It’s a simple formula perfected by the Mafia. Government, Mafia. Tell me the difference?
Government: You pay what’s called a permit application fee (expensive) and submit expensively-drawn up detailed plans and maybe you’re approved to conduct your business.
Mafia: You pay what’s called a bribe and you’re in business.
(Murray’s Law: Too much government resembles having no government at all.)
Push to solve the problems state by state. Push for your state to set up nulification commistions for your state. a nulifcation comishtion looks at every Fed law & reg. past, present and future to see if they are constitutional and if it isn’t then the state won’t obay them. We are 50 sovern states not slave states. States do have rights, you know. We can just shut obama out this way. He thinks he’s so smart if he can’t get what he wants passed he just goes around Congress and has the czars he apointed regulate it. It has the force of law and we are stuck with it anyway. And he has no right to talk about what we spend or how much, remember that last far-east business/vaction he took for over a week cost us over $200 million a day. There is no way he can justify what he spends. And I still want to know where he got his money. He’s a multi millionare and never held a job until he got into Congress.His family didn’t have money. Where did it come from, soros or the unions??
Obamas money comes from royalties of two “books he wrote”. ( the reason for the quotation marks, HE DID NOT WRITE THEM HIMSELF)
I believe Mr. Sorros bought all of Obama’s books, thus repaying him for being his puppet.
Better be careful! Someone is going to figure out that the American people aren’t sleep walking and can figure things out on their own and we don’t want or need progressives/statists shoving crap down our throats, when we as Americans have the right to choice. Here is a progressive idea, lets just stop all aid to illegal aliens in the country. They leave, that frees up goverment funds by the billions and maybe even trillions, opens up jobs for the unemployed, less cars by the millions on the road and takes care of several environmental problems, a lot less crime, helps the over crowding problems in schools, prisons, hospitals, freeways and WalMart, etc.,etc. Even Walmart feels it, just look at the stock in the isles.
Oh, you are singing my song!
Bravo!!! The sooner the Americans know and understand what you have just told them, the sooner we can get our Country back! But how do we get the message to the mostly Democrat’s who have their hands out for the free be’s that the Democrats give them? Maybe if we pushed for Immigration reform, both legal and illegal reform, we could get a start and save billions and trillions as a result. There are only a handful of our Representaives, Republican or Democrat that pay any attention to immigration issues. Look them up on Immigration Stance. Find out who the are and DON”T VOTE for them.
Ha! Both, Soros and the Unions and they are still paying them and he’s making sure they get their kickbacks off our backs.
Also refer to Michelle’s salary from Tree House Foods, one of Walmart’s suppliers.
Once her husband became an IL senator, her salary at U.of Chgo Hospitals tripled and she found her board job.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1551441/Obama-called-hypocrite-for-wifes-Wal-Mart-link.html
How things change in a few short years!
Perfectly said. I wish the majority of Americans had your views. Keep commenting on a lot of websites so people can learn something valuable.
What happens when a volt is involved in an accident and those fancy batteries rupture? Call the hazmat team?
The same question applies to the CFL’s. What happens when they finally discover that no one disposes of them properly and we have a massive increase in mercury in the ground and groundwater? who are all the lawyers going to sue? GE? or the government that forced them on us?
“What happens when they finally discover that no one disposes of them properly and we have a massive increase in mercury in the ground and groundwater? ”
EPA light bulb surtax.
But you ALREADY knew this.
re: homosexual troops might cause the Muzzies to turn tail and flee! And why don’t we have electric humvees?
“The Sierra Club’s Carl Pope seemed pleased that Dach was inside the enemy camp”
That they think of their fellow Americans as enemies who need re-education says enough.
Our local grocery chain has been big into organic products of all kinds for several years now. Those items, whether it is ‘organically farmed’ produce, ‘all-natural’ cereals or detergents sans the ‘poisonous’ chemical du jour that doesn’t clean as well anyway, are the ones I most consistently ignore every time I shop there. I flat-out refuse to waste my money on any of it, since “organic” as a label is, as we all have known for ages, the biggest PR con to have come down the pike. Well, besides Obama, that is.
Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right place, but I don’t remember seeing any of these kinds of products in my local Wal-Mart.
More BS than PR indeed!
If organic is so good by now organic products should own all markets regardless of price.
I think Sam Walton would turn over in his grave. He built Wal-Mart with the principle that everything was “made in American”. This was the reason I quit buying Wal-mart “made in China” junk, not the green products, but CHINA JUNK!
I say to Wal-Mart lets really get back to basics and fire Chinese goods.
I did the same after the toy scare, scouring shelves to find “Made in America” and finally gave up as there are hardly any products we make. Showed me pointedly how we have effectively destroyed business here for whatever reason, corporate greed, union stranglehold on manufacturing, consumer’s wanting the cheapest price no matter where it is made.
I certainly don’t object to buying foreign products from countries that emulate our political values, so where are the products from Israel? Years ago I used to buy them even from AOL shopping, now I have to go to Pottery Barn and look at every label to find favorite sheets.
Don’t know what the answer is, but with the buying power of a WalMart seems they could assist in restoring some made in America businesses that I would be willing to pay for.
There are many “Buy American” websites. This is the first one listed but there are pages and pages of them. It’s still difficult to find US made necessities when you’re in a hurry but discretionary spending allows you time to find what you want in American made products. http://www.buyamerican.com/
DAMNED SKIPPY!!
WalMart wants to impress, they need to return to selling ALL AMERICAN-MADE!! Let’s get Americans working again!
To get back to what you want, more manufactured goods being made in the U.S.A., We the Government need to get back to the basics of using the U.S.A. Constitutional Principle of Tariffs of which NAFTA and GAFT effectively took away.
the reason is NAFTA, ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT and all the other GLOBAL garbage that the Progressive Caucus has been leading us down the road to for 40 or years. I can’t find any USA grown produce in any of the major markets, including Trader Joe’s. It’s all from Mexico and Chili and places around the globe. These countries are getting our USA grown products that cost us so much to produce and we are getting food, fresh and canned and packaged which are imported, high in pesticides, filth, Salmonella, and Melomine. Check the FDA website for Imported “Refusal List” on food and everthing else on our Walmart and ever other Retailers shelves.
The only produce I feel comfortable with is organic, because to my knowledge it is grown in the USA. But my limited budget can’t afford it.
Wal-Mart can afford to start up businesses under their brand name in AMERICA. Why don’t the do that? I know people who have stopped shopping their because they broke thier MADE IN AMERICA promise.
Maybe they would buy from American Manufacturers at one time, but they OWN 700 factories in China where they can pay slave wages to children to manufacture their products. We can’t compete with the slave wages and never should have allowed these practices to start, let alone helping them out with tax breaks.
Louise….Sams great idea of ‘American made’ was just that…a great idea! The first road block? The pricing points of the Walmart model would not work with ‘Union Made In America’ reality. Then they tried to subsidize the small business mom & pop mfg of competitive price points for their model. That failed miserably with the concept not even coming close to the consistant inventory and quality demand of their model. So, off shore they went to get the product mix needed in the reliable quantities and price points needed. So, eventually, we got Chinamart…..and junk in especially the textile and electronics departments. By the way, in electronics big ticket items, you get products (brand names) designed specifically for Walmart and their pricing points..read into that what you wish.
I work with a guy who funds entrepreneurs who want to bring new products to market, as long as they have a working prototype. Many of them seriously want to have their products made in USA … but find that the manufacturing ability and/or capacity don’t exist here. We no longer have the machines or the workers to make stuff. China and the Pacific rim HAVE to get it by default now.
I am greatly saddened when I see a badly made belt buckle, for example, or a coloring book or a tchochke of some kind bearing a tag that reads “Proudly made in the USA” !!
WE won’t rise again until we understand the true situation and are willing to get our hands dirty, making the best stuff in the world for a global market that demands it. 1950s, anyone?
I agre about the union influence on Wal Mart. They are a big part of the problem. Somebody mentioned competition. Here in n.w. Indiana (La Porte County), we have Kroegers, Aldi’s, 2 Al’s supermarkets, and a K-Mart. None of them seem to have a problem competing with the local Super Wal Mart.
Louise, I agree totally with your ideas. Wal Mart sells too much ‘made in China’ junk. And I’m old enough to remember how proudy they advertised ‘made in America’. As an example, I tried to buy a USA made can opener. No way. Many other examples of wrong products &/or poorly made ones.
I agree – lets put Americans back to work!!! Sam would be proud! And maybe we can, once again, find clothes we can wear instead of the sleazy stuff they have had for several years. I also believe that grocery stores must be made to tell us if the produce we buy and the canned food we buy is Genetically Modified or not – now there’s a real issue!
I buy organic. You can think I’m a victim of PR hype, but, hey, it’s MY money. I can think you’re ill informed, but, hey, it’s YOUR money. The thing is – we both have a CHOICE. That’s what the Obama administration doesn’t seem to get, and neither did Dach.
If I buy organic and you don’t, how have we hurt each other? Not at all. We both buy from merchants that cater to us, we both have the freedom to make whatever choices we like, and everyone is happy.
However, when the WH or AL Gore or whomever FORCE stuff down our throat – that is the problem.
Even if I personally buy organic and from farmer’s markets, grow my own organic veggies (which also is relaxing and pleasant for me, since I like to garden), take part of a deer when my friends go hunting (hey, what’s more natural, free-range and organic than wild venison?), etc., I don’t have any beef with Wal-Mart catering to people who don’t give a hoot about organic or sustainable. The reality is that Wal-Mart is a company and they should do what makes sense as a business – they should be working to make their customer base and their stockholders happy, not a bunch of politicians.
If eating organic foods has value, then people will discover that for themselves. It should not be forced on them by bureaucrats. And, guess what, when no one is being forced to do things, people who make different choices can still live peacefully together. It’s only when one group tries to force its choices down someone else’s throat that problems arise.
I eat organic, but I support YOUR right not to, I don’t think I am somehow a superior human being because I’ve made a particular choice and I don’t want to force my choice on you.
VERY well said!!!!
I think you should run for the Senate!
DITTO! I’m right there with you… I choose organics, when I can find them to be reasonably priced. There are really not that many farms, etc, that are certified organic, and it’s damned hard to keep that certification, due to GMO seeds, chemical pesticides, etc, that blow into the fields from neighboring farms. So, I support the efforts of those farmers who choose to not buy into the hype of the chemical and seed companies that want to FORCE their products on to the farmers, thereby choking the nutrition out of our foods, and poisoning us in the process. But again, I don’t FORCE my opinions on others. That’s up to each individual to find out the truth, and make their own decision about what is right for them.
People who want to buy organic should certainly be allowed to, but organic farming is a threat and should not be encouraged, especially by the government. If you truly have a condition that can be worsened by trace amounts of herbicides or pesticides, you should absolutely look for organic products. But for the vast majority of us without genetic deficiencies, organic farming provides no benefit and contains huge risks. There is a reason organic produce costs more. The crop yields are much smaller and the risks of crop failure due to insects and disease are much higher. It does not make sense to try to take more of our limited farmland and turn it over to a production method that produces less and could lead to catastrophic crop failures.
and none of this even get close to the added costs of certification, inspection, recertification, etc, that the organic beaurocracy/machine imposes. Not overly burdensome when you’re got ten thousand acres under cultivation. But try shouldering that (expensive) load AND making a profit to feed your own kids on a five acre piece….. the proportional cost/yield on a smaller place mitigates powerfully against prices for organic certified products coming down below the stratosphere. I laugh whenever I see silly Yanks INSISTING on “organic” coffee…. what a hype!!! 90% of high quality coffee is grown organically by default, but not certified. The ONLY difference is that the lawyers running the cert organisations don’t get fat. I used to shop at Fred Meyers (now part of the Kroger monster), they had “certified organic” produce on offer… half again as dear for smaller, unhealthy looking items. Over on the tables with the non-certified products, they had signs attesting to the fact they’ve had random samples of every type of fresh produce independely tested for pesticide residues…. and had found none. WHy pay more money for inferior quality fruit when the real “issue” is pesticides, and they’ve proven the non-cert stuff has none? Silly yanks……
Actually, that is exactly what Capitalism and the Free Market is all about: Producing goods and services people need and want, at an affordable (competetive)price, at a cost which one can still make a profit. When the government (or progressivism) intervenes in any part of the process – the machine of capitalism and free market breaks down very quickly.
I think that we all have selective perception, meaning that if you are looking for laundry soap, you don’t notice much else. I have found that grass fed beef is much better tasting, and healthier. As well as raw milk, raw honey, and raw milk. I use vineagar, rubbing alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide for most tasks now. Cheaper, and seems to work better, if you get the right thing. You learn the uses of each. Is that green? Don’t think so, by the Marxist definition. But by grandmas’, yes.
Walmart has more problems than what your article discloses. They are rapidly becoming ‘operationally’ plagued with the diminished skill sets and ethics of the newer generations in their mid line management and labor pools. Their upper management have become wall street strategist and managers. Combine those two ingredients and you will eventually find yourself with diminished service value and return.
IF Walmart were smart, they would transition back to a model they started from as a distributor…however small, back in the day, to make their trucking operations more efficient during and after WWII. That would retain excellent price point commodities while returning small business enterprise back to America’s community ‘main-streets’ allowing the local market choice of least-cost versus best-cost products, or a mix. What they do in their foreign operations, I could care less!
On the other hand, most of their textile are cheap seconds by american standards as is most of their hardlines. Like many who have followed Walmarts model, they are a clearing houses for cheap shoddy craftsmanship. Like any company whose operations growth become so large, their overhead and other liabilities becomes a pricing point debacle that eventually becomes unsustainable. In most markets of 40K or more competitors are beating many Walmart pricing points with their private labeling models….especially, in the grocery departments. Walmart is on the teain of strategic mismanagement and growth that is unustainable much the same as the government today. Either become distributors or going away, would be a great thing for America!
I agree with T.T. Thomas about the shoddy merchandise. The one thing I would add to that is: “China.” What, I wonder, is the percentage of Chinese-made goods in Wal-Mart’s inventory? I also agree with the move to boot the “progressive” elitist from the company. Now bring back the Wrangler denim jacket at $20, the blue Faded Glory cotton chambray long-sleeve work shirt at $12, and the Parker Jotter ball point pens line. These disappeared from my local Wal-Marts about the time this liberal Dach took over.
Good question about what percentage comes from China. I guess it depends on the product. I was looking for sleeping bags the other day and noticed that the name brand, Coleman, was made in China while the “cheap”, and certainly less expensive, Ozark Trail (the Wal-Mart store brand) was made in the USA. The Ozark Trail bags also seemed to be better made and more comfortable, so I, a guy who has used Coleman products most of his 43 years, kissed Coleman good-bye.
I have been a happy and faithful Wal-Mart shopper since they built a mega-market near my home five years ago. They had good variety, great prices, wide aisles and, always, many cashiers, all of whom were bright, cheerful and well trained.
In only the past week, they have begun placing skids of material in the broad aisles making in difficult to move. Women continue to be hypnotized by what they see but now block the very tight aisles. They leave their carts in the main aisle and walk down the side aisles to get what they want. With broad aisles, these were annoyances; with skid blocked tighter aisles, these make shopping at Wal-Mart almost impossible. Fortunately, there is always Target.
To paraphrase Yogi, noone goes to Walmart anymore, it’s too crowded.
LOL…
Too low a proportion of salespeople to customers, for one thing.
And nobody to clean the store premises, including the entrances and parking lot. Bleeargh!
That’s what they call “marketing”. Watch for it everywhere soon.
“Clearly, we’ve lost some of our focus on what I would call the core customer. … You might say, in short, that we were trying to be something that maybe we’re not.”
No, you were exactly what you wanted to be to appease the liberals, because of that the customers (not in the elite income category and possessing at very least a smidgen of common sense) left you when you went loon.
Those horrid unwashed that the liberals so hate are not a stupid as they think or wish…
It is nice that Wal-Mart is now choosing profitability over left-wing ideology.
As we have seen many times in the past few years, liberal magazines, movies, TV shows, radio stations and newspapers often choose to lose money and slowly bankrupt themselves and disappear, rather than change their liberal ways.
Most liberal organizations rely on either tax payer dollars or donations from liberals (or both), because they can almost never survive in the marketplace.
I think the central message is that taxes are too low.
Excuse me! Are you crazy. The United States has some of the highest tax rates in the world (unless you’re GE and donate to the Democrats).
I think #8 was just trying to be funny.
I agree it seemed an attempt at a joke
A left-field folly, also known as “comedia non-sequitur”.
Quite amusing, actually – considering it caught at least one litte fishie…
Don’t look at what they tell you the rate is, look at the spending. Total spending, meaning state, county, local, and federal. Any money they get is taxation. Call it what you will, it is still a ‘rose’. Over 70% now of GDP, or total money made in the US, I believe. I could be off by a few points.
You think that because you’re dumber than a rock and completely ignorant of economics.
DOUG!!! That was a JOKE! LEVITY! HA HA HA!
Dang, bruh…
Dach’s failure should be a cautionary tale for President Obama: last week he scolded a blue collar man in Pennsylvania for driving an SUV, and he has previously admonished Americans to get out of their gas-guzzlers and into electric cars.
‘
This raises a couple of questions.
1. How many of the White House limos that the president rides in are “green”?
2. Does Obama’s private vehicle run on gas or some alternate fuel? (I’m assuming he owns at least one car and can drive, although I’ve never actually seen evidence of either.)
Or is this just another case of “do as I say, not as I do”?
Obama’s limo is exempt from greenery. There was a story about that a couple weeks ago, you might be able to find it on google news.
Few people are more contemtible than a PC would-be crony capitalist and profiteer, engaged in social engineering in order to curry favor with a leftist political regime.This was about lickspittling the liberals to get them to stop attacking WalMart, and position it as another protected business, like GE.Dach is Wall STreet Scum!
I hope this won’t make them stop selling their low-priced store brand green beans.
Are you sure it’s grown in America? Not just “Distributed” in the USA?
Just out of curiosity, where do people who “flee” WalMart go?
Here in Southeast Ohio, Target, Meier’s, Aldi’s, Costco, and Kroger.
One of the problems Wal-Mart has had here is that under Dach & Co. (he was just the PR man, there’s more than enough blame to go around), they went on a building spree of putting their stores in new development areas outside of urban/suburban cores. Ours around here, for instance, is in a mall that is halfway from Lancaster (the Fairfield Co. seat) to the county line with Franklin Co. (where Columbus, the state capital, is).
The theory was that they would attract “upscale” customers (those eponymous Prius drivers) who would go there because they were next to trendy boutiques, etc., while keeping their “core constituency” who would happily drive halfway to G-d-only-knows-where for bargains.
What actually happened was that the wine-sippers continued to go to their upscale, “exclusive” retailers (to avoid the hoi polloi), and the “downscale” people stopped going due to a combination of rising gas prices (they should thank Obama for that), as well as the fact that after “Cash for Clunkers” a lot of the working poor don’t even have cars anymore, because they can’t afford to replace them when they finally die. (Once more, Wal-Mart should thank The One- it was His idea, after all.)
The only places that theory trumps facts are in a college classroom, or a faculty lounge. Those who are denizens of both tend to get badly shocked on contact with reality in the outside world.
Wal-Mart’s near self-destruction under Dach & Co. is a case in point.
clear ether
eon
Excellent comments, eon. What are the options for former Wal-Mart shoppers? Dollar Mart, yard sales, Goodwill (for clothing), and staying home and not shopping for anything but the barest of necessities. Welcome the Obamaville.
Excellent comments, eon. What are the options for former Wal-Mart shoppers? Dollar Mart, yard sales, Goodwill (for clothing), and staying home and not shopping for anything but the barest of necessities. Welcome to Obamaville.
Target and the Dollar stores.
Here in TX, it’s H-E-B for your groceries, Academy for your outdoor and exercise stuff, and anything else but Wal-Mart for everything else.
The Dollar Store is one place to go to flee Wal-Mart. I find lots of American made products there and there are several different grocery stores and grocery outlets to shop. Wal-mart doesn’t have the corner like it was headed for.I used to work for Wal-Mart and was delighted to see it expanding globally and working for various sized stores to meet the need in the community..ie: Neighborhood Markets as well as Super Centers. I prefer to buy product made in America and Wal-Mart is disappointing. Target is just as disappointing and it costs more to shop there.
Dollar General in South Mississippi…. They have been building stores left and right down here including one about 6 miles from my house in a rural area. You can get in, find what you need and get out! Something you can’t do at WalMart, and I worked there for 5 years and my mother has worked there over 25 years. They no longer take care of their “Associates” much less there customers
We “flee” to the dollar stores and the flea markets, of course! You can get produce at the flea markets too!
What is really upsetting to me, is that wallmart started doing is selling books and magazines targeted for a certain group. Afican Americans have there own isle now for books and magazines here in New Mexico. I thought we were supposed to intagrate. I thought we were all one as Americans.
It is about integration, dear brother American – but we must ALWAYS put America FIRST!
No more of this “African-American” or “Chinese-American” or “Mexican-American” crap! AMERICA ALWAYS COMES FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HER TRUE CHILDREN!!
“Amercan of ********* descent” may not roll off the tongue as easily, but it expresses the truth and – most importantly – PUTS AMERICA FIRST.
Anyone who refuses to do so is not American in their hearts; they can damned well go to whatever part of the planet they choose to put before America in their hearts. That will leave more jobs, food, gas, and land here for you and me; instant economy cure!
There is no such thing as a hyphenated American, there are only Americans. Those who hyphenate their allegiance should go to wherever they claim their allegiance to. Teddy Roosevelt~
As I explained to a young clerk in the produce department one day: “Organic” basically means just more expensive.
Speaking as a farm kid, “organic”= “fertilized with manure”. Chemical fertilizers are superior to the “natural” stuff, because while both are nitrates, the “artificial” variety is highly sterilized in processing (in fact, it’s mostly fixed from nitrogen in the air), and thus does not carry the crapload of bacteria, possible viruses, and plain old dead fecal matter that the “all-natural” sort does.
As someone who has seen how easily you can get salmonella from improperly stored or prepared foods, I have an aversion to using foodstuffs that have a better-than-average chance of having it as a “prize in the box”. Let alone having to pay a premium to get it.
cheers
eon
well put
Eon is absolutely right. If you research the question, you’ll find the horror stories were produced; sometimes fabricated, by those who like the control that eco-freakism gives.
Exactly! Progressives do not consider that it would be impossible to feed the multitudes with “organic” products alone, either–the crop yields are not as high. Growing organic food is much more labor-intensive and prone to pest problems, both of which contribute to the higher cost (along with scarcity). “Organic” many times also equates to lesser quality (worms and spots in apples, etc.) because of the refusal to use pesticides.
I know lots of people who won’t buy anything that isn’t “organic”. I don’t see that they live longer or with better health than the others that don’t. You pays your money and you makes your choice.
When Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” (six editions 1798-1826), he concluded that famine and disease would inevitably put an upper limit on population, thereby preventing over-population (a bugaboo of the elite’ then as now). Malthus, of course, was writing before modern industrial farming methods, including artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, were developed, all of which drastically increased crop yields. The development of mechanical seeding and reaping also facilitated this by reducing manpower needs in what was previously a very manpower-intensive business. (Just pulling rocks out of a field on a typical farm was an all-hands evolution in pre-Massey Ferguson days.)
Malthus also supported the Corn Laws in England, which put high tariffs on imports to “protect domestic agriculture”. He also opposed the Poor Laws, not because they put the indigent poor in workhouses but because he didn’t want “the poor” helped at all.
Malthus believed that unchecked population (i.e., a lot of non-elite’ types being around) would be a handicap to the march to Utopia. He was rather vague on his definition of the latter, but it seems to have been a hypothetical society run by the likes of Thomas Malthus, with just enough “lower classes” around to do the dirty work. (And, I suspect, a certain number of armed guards to keep the workers in line.)
If Malthus sounds familiar, it’s probably because modern-day “progressives” have been using his arguments without admitting where they came from- or where they end up- for a long time. Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” is basically a Cliff’s Notes version of Malthus. Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” is another riff on same. And so on.
All talk of the “dangers of over-population”, defined as “too many people who are not sufficiently like the author of this book” (enlightened, sophisticated, “progressive”, etc.).
And all of the above after Malthus also demand “organic farming” as the only “moral” way to produce food. Many of them reference Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” on the “dangers” of chemicals used in farming, failing to mention the fact that without those chemicals, you cannot produce enough food to feed our existing population.
(Compare and contrast; crop yields vs. acreage, Idaho vs. Somalia, keeping in mind that ID outproduces the Horn of Africa by several orders of magnitude while having a shorter growing season.)
The “all-organic” fans are obsessed with “purity”, more in the ideological than the practical sense. And they either do not understand that their demands, if carried through, will end in the entire world looking like Ethiopia did in the 1980s and 1990s- or else they’re counting on it.
After all, Utopia is so much nicer without all those grotty groundlings around, other than the ones you need to do the scut-work.
Just ask Thomas Malthus.
cheers
eon
Good point. That is why I try to avoid “organic” vegetables. Fruits are a different story. Consider that most plants benefit reproductively from having their fruits eaten. This would suggest that said plants would have evolved traits to filter impurities from their fruits. By contrast, it’s bad for a plan to have its vegetable matter eaten, so we cannot expect that such protections would exist in leaves, roots, etc.
I’ve eaten organically-grown fruits, and I will say that they’re delicious. But I harbor no delusions that it is somehow healthier for me. It can sometimes be quite the opposite.
My personal favorite line: “Wal-Mart just went and broke it,” said Mike Craig, mechanic.
Which pretty much sums up what happens wherever liberals gain power in politics, education and business.
And churches! The mainline Protestant churches are now run—right into the ground—by the “progressives”. These churches are losing congregants at an alarming rate, while those churches that honour Scripture and time-tested moral standards are growing.
Former Wal-Mart executive Jimmy Wright said, “The basic Wal-Mart customer didn’t leave Wal-Mart. What happened is that Wal-Mart left the customer”. Yup, my church left me: I used to be an Anglican—Episcopal in the USA—but I’m now a Roman Catholic. Do the “progressives” care? Not at all. They continue their ruinous apostasy and will take their churches down rather than change. What destructive idiots “progressives” are!
Hey Anonymous: good move but watch out for those bishops sporting the “rainbow” on their chasubles and keep an eye on your kids.
Back to what used to be called “mainline” denominations. I grew-up Presby and left because I could see the perversion of scripture. It’s clear to me the goal is to take down these churches and make them ideological self-help groups that will take a chip under the skin as soon as it’s available. Not too far from what happened to the church in Nazi Germany. This same leftist leadership is running the US into the ground as fast as it possibly can…before enough people realize what is really happening. Why? Because man wants to be his own god and make up his own utopia. History shows only one successful model based as closely as possible to a biblical framework and the rest are disasters. Make up your mind America, snap out of your dream. Get back to the basics now or there will be a very very rude awakening ahead.
Right.
Several years ago, I wrote on article called, “The Sad Story of Seven Sisters”, in which I showed that the ‘main-line’ denominations began to decline (some of them plummeted) when they refused or diminished the authority of Scripture. Almost all of this was driven by liberalism, what we now call progressivism. Literally millions of members, many of them Christians, are now ‘shopping elsewhere,’ having left those churches.
Sadly, they are like the ‘sheep without a Shepherd’ Jesus spoke of, wandering about without direction.
First I left the Lutheran church, then the Episcopal church. I now attend the Baptist church my husband grew up in. The amazing thing is that the Pastor sounds just like the Pastor of the Lutheran church we attended when I was a kid. My extremely staunch Lutheran Great grandma would not recognize the Lutheran church today. I began going to the Episcopal church as I saw the two as similar. To say that church ran off the rails is a quaint understatement. It’s all about the doctrine for me, not the externals, though I will likely miss procession and weekly Eucharist for the rest of my life.
What caused me to leave the Episcopal church angered me so much that I spent a number of years researching the liberal side of the church. Liberal Christianity began walking with socialism in the early 1800s. The social gospel years fueled it further and it was those years that brought us the first wave of Progressives. It is a particular strain of Calvinism, but which eventually infected all sects of Christianity, including the Catholic church. It is no accident that both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were Presbyterians, not to mention Norman Thomas. And whoever mentioned it in relation to Nazi Germany is spot on. Tracing liberal protestants first begins in Germany and then ends in Germany under Hitler. And I don’t mean Martin Luther when I mean the beginning. It mixes with the Unitarian beliefs when so many upper class unitarians go to Germany to study abroad, as well as because of the large immigrations from Germany after the failed 1848 revolutions in Europe and again in the 1880′s. By the time of the 1848 revolutions the mixture of liberal Christianity and Socialism are already well advanced.
Today’s liberals/progressives are the product of the failure of early liberal Christianity failing to be able to establish heaven on earth, leaving their religion behind they became full fledged Marxists, instead of Fascists. Mix an earlier American liberal, the abolitionists, and viola you have today’s left wing of America. It’s the radical Republicans of post Civil War, (which began 150 years ago today by the way)mixed with liberal, mostly Protestants, though the Catholics got involved by about 1920 or so, and further mixed with atheist Marxists, and through all of this they still somehow manage to retain their Puritan hearts, which is why they are so much more intellectually and morally superior to the rest of us.
All together they are hell bent on purifying America until no America exists anymore.
That’s why so many people have joined Orthodox Christianity in the past two decades.
The are also egonstics or atheists for the most part. Who needs the 10 Commandments in their lives? As long as we “share the wealth”!
Hey Wal-Mart,
If it ain’t broke… don’t fix it!
Sincerely,
The American Consumer
When Walmart started changing our local stores last year and took out several things that always drew me to shop there I did call and complain and also wrote to cororate headquarters about how disappointed I was in them for taking out these products and areas of the store. I told them that they were abandoning their rural customers by eliminating these products from their stores and that now I and others would have to drive 20 to 30 miles or more to buy these products. It has been so nice to have these products right here in my own town when Walmart opened a few years ago. I felt that Walmart was doing a great service to our community. I do not feel that way now. I do not see any great improvement in what they have replaced these departments with. I see less variety being offered and I do not see what the point was of taking the departments away. I teach pre-school and also am very involved in my children’s schools helping with everything from fundraising to class projects. The craft and fabric departments at Walmart always had whatever was needed to help me in my teaching projects and for the schools. When they downsized these departments and replaced fabric with precut fabric and basically doubled the price on these fabrics I again complained about the fact that these were unusable for the majority of things people bought fabric for. Now when I go into this department I see these precut items marked down because they are not selling and the fabic “kits” are not selling and marked down too. I can no longer buy the craft paints and other things I used to buy and yarn, etc. These departments were always busy before. Another if it ain’t broke don’t fix it thing as far as I am concerned. They had it right for a while by selling pretty much everything you could need in a small town and now they have ruined it.
Gee, Didn’t Disney learn the same lesson with PC-Hontis in response to Progressive criticism of The Lion King?
Why were the progressives upset with The Lion King? Let me guess. The lead character was a king, not a queen. He had a traditional relationship with a female lion. Progressives would have been happier if he’d rejected the female for his two male sidekicks. Or perhaps they would have preferred that the lions become vegans.
Also will they kill the “Sustainablity” program. As a Catfish farmer we have to prove we are sustainable, what ever that means, but it is an unneeded expense. And Chinese or Viet. farmers don’t have to prove that.
not to mention those Chinese sandals for our children that had a chemical attached that ate holes in their feet because the progressives at Walmart saw a dollar-sign attached instead of a warning label. those should never have been allowed into this country but as “THEIR” rule of thumb goes, “if you can make more money with the product, screw the public but pad your wallet.”
sucks donut?
To Muleheadedfarmer:
Where is the made in China ID tag on a cat fish,and Im not being funny I try to buy everything American Made. How does a person know where the food is from.
Like I stated in an earlier comment I would fly in to Northwest Arkansas Regional and I hear the chatter from the sales people calling on WalMart. Now if they talk the way they did going to meet their largest volume customer how do you think the decretionary income crowd is going react? They won’t ask me for my opinion because I would tell them they need to get back to Sam Walton’s roots. Even lib Yahoo News compared prices between Target and WalMart which was a boom for Target.
Walmarts growth and management concept problems began long before Dach and crew! Go back and look at the unfinished expansion projects they walked away from between 2000 and 2002. The excuses presented in this article is just that…excuses of bad managment and a stagnated ‘mature’ retail organization facing many of the problems consistant with becoming mature and to large. Anybody ever give attention to how much of Walmarts product mix is on the shelf one week and discontinued the next? Low margin, high volume retail operations are faced with huge risks especially when they become a mature organization. Walmart depends on computerized ‘turn data’ to determine their product mix and inventory allocations, leaving their customer base essentially out of the equation. Their return policy and shrink ratio’s are nearly unimaginable to any other retail operations…while their cost of doing business increases daily due to regional and national labor and economic conditions.
They have saturated their national market and become so large in doing so, that the many uncontrollable varibles of a low margin, high volume, high overhead concept is moving them into a position of unsustainability and enjoyed historical competitiveness. At best, Dach and crew moved them an inch ahead towards their eventual demise.
The crisis is a crisis of management, leadership, character. See?
Anotehr industry lead down the primrose path of political correctness has been the commercial nuclear power industry. They have embraced “global warming” as a credo and a reason to build new nukes.
As people realize what a criminal cabal global warming has been, the taint might rub off on the nukes.
Better to go back to selling cheap, safe, clean, and reliable electricity.
“In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.”
Why, oh why, are businessmen so blind? The Fountainhead should be required reading everywhere. Never, ever hire Ellsworth Toohey for anything.
All I know is that the food prices at Super Wal-Mart have gone way up on just about everything. I don’t shop there any more.
WalMart sells “Organic Broccoli” from China.
Yeah, I believe in the integrity of that supply chain!
Insult your customers and they will abandon you.
Well, at least this explains why they put “Brokeback Mtn” on their shelves. Time to get back to you family values Walmart.
Oh, I remember when they had those DVDs prominently displayed on the shelves at the old Wal-Mart where I used to shop… After less than a week, they had gone into obscurity… never to be seen again.
My old town is peppered with churches all over. Explains quite a lot…
Sounds like self hating retailers.
Are we awake now ? Maybe I can start finding the things I used to purchase at Wal-Mart.
Maybe part of the problem is that Walmart’s prices are higher than Target, and a few other stores. The cat litter I use is around $17.00 at Walmart. At Petco, I bought it for $9.00 the other day. When I go to Target for cleaning supplies, I end up paying a good $125 less at Target than Walmart.
So much for low prices.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
I won’t shop Target…they don’t support the Military. Treat them like fertalizer when they come into the stores….I’ve seen it in Portland, OR.
And the Military supports us so we can sit around and complain about everything we don’t like. If you don’t like it, boycott it…way to go!
The “organic” food issue annoys me. What do you eat that is inorganic? Organic farming requires more land and resources to produce less food. “Organic” food is neither tastier or healthier than traditionally grown food. There are exceptions of course. I buy “organic” eggs only because they taste better and the yolks are large and deep orange rather than runny and pale yellow like the factory farm eggs. But there is no question about meat, fruits and vegetables. I’d much rather eat healthy feedlot raised beef than sickly grass fed “free range” beef at twice the price. Ditto for chicken. I would much rather consume trace amounts of harmless pesticide residue than insects, insect eggs or dung.
I vaguely recall a study showing that the average fecal coliform bacteria count on organic produce was well over twice the average on “conventionally grown” produce.
I always liked the free range milk that we would buy from the local dairy farm. In the spring it would have nice garlic taste, although it did not have a very long shelf life. Free Range chickens eat lots of bugs which is why their eggs taste better, in addition, they are fed healthier foods themselves. Well grazed meats are tastier. Pork is exceptionally good if it is properly fed in the organic way. Look for dark colored leafy vegies as they will have more nutrition either organic or not. The organic milk sucks.
I quit buying at Walmart a long time ago in the ’90s. They will build a box store in a small community, and put the local businesses out of business. Then when the customers get tired of the overpriced shoddy products, and go back to the locals, they find them gone. Out of business.
Also, got tired of picking up a product and seeing, “Made in China” on almost everything. Even things I thought were true blue Made in America, that had been when I was younger. The only things I buy now that are made in China, are pre 1945.
I am a great deal older now and walking these mega boxes are beyond me, so I still buy in my local stores, the clerks and sales people know me by name, and if they don’t have something I need, they offer to order it for me. They also will meet the price if you discuss it with them. Just a few days ago I talked to the manager of my local grocery about competitive pricing, and she lowered the price of a product to meet my retirement pocket book. Same price as Walmart and 30 miles closer.
Ever since I lived in Emporia Kansas, I’ve referred to WalMart as the town killer. The minute a town became big enough to attract a WalMart, the local stores were doomed. A few years later the town people would notice that their Main street was now like a street from a ghost town and they were stuck buying everything at the anonymous claustrophobic box because all their local stores were out of business.
I consider myself a believer in capitalism and competition, and yet… sigh… I wish there was a way to preserve the Main Streets of the iconic American town.
Funny how it’s Walmart that’s the “town killer,” and not all those townspeople heading to the Walmart for the lower prices.
Bingo! Funny how people always seek to demonize someone for doing exactly what they would do under the same circumstances, especially when that someone is a large, successful business.
I get tired of the townie store owners crying about the Waldo-mart competition. Don’t you know the townie store guy has to order his products from some big town wholesale broker. Your money leaves town anyway. Waldo-mart cut that broker out making the townie store non-competitive. That’s life. Hurray for Wally-world.
There’s a bittersweet aspect of the necessary morphing of business to meet our changing needs and lifestyles. Many Mom & Pop businesses, whole workforces like railroad brakemen and long distance operators, quaint Main Streets, malt shops, dime stores, and country general stores have been plowed under by progress. I can remember when you had to go to the drug store for toiletries and meds, the yardage store for fabric, the hardware store for nails, the grocery store for food, the nursery for plants, the department store for clothing and domestics, the dime store for pencils and notebook paper, the post office for stamps, and the garage or service station to have a lube and oil change. Now I pull into Walmart’s auto service bay and leave my car for lube and oil change, shop inside for every single thing I’ve itemized above, and roll it out to my finished, vacuumed-out car. The driving and finding parking spaces, waiting in numerous lines, making smog, exposure to heat/cold/wind/rain, especially if you’re hauling babies that have to be installed/uninstalled in car seats, or the miserable walking if you’re elderly, are all reduced to a simple, single stop. Altho my heart aches for the quaint things that have disappeared, there’s no way Jose I’d choose to revert to the former. Just like I’d never choose to go back to mustard plasters, corsets, cutting firewood, milking, 5-party phone lines, washboards, hand-crank car engines, unwaterproofed babies, and men without underarm deodorant. But, on the other hand, the bash-brained idea that Sam Walton’s successful model of merchandising needed to be made snootier by someone who could tolerate being around Al Gore’s tomfoolery was predestined for the dumpster. Hopefully the remaining sons and daughters have learned what their daddy could have told them for free and with no loss of face.
I doubt it was ever about “edumacating” the great unwashed about the joys of organic food. They thought they were gonna go yupscale and get the flocks of Prius drivers coming in to replace the icky, yucky clingers with all the “green” stuff.
Problem is…..the yuppies still wouldn’t be caught dead there, even though the left wing groups have more or less dropped all the “unfair labor practice” protests they aimed at WalMart for years. There’s a Neighborhood Market place just down the road from me, which is more or less their attempt to be upscale, and no one’s really fooled by it. It’s got a cleaner look, sure, but the food and wine selection isn’t gourmet enough to match up with the decor.
A little investment tip, once a company starts hiring progressives for the C-level, it is time to sell it short. Progressives did this with many foundations. Progressives got on the board, hired other progressives and now the foundation is the antithesis of what the original donor would have countenanced. Now they try it with companies. They tried being activist stockholders but that didn’t work. So they worm their way in to the “professional” management cadre. It is generally okay as long as the founder is around but when they pass on and the Ivy League MBAs take over, it is time to worry.
” It is generally okay as long as the founder is around but when they pass on and the Ivy League MBAs take over, it is time to worry.”
Heh…Michael Lewis said almost the exact same thing in “Liar’s Poker” about Harvard MBA’s waaaaay back in the 1980′s.
Apparently once the Next Big Thing bubbles up to the Ivy League post-graduate cadre, it is like SO “Ten Minutes Ago”.
Makes sense, if you think about it. No-one attends the Ivy League to become innovative risk-takers out on the cutting edge of whatever, do they?
Folks attend the Ivys for secure employment at “MegaAlmagamated Inc.” and make lots of dough off their sheepskin.
This episode is a perfect example of what happens when a company moves away from its main purpose – for Wal-Mart, selling merchandise & making a profit – and tries to impose its (or in this case, the dolt Dach’s) values, views, opinions, trends, on others. The fact is, a sizable majority of this country doesn’t give one hoot about Dach’s vision for the world. Not to mention “green” is the latest excuse for charging premium prices, and the greenie liberals who are dumb (or guilty) enough to buy green goods (a recent study showed that many of them not only aren’t any greener than non-green products, and in fact, may even be less green) deserve to get shafted.
Unfortunately for Wal-Mart stockholders, for this failed and costly attempt at social engineering, Dach was handsomely rewarded, proving many of the lessons from ‘Dilbert’: that stupidity can be a financially rewarding endeavor in the private sector.
Goodbye, Dr. Dach.
It’s amazing how much over the years that major corporations that have been demonized by the left, from Walmart to McDonald’s to General Electric to any of the Big Three automakers, think that by somehow integrating the left into their operational system they will somehow magically turn their image among the elites around while not hurting their bottom line.
The truth is they hate you. You represent all the Middle American values and middle and lower income people they shudder at even being associated with combined with being a multi-billion dollar non-union corporation, and all the arugula stock in the world you put into your Supercenters isn’t going to change that perception or get that crowd to forsake Trader Joes. If the elites go to a discount store, it’s going to be Target, which comes from a nice, sane, fairly reliably Democratic state like Minnesota (Michelle Bachman’s presence notwithstanding), and not a southern hick flyover country place like Arkansas (Bill Clinton’s 12 years as governor there notwithstanding).
Walmart’s attempt to ingratiate themselves with the coastal state elites wasn’t as aggressive a big middle finger to half the country as, say, Hollywood’s constant churning out of movies that trash America and its values. But from a profit standpoint, it was just as out-of-touch or worse, since at least hardcore liberals will go to America-bashing movies. They were never going to set foot in Walmart unless it’s 3 in the morning and there are no other stores open.
Foe a while now I have thought that Walmart was trying to make itself look like Target and I’d keep asking myself “What the HELL are they thinking!” May be some at the top are starting to ask themselves the same thing now. I hope so.
The greatest sin that the left commits is the self-deception that allows them to see themselves as the good guys.
“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” – Robert A. Heinlein
FIRST OF ALL. IF THE WORLD AND THE OBAMA DICTATORS ACTUALLY LET YOU KNOW THE TRUTH FROM THE ACTUAL SCIENTISTS who specilize in the field of atmospheric changes and the sun and the earth etc infinitum..Not the Government approved lot that say what the gov want them to say so we wont know the truth.
You will know THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLIMATE CHANGE AND NO WE ARE NOT IN DANGER that is all lies and smoke screens to get more money out of you in areas that benefit these people such Obama and the ideas to take over the world because the are greedy.
So eat what you want drive what you want and buy what you want. Obviously be mindful of waste and harming our prestine nature that we still have because that’s not on. We still have to live here on earth and we still have to drink the water………
SO WALMART stop been idiots and trying to change to what you are not, ignore the left and all there BS. if you want to stock cheap so the us normal folk can afford then stock it Pee off the left !!!!!
Oh Vanessa, can I adopt you? You are so absolutely correct. This world isn’t going anywhere unless God says so. This climate change business is just science fiction, always has been, and will be. When are people going to get their heads on straight and learn?? AlGor is not God.
Beyond going “green” and “environmentally responsible”, Walmart decided they would get in bed with Mayor Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/media-center/pr007-08.shtml
You can imagine how well this has gone over with the gun buying public.
I noticed that there was a rather strange shift in the WAL-MART universe a few years back beginning with the name change, yes WAL-MART not WALMART. Slowly these progressive types attempt to impose their values by changing everything. Sometimes boldly, but most of the time insidiously. It was around 2006/2007 that many WALMART’s in south Florida stopping selling firearms and ammunition. Gee I wondered? Now, I know. I used to go into my local WAL-MART and buy .22 caliber ammo by the brick, and then one day there wasn’t any. I asked the store manager and he replied that it was a new company policy for urban locations. I guess people who live in cities don’t need ammo, how progressive! BTW, I don’t need any organic food either. These items are just over-priced and with little quality. Kind of reminds me of some hippies and their failed commune now needing extra cash so they slapped an “ORGANIC” label on the garbage that they grow using human fertilizer.
I’m sorta odd, maybe. I buy organic produce and go to local farmers’ markets here in Texas when I can, I also get my eggs and milk from a local farm that sells raw milk and lets their egg layers roam outside, etc.
But, I also support your right to bear arms. I don’t have a gun, but it’s in the Constitution. I don’t know how you can interpret the Constitution any other way. And, I support your right NOT to buy organic. I think Wal-Mart is a business and they should make decisions based on what their customers want, not on what some politicians in D.C. decree.
Look, a lot of liberals commend me for my buying organic, but then they get upset when I tell them I also grab some venison from my friends that hunt after they get back from their hunting trips. But I’m like, if the goal is healthy food – what is more organic and free-range and natural than a wild deer? Plus, if you care about humanely treating what you kill, a deer that lived a happy, wild life is much better off than an animal that lived its whole life in a 6×4 enclosure.
At any rate, people should be free to make their own choices. Maybe I think you are ill-informed for not choosing organic and you think I’m nuts for paying more for organic, but if neither of us is forcing the other to do things our way – guess what, we can live together in perfect harmony. It’s only when one group tries to force its views on another that we start having problems.
I honestly don’t see why liberals have to push everyone else to walk in lock-step, anyway. On the one hand they talk about diversity, on the other hand they want everyone to buy the same stuff, etc. Who else finds this picture a bit weird?
“I honestly don’t see why liberals have to push everyone else to walk in lock-step…”
It has a great deal to do with the Marxist view of people as just another kind of animal. Lenin had a talk with Pavlov (yes, THAT Pavlov) about developing a program to repeat, with humans, what he had done with dogs – and Pavlov was intrigued enough to actually go with it!
These neoMarxists want everyone to think the same way – according to the left’s agenda – so that they know precisely what buttons to push in order to obtain the desired result. If these monsters have their way, we will become the new cultures in their social laboratory: grown, tested, irradiated, poisoned, altered, mutated, purified, and – eventually – discarded to make room for a new social experiment.
Folks who think this is crazy – that it could never happen – can just keep thinking that way… and when I’m safely dead, and they are being herded like cattle to those social petri dishes called FEMA camps, they can remember that they were told.
Yada, yada ,yada, yada. Everything everyone says on here is so correct but do we have to drive SUVs and continue to give the terrorists our hard earned cash? I mean is there no other way to show you have a big penis? BTW as you can guess I do not.
” Everything everyone says on here is so correct but do we have to drive SUVs and continue to give the terrorists our hard earned cash?”
Where do you live? Do you live where I live? I need 4-wheel drive AND cargo carrying capacity, (preferably covered).
You’re being an ass.
And no, we don’t have to give terrorists our gas money…if we would produce our own national energy resources,that would suit ME fine, since I work,(or used to until I was furloughed), in the offshore Oil Patch.
Maybe you could drop the Undocumented President a line about that…
“I mean is there no other way to show you have a big penis?”
Stop projecting, sonny. We all understand your private shame, but I doubt anyone here cares anough about you to help you work through your own personal Hell, see?
Thank you! You saved my having to respond to that jerk!
Now you guys are starting to sound like the left wing Nazi police. Someone raises a point from a different perspective and you start frothing at the mouth. Lighten up fellows I still think you are both pretty-OK daddy.You guys might want to up your medication and Bilgeman might want to change your name to Bileman.
Its funny, but as a lifelong Republican and an economic conservative, I still feel that every gallon of gasoline (or diesel) you buy is giving money to people who want to kill us and our way of life. So while I live in a suburb but own rural land and have properties in towns that are off the beaten track, I have had to find ways to access my land and live my life while being conscious of every drop of fuel that I use. So chain saw clearing the raw land. SUV to get me there and home. It hurts when I pull up to the pump but I do know that I have examined every thing that I do in an attempt to avoid each trip there. And yes, I eventually got rid of the SUV and figured out a way the half-dozen times each year when I need hauling or off road abilities to get what I need done, done.
People’s knee-jerk reactions to say their way of life insists on them using as much fuel as possible, it makes me sad.
BTW I despise WalMart but for a different reason and I think only one other poster said it – It takes me 10 minutes to shop, but 30 minutes to check out, there are 24-30 lanes but only 4 open unless you want to use the job-killing automated registers, oh wait, there are 8 of those but only 2 open.
I will say there have been a number of times I have waited in line for 20 minutes and just abandoned my purchases, gone to the supermarket, KMart, Big Lots, Ocean State Job Lot, etc. and paid 3% more (as well as the re-shopping time) for the items. Each time I ask myself “Why did I go to WalMart to begin with, I could have shopped faster, closer to home, and only pay a few % more for the privilege?”.
But that’s not what this thread is about.
Jzsnake:
I admire your candid statement about ‘not having one.’ The question remains, did you refer to your (non)SUV automobile or your (not large)penis?
But your point is well taken. I tire of seeing ‘progressive’ people driving monster vehicles equipped with a 4WD system that they do not need or even know how to use. Nothing is funnier than an SUV stuck in the snow because the driver didn’t know how to drive in snow. But they complain to High Heaven about the price of gas while the weight of their behemouth and the extra drag of the drive system take their toll.
Where else but in America can you find people who cry about the high price of gasoline and turn around and buy ordinary water at $12.50 a gallon?
We are much to focused on fashion and style and ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. Are we really that worried by ‘what will people say’ if we abandon our icons of affluence and live our lives to suit ourselves alone? Unfortunately the ‘Progressive’ viewpoint has become fashionable and the empty headed segment of society is embracing it like college kids embracing methamphetamine, with similar tragic results.
Green, eco-friendly, diversity, progressive thinking is just a trick with smoke and mirrors put on by those want to run your life.
Not that I begrudge you your right to be as stupid as you want. But I reserve the right to make fun of your stupidity if that is the path you take.
Say what you want, it’s still the best place to get inexpensive ammo, at least for the more common calibers.
-burger
T. T. Thomas: Can you elaborate on this “Their return policy and shrink ratio’s are nearly unimaginable to any other retail operations…”?j
jwarrior…Be happy to however, I will need to consult a couple of family members to get exact numbers. But in the interim, most successful businesses, Whsl & Retail, must keep their shrink down to 3% or less to help protect their needed profit line and survive. Under the Walmart brand, their shrink runs in the teens corporate wide. One of the major considerations to such a large shrink volume is their return policy and the massive abuse of it by folks. First, there are laws about what can be returned and not returned for resale…such as many food, textile, damaged electronics items, etc., and of course Walmart is the nations largest violator of prohibited returns for resale. Even violating the returns laws, Walmart has excessive returns that simply cannot be returned for resale and must go to the salvage market for literally pennies on the dollar. Now, one would ask why so much would go to salvage rather than back to the manufactuer. The overall handling and logistics of returns to the mfg are cost prohibitive to the Walmart model. As a general rule it use to be 5% plus ‘markup’ for 3% shrink.
Now here’s the important thing to consider about Walmart and its shrinkage! Walmart ONLY declares a 2% shrinkage on it books and falsely reports earnings! They use a convoluded system that provides for a ‘stub-period’ in which all but that 2% shrink is included into and not reported on financial statements. They declare that they ajdust to the stub period but financial statements don’t seem to validate this. The SAM’S division on the other hand, openly discloses that they use a ‘static’ 2% shrink for financial reporting.
So, speculating the shrink of a $22 Billon dollar inventory that turns 4.5 times per year on the basis of what is suggested as their real shrink in the teens, folks can do their own math and markup. They’ve simply become to large to remain efficient and folks will continue to pay for that inefficiency by a couple of ways until they’ve had enough.
typical progressive mind-set………….take the most successful model ever concieved and try to change it, sound familiar? Obama asked people to join him in changing the greatest country on earth. Wal-Mart can re-group much more rapidly, its a corporation and can move quickly to its roots. The country however will take longer, purging idiologs who want the US to be socialist takes many election cycles to accomplish. The good news, like Wal-Mart customers (salt of the earth America lovers)the America that exists between the two progressive socialist coasts have opted to do something about it.
We must stop refering to the Democrat Party as “Democratic”. There is nothing Democratic about the Democrats.
Wal-Mart! Back to reality.
I suggest that all read Milton Friedman’s brillian essay:
“The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”
The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970.
It’s online for free. Read it. You’ll appreciate it.
I love Aldi. There products are comparable and the prices are great. They have the best oranges….10 for $1.00. Yup, it’s Aldi for me.
Now, what about Walmarts other problems like….being PC? Will that change or will they continue to go down that path? I guess only time will tell. I’ll go there for some items as they are close by but I’ll stick with Aldi.
I’m sureprised the government isn’t buying out those “green” and upscale products or bailing out WM like they’re doing with hybrid cars. It will be a relief to see the old tried and true rather than the um, well….crap…that we’ve gotten here since the superstore came in.
What galls me is that we reward people for making bad decisions. If your decisions drive the company down financially, why would you expect a bonus and stock options? Bonuses should be tied to performance. Screw up and you don’t get the bonus. Think of Lee Iacca.
I began shopping at Wal-Mart for groceries about 2 years ago when the economy tanked and I needed to save some money on groceries. I was thrilled to get most things I needed (let’s face it, they don’t stock everything) and walk out with a cart for about $100.00. Today, I buy the same items and my cart runs close to $250.00. Needless to say, I stopped going to Wal-Mart as now my local market competes and has better prices. The worst offense is that Wal-Marts produce is nasty and not worth buying most of the time so I still needed to go to another store for those items. I have no problems understanding why they are changing their model back. The old one didn’t work.
The easiest way to sum it all up is this. The Government has never been successful at anything they have undertaken. They have no idea how to be profitable other than lining their own pockets. Look at social security, the value of the american dollar, the postal service, our public school systems, or again, anything else they have had control over. Complete failure.
Now let’s look at the history of Walmart. Hmmm, very successful. I think the people running Walmart should take over the responsibility of our Government and turn this country around.
Cautionary tale for the Left?
More like a cautionary tale for everyone but the Left.
The Left doesn’t learn – or more to the point – doesn’t care.
One more time we see what happens when you try to fix something that isn’t broke. Sam’s way worked. I buy American products there and absolutely nothing from China. Businesses need to always remember to stay out of the political area and just concentrate on making the best product that they can.
I’ll know MY Wal-Mart is finally back when I see the shotgun and rifle display box in the sporting goods area again.
When is walmart going to realize what made them big from the start?It was american manufacturing and they need to go back to those basics and help win this country back from the chinese.This contry needs to buy amercan and bring our manufacturing back to where it was providing jobs for the peaople that love this country!!!!Wakeup americans
Ever since Sam Walton died, Walmart has been on a downward spiral. Their employees are often rude and uncaring. I’ve had Walmart employees damned near run me over while I was walking about the store with a cane. Even as I progressed to a wheelchair, they’ll try to force a person out of their way. I won’t get into all of the JUNK they sell because others have already pointed that out. Furthermore, my local store isn’t community oriented, at least from what I’ve seen. Cleanliness?? Well, that’s out!! My local store is usually as filthy as a pig pen whenever I DO go there.
Walmart has killed my downtown area. Walmart used to be in one part of town and the downtown businesses started hurting, but still managed to be viable. When the highway was built to bypass town, Walmart quickly moved out to the new highway and became an anchor store near the outskirts of town. Since then (1992), the downtown businesses have started to fold. It’s only gotten worse in the last five years. And with the monopoly on the market, customer service at Walmart has depreciated and prices are climbing. I watch the sales flyers for the local stores and avoid Walmart like the plague whenever I can.
From what I’ved learned we don’t deal with cuba because they are communist but china is the biggest communist and we have made them very rich.Its time we all wakeup and make the USA the country our forfathers planned it to be”THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD” We are having our problems now but we can all change that and make the politicians realize how real americans feel about this country before its too late.
For those who choose not to buy organics….that’s their choice, but they shouldn’t condemn or castigate those who do choose to buy them.
I buy as many organics as I can afford, but there’s times when I can’t afford to buy them!
The reason I try to buy organic is because I am mindful of the healthier benefits in staying away from items that are genetically modified, insecticide sprayed fruits and vegetables, and chemical additives and preservatives that play havoc with one’s health. To me that’s enough reason to pay a little more to buy organic.
Having said that, it’s true that even with the organic labelling seal, there are crooked companies that are cheating on certain products and deceiving the public into believing it’s entirely organic when it’s not.
Still, I’d rather buy organic milk, knowing it has no added hormones or antibiotics in it, yet has been put through pasteurization which kills all the healthy enzymes….it’s trade off, but one I choose to make.
I’m sorry that Walmart will be dropping the organics….however Leslie Dach obviously didn’t have the know-how to educate Walmart’s customers on the health benefits. You can’t put a price on health!
The last time that I checked, there was no universal agreement on what “organic” actually means, or what “standards” a product has to meet to bear that word on its packaging.
From what I read above, in many respects “organic” may actually be more risky than the alternative (in-organic? – how can produce be in-organic).
Capitalism is not perfect, but it usually works better than forcing us to change our behavior to fit a theory.
“Normal” and “natural” are useful opposites to “organic” as the term is used in the food business. Or “perfectly good”, or….
In chemistry, organic means the chemistry of carbon. Inorganic means the chemistry of metals.
Mare (comment 55)
You say Dach failed at educating the Walmart customer base of the benefits of organics. You prefer to buy organic milk because it has less antibiotics and hormones in it & it’s better for you.
Well, as a dairy veterinarian’s wife, I consider myself educated enough on milk and what the *real* difference between regular milk & organic milk. First of all. ALL milk is safe and does not have antibiotics! Cows that are given antibiotics when they are sick are in the hospital pen and their milk is milked last and dumped. There is a prescribed withdrawal period for different medicines, during which time that cow’s milk (or meat if applicable) CANNOT be used. The risk to the farmer to use their milk is far too great because if that milk gets into the tank, the ENTIRE tank is polluted and dumped and the farmer cannot afford that.
Hormones: It is simply not cost effective to give hormones to all cows all the time. Also, Cows NATURALLY make BST and there is no detectable difference in the milk between cows with and cows without rBST. (It is used to help the cow produce milk. The benefit to the dairy farmer (all of us when you think about the carbon footprint!) is that the cow’s milking volume is sustained a little bit more. Which means you get more milk with the same number of cows and feed, as opposed to more land, more cows, more feed, more (waste), more water for the same amount of milk. Moot point anyhow because I believe most (all?) of the dairy farmers that my husband works with no longer use rBST anymore. (All of the milk I buy have “no rBST” printed on them.)
The largest organic milk producer in the area has two dairy farms across the road from each other. When a cow gets sick, it is sent across the road to the non-organic dairy so that it can be given medicine to help it get better. (Would you allow your kid or yourself suffer through pneumonia or a surgery without any antibiotics or drugs at all??)
Smaller organic dairies do not have the means to have two separate facilities for their organic & non-organic cows, so when they get a sick cow, they treat it with all kinds of herbs and other “organic” medicines, including untested substances which we don’t know the effects of…
My husband does NOT want me buying organic milk. So, I buy my milk and am grateful it is less expensive than organic milk and there are no surprises in it.
You can take your education and buy organic. I’ll take the education *I* had and choose what I want to buy. Just because YOUR education has come from a different place from mine does not mean YOUR education trumps mine.
I am NOT anti-organic, or a additive-lover (I refuse to buy ground beef chubs ever since I learned that they were “washed” with ammonia!) but I do believe in moderation and wisdom in all things.
I also agree with an earlier post that said organic produce simply means fertilized with natural manure, instead of commercially produced fertilizer. Each person has a different risk tolerance, you take your preference and I’ll take mine. That’s what makes America great, all the choices and tolerance for each other’s choices. I just hate the snippiness and namecalling from one side to the other. You have a choice to pray or not to pray. You have a choice to buy organic or not organic. You have a choice to drive a big vehicle that fits your need or a teeny high mileage vehicle. Don’t get on your high horse and expect everyone else to do the same or insult them when they don’t!
very insightful, thanks!
Just curious about something. How it is that life span has been steadily increasing even when we are eating those horrid pesticides, which we all know are going to kill you. Yet when our grandparents or great grandparents only had those things their life spans were much less? If it is so much healtier to live the way our families did a 100 years ago, how come we now expect our children not to die before the age of 2 like our great grandparents did, and how come I can expect to out live my ancestors by many years?
I don’t disagree that fresh food is healthier than processed, but I fail to see how organic is actually any healthier than not. When you start getting into antibiotics given to animals or hormones that it a different thing, I see neither as a good thing, and the fact is that MRSA and other antibiotic resistant bacterias are the result of giving antibiotics where antibiotics are not needed. But keeping bugs and fecal matter off plants just seem like such a no brainer.
We buy our beef from someone we went to high school with, his cows are all grain fed, and roam his farm. The cow is slaughtered and packaged at our local locker. Milk is bought from a local dairy farm where the milk is pasteurized but not homogenized. Both are extremely tasty. I buy eggs from someone I work with who has chickens. Our chicken is from our local grocery where they carry hormone free and no added % of some substance they don’t bother to actually give a name. In essence clean food is good, which to me rules out organic, while enhanced food is unnecessary and likely harmful, which means I buy little processed foods. Next year we’ll also buy a hog the same way we do our beef, and from someone we have known for many years.
I’ve given up buying produce from Walmart and instead buy from Meijers, a local chain in Michigan and Ohio, they buy loads of local produce. In the summer we do Farmers Markets, often buying from people we know. I buy dry goods and can goods in bulk, not from Walmart. Ultimately because I have a freezer full of meat and my staples in bulk we save much on our grocery bill. I used to buy much more from Walmart, but now little. They simply don’t fit my needs as well as they used to.
and we garden and put up our own food, though not in the bulk my mom used to. Simply not enough time, I do more freezing then caning.
Here in our rural area, with a small town of about 15,000 people, WalMart moved into town years ago and ran MANY small, locally-owned stores out of business. They became the only game in town. They carried a huge inventory of the basics that everyone needed. Then suddenly a couple of years ago, they had to do a complete makeover: As TexEd (#5 comment) said, the aisles were all changed to little dinky things, and it was suddenly like a rat maze. The huge crafts section was cut to 2 tiny aisles, the pharmacy/health section suddenly had less of everything, and you could NEVER find what you wanted. The vast array of low-cost greeting cards became an elaborate, expensive Hallmark display (not dissing Hallmark….). In short, everything in their store had become nothing more than Dach’s opinion of what people should buy. No wonder people left in droves! Every time I HAVE to go there because I don’t have time to drive 25 miles north or south to bigger towns with Target and Shopko (since they ran everyone else in town out of business), I come out angry, mumbling something about “Whatever happened to the OLD WalMart, where you could come in and find absolutely anything you needed at a price you could afford?” It does my heart good to learn, at last, what caused this Great American Company to take a nosedive: LIBERALISM! AMERICA, TAKE HEED!!
Well, now does it confirm it?????? Al Gore is insane, incompetent, and totally stupid!!! Good thing he invented the internet so we can be chatting now!!! What a maroon!!
Maybe Walmart will learn what K-mart failed to. After all, there was a time when K-mart, too, was “America’s Favorite Store.”
I stopped shopping at K-mart when they started being open for business on Thanksgiving Day–a day that the working people see as a day to be with family and thank God for your blessings. At that point, Walmart was closed that day. Then they began only having their “Super Centers” open. When I complained about this, I was told all the salespeople were there “voluntarily.” Now, the past two Thanksgivings have seen Walmart open on Thanksgiving across the board.
This put me in a dilemma. I had begun shopping at Walmart because K-mart didn’t honor the family time of their employees. Now Walmart was staying open as well, so why should I punish K-mart for the same action. Then I found Target. They at least respect Thanksgiving Day and the desire of their employees to be with their family. I’ve decided to reward that behavior with my business. This is a new habit, but barring Walmart and K-mart choosing to reconsider this issue, I will be shopping at Target almost exclusively.
Although my husband is a manager there, we stopped shopping at WalMart with the “green”, non-American made, no longer ALL family-friendly, and more costly items in the store, and when they bragged in a weekly employee newsletter that they helped get Obamacare passed and another time told of support to groups we did not want our money going to, my husband came home angry and said, “find us another place to shop”.
What folks ignore is that Americans today, community-by-community, drive all that they complain about as they point fingers to everybody but themselves. They want cheap them complain about quality. They want quality, them complain about price. They complain about companies but flock to their services and products….and on down the line. ALL companies design their services around first, WHAT THE ‘PEOPLE’ DEMAND or are otherwise willing to partake of!
For public owned companies, they have to deal with what the labor and unions demand and establish then, what their stockholders demand of them….MORE MONEY! So, is it any wonder that capitalism in America has become so corrputed and for survival they seek the cover of a corrupted government and political favortism….MONEY! For all those who dispise so many companies, may I suggest you make sure you withdraw your administered retirement ‘investment’ funds from them….LOL!
Walmarts problem(s) has never been an individual such as Dach and crew. The problem overall in America, is the people of America…who drives the marketplaces…and the governmets, corruptness.
The perfect description of why Liberals do what they do was posted on a recent article I read:
“Liberalism is the philosophy of the adolescent: whiny, insecure, full of big crazy ideas that have no practical application in the real world, and with a tragically inflated sense of entitlement.”
Wal-Marts fascination with Chinese goods is what has been killing it. I am thoroughly “Buy American”, support Americans. And I have nothing against the Chinese, it is the Liberals that infect our Business’ that I loathe. . .
The Obama administration and his Marxist left agenda would like to dictate what we eat, sleep, work, and play. Theirs is a dominant force that would like to see the “Utopia” of “1984″ with all Americans slaves to the government. In this way Obama and his senior Aides are not only interested in Walmart, but are currently working on the disassembling of the Constitution of the United States. We are in three wars abroad and one one BIG one right here at home. Our freedom is going to be taken away from us in an insidious “Change” that was promised. Wake up America Now!!!
The Obama administration is interested in changing and dictating what we wear, eat, drive, how we work, how we play, and how we die. Yes, there is “Change” in the air. An agenda that will create a “Utopia” like in Orwell’s “1984″. We will be the slaves to a government of elites that play golf and travel around the world while the United States “people” burn. We are not only in three wars now in the Middle east, we are in the biggest one here at home. God save us. Wake up America!!!
Claudia USA
“Showed me pointedly how we have effectively destroyed business here for whatever reason, corporate greed, union stranglehold on manufacturing, consumer’s wanting the cheapest price no matter where it is made.”
It is so tiresome to continue to hear the words, “corporate greed” as a primary reason for jobs going off shore. The real reason is our government with its high business taxation and regulations (environmental,et al.). Companies can’t afford to even build new manufacturing facilities in the US anymore. Intel was considering a new mfg’ing facility, but backed away from the $1 B in outlays for site assessment, studies, permits, etc., etc., – this all before one shovelful of dirt was turned. Then come the rest of the regs, then the taxes. A person wanting to run a new dairy farm in CA has to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars for these same things – with no guarantee of being allowed to run that dairy. And no return of his money if his request is denied.
Way to go, Progressives!!
Unfortunately, the Progressive Socialists have morphed this country from a nation of “producers” into a nation of “consumers” as part of a “well orchestrated plan” to reduce the standard of living in America to third world status so it will be easier to put us all under the umbrella of Global Government.
Back in the 60′s we could feed the entire world. Now, we have a 5 day food supply on the shelves. These Progressive miscreants have brought this once great country to its knees with Multiculturalism, Entitlements, Diversity, and free market killing policies. If you think Dach did what he did to Wallmart on his own, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. If this runaway train isn’t stopped, our children will wake up slaves on the continent their Forefathers conquered.
I am flabbergasted by what I am reading. I got linked this article and was incredulous at the objectiveness of the article. But what really got me were the comments. You people are crazy.
And in this sea of madness, you, Chuck, are the maddest. Granted, I haven’t read every single comment but still, you come across as the very embodiment of conservative hysteria. Congratulations.
I see from all the excellent posts I’m a little late to this party, so I will offer up a quote from Al Taubman, one of the nation’s leading developers of shopping malls, who said, “Stores that cater to the classes fall on their asses.” Looks like WalMart learned that lesson the hard way.
It is comforting to learn that a giant like Wal-Mart has tasted the poisoned waters of the Left. “Going back to basics” for the giant retailer, along with the small steps our new congress has taken, we can begin to look forward to brighter days ahead for real Americans. Next year, we can sound a call for all of us to “return to basics”. We can put an end to this nightmare. For too long so many of us allowed the few to control the elections of the Liberals to dismantle our country. The Pelosi’s, the Barney Franks, the Reid’s and of course our first black President, all have shown us what can happen when we stand on the sidelines, and allow the corrupt to make our decisions. I hope that we can begin the long journey “back to basics” and return our nation to real Americans, and return to our core values that made our nation GREAT!
I can’t believe that a Corporation like Wal Mart could be so inempt to buy into this stuff.
Shame on them.
I own a small business and don’t buy that cr*p.
Wal Mart. Please contact me to help with your marketing. I’ll save you a lot.
Yeah, looks like those hippy organic eletists are loosing again. Sam Walton had it right, yyou got to deliver product no matter the quality for a low price.
I think its good that Walmart is getting all its stuff from China, they dont have stupid unions there and workers have to put in an honest day’s work, not like the USA where all the workers are lazy bums.
@ beatlejuice
I ken ye, Sai, and see you very well
“Dach’s failure should be a cautionary tale for President Obama: last week he scolded a blue collar man in Pennsylvania for driving an SUV…”
The proper retort to this idiot of a president would have been “I’ll do it…just as soon as you trade in your 747 for a Gulf Stream!”
Apparently the irony of this line of thinking is lost on this moron. While his bride is partying in Spain and spending American taxpayer $s people were losing jobs. Didn’t stop her – or him. Vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard – Rio etc. Bush would have been lampooned by the MSM for such opulent behavior yet look the other way when the Chosen One and his bride do it.
I’ve seen the changes in Wal-Mart these past few years. Organic foods sat on the shelves in my local store – people here just don’t have the money for such extravagances. I know one of the assistant managers – a family member. She’s told me of all the old produce they chuck most of it is of the organic variety. People refuse to pay the extra price and until recently Wal-Mart was reluctant to stop ordering it for this store. Not much organic produce is seen here of late. And the cheap but very sturdy line of clothes have made it back on the racks. Sensible trumps style in fly-over country.
Typical of progressives – they ignore the laws of unintended consequences. Trouble is there are too many (Wal-Mart etc) that buy into their shtick – until the consequences bite them in the ass. And it always does.
what do you expect when you have people in charge that have never run a company or made a payroll or even considered that they just might not know it all. so tired of their constant, insidious pushing of UN Agenda 21. I don’t want to live in an apartment in the innercity and ride public transportation everywhere so they can better control what I see, read, and think. Time to kick the UN out and anyone in Congress and the current administration that wants to force UN Agenda 21 and the liberal mindset on America.
Don’t be so sure that is what drove away the customers. I would WANT to buy organic food there. The reason I stopped going to Wal*Mart is their support for homosexuality. I suspect I have a lot of company. I don’t want to eat Genetically Modified Frankenfoods, and the only way I know to avoid them is to eat organic. I don’t even go into Wal*Mart for groceries for that reason, though I stopped going altogether over the homosexual issue.
Marketing 101: Be very cautious when you venture out of your niche. You could end losing your former customers without gaining new ones.
Example: A brand of beer (was it Budweiser?) whose market was blue collars and advertised for them (ie strog, sweaty, sun tanned men laughing around a bottler of beer) tried to get into the upper scale market and isued commercials whowing well clothed men in luxury appartments drinking that beer. The result was that for blue collars that beer ceased to be a “people’s beer ” and became a “them’s beer” (the white collars) so they stopped drinking it while for white collars it remained a “truck drivers and farmers beer” and an embarrasment if you accidentally proposed it to your friends and neighbors.
Here we have the same story: Walmart customers are price-conscious people unlikely to accept to pay 2 or three times more for an “organic” product (often not even better) while the high-nosed customers of “organic” shops wouldn’t be caught dead within three miles of a Walmart.
Now Dach did it for politics but one can ask himself what were thinking the people who hired him and didn’t veto his policies.
Marketing 102: If you are strongly associated with a niche and want to get a foothold into another then buy or create another brand. That is why General Motors has Cadillacs and Chevrolets.
Professor….Walmart has never left its model and ‘niche’ market. Walmart began to mature and while reaching maturity, found its competitors, especially in food and textile, gaining/taking market share. They, like all matured ‘centric’ modeled companies are scurrying to find ways to refresh their image and model. May I suggest you refresh you understanding of what a ‘nich’ market is? I think a $22B dollar inventory that turns 4.5 time per fiscal year hardly serves a ‘niche’ market.
Refreshing article for its honest reporting. Thanks for providing it….And thanks for NUMBERING reader replies. I’ve never seen that before. It really helps for locating comments. (Even if you need to purge a few inappropriate replies which could slightly change the number order the numbering remains far more helpful than not. Good call, please keep that feature around.)
Oh Lucid, you are the smarty-est wisey-est commenter EVAR!!! Heh-heh, couldn’t resist.
Wal-Mart should watch its back. The Washington/Chicago/Enviro Thugs are not going to like this. I wonder what punitive punishment will come along.
Walmart really isn’t in the Chicago market. To an extent, corruption, unions and politics kept them away. Things are changing in that they will soon have 1/2 dozenn stores in the market and then expand. K-Mart is the local and on one hand, their stores are better there and on the other hand, Walmart will destroy them.
Progressiveism in business = FAIL. This was a surprise, how?
They are antithetical.
We need more made in America stuff, but we can’t afford it. Who wants to buy a $30 can opener?
We can’t afford to pay the labor. Minimum wage and unions drive up the cost of everything. Plus no one wants to do the labor. You can find ways to keep collecting unemployement or disability and get a similar paycheck without doing anything.
We have a problem with illegal aliens, because they do the work and get paid.
Where does Mr. Pollock come by the notion that Wal-Mart endured seven straight quarters of losses?
I also noticed 7 consecutive quarters of losses. I haven’t looked, but suspect it is 7 consecutive quoartes of no increase in existing store sales in America. In other countries, they are still booming. They also are entering some new major US markets for the first time. I get my inside info 3 quarters in advance.
Having taught business consulting for a short time at a major university, no one can compare with Walmart in terms of distribution prowess.
Much more than half of Walmart products are food. With high cost of freight, it is expensive to ship from China. Shutting off water in Kalifornia is part of the push to import food. The other push to import food will come from the new food inspector/nazi programs.
By the way, has anyone ever eaten “Inorganic” veggies?
This is great news. I can only hope that government sponsored ethanol and wind power are not very far behind in showing their true colors and are sidelined. Millions of our tax dollars have been pumped into these scams. Time to wake up america. Great job walmart.
You know it’s hard to be living in a time when the president of the United Sataes and his wife have the ability to sway companies with their personel visisions of the world that they want. Their idea of this world is completely different than the majority of the American People. What a waste of time, energy and aggravation. This will take years and many dollars to, as Wal-Mart states, go back to bacics.
Confirmation bias much!?!? ATVs haul firewood just fine, misa.
I think you forgot the hashtag #NotMeanttobeaFactualStatement to your article. Just sayin’ http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/04/13/walmart-disavow-green-strategy-not-so-fast
I shopped at WalMart for years because it is around the corner from me, it was a one stop shop and it had by far the best deals in town for basics. EVERYTHING was cheaper there, if only by a few cents, and their produce was excellent because it moved so fast. A few cents adds up to about $30 to $50 per trip. I could even get specialty items that, unlike the local coop I previously shopped in, weren’t moldy oldy from sitting on the shelf so long.
I can afford to shop elsewhere, but I’m not a mall rat and don’t like paying more for the same thing that I can get for less.
I no longer shop there, well, okay, I do sometimes because it is just so darn convenient and is open 24 hours. But since they began the campaign, they became virtually indistinguishable from stores like KMart or ShopCo.
Walmart is and has never really been a pleasant place to shop. It’s a big box with large distances and it takes a long time to get in and out. They used to have super friendly people working there, and many are still employed, but about the same time they made the other changes, they began replacing the friendly checkers with grumpy diversity hires. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with who checks me out. But is it really that hard to find a pleasant, chatty gay guy or pleasant refugee hire? I used to marvel at the sheer transformation from exceedingly friendly to dour and angry. Am I wrong to suspect that they were screened for their “progressive” loyalty?
There is no real reason to go in there anymore and I’ve noticed that when I do, the store isles are far less busy than they used to be. There are no deals to justify the trip, no impulse buys that I didn’t know I couldnt’ live without. Their food items are no longer cheaper than regularly discounted items at local grocery stores and their clothes are no longer basic clothes at cheap prices, but cheap clothes at normal prices.
Why did they think they would be successful; because they now carry 7th Generation soaps at the same price they sell them elsewhere? As for the organics, that was nice, but again hardly worthy trudging across a huge parking lot to shop under glaring florescent lights.
I hope they go back to basics.
This entire exchange is a total echo chamber of paranoia and bile. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to consider new ideas than to hang around applauding variations on our ow? (And occasionally chortling about penis sizes while accusing liberals of being simply adolescent…)
Pesticides cause cancer in mammals. Flat-out fact. Human cancer rates are out of control. Fact. Factory farming damages the environment and depletes the soil and no, global warming is not a myth. These are not political issues at their base. They’re issues of our grandchildren’s survival. It is not political outrage that ignites me when I am sitting in a line of cars at my kids’ school behind enormous SUV’s that idle for twenty minutes so that the driver can keep toasty as she waits…though it’s 60 degrees out.
We have no right to hand our kids a wasteland. That’s not a political concern. It’s a moral concern.
@toledo – Please provide facts (and references) on your assertion that cancer rates are out of control. Secondly, global warming (due to humans) has been disproven…it’s due to that big orb in the sky we call the sun–that’s why there was a “global warming” 1000 yrs ago when the Vikings settled Greenland and Iceland and actually grew crops and flocks in those countries (which by the way you can’t do today–because it’s too cold!!)
The only “wastelands” we have are the urban areas liberals build over farming communities and wildlands so that they “can be one with nature” and still have a black-top highway linking them to their favourite latté coffee shops.
Sorry but Walmart hasn’t suffered through 7 quarters of losses…Check the financials.
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:WMT&fstype=ii
Last quarter sales were higher than a year ago. On an annual basis revenue and earnings have gone up every year.
However, after viewing the comments on this story many of the readers don’t need facts. I would venture to say most of them avoid facts at all cost.
Very odd. Why would Walmart drop such a clanger and hire an obviously unsuitable turkey? They’re certainly not that dumb. There must be more to it.
I have to wonder just how many of those leaving comments are actually familiar with Walmart. It’s of no use bewailing the fact that they don’t have much in the way of US-made stuff. That’s because nobody else has US-made stuff, either. Walmart has the same merchandise you buy at other stores. The only difference is that Walmart’s prices are very aggressive. I bought my last computer there, the same computer you’d buy at Best Buy or Staples or from the big Internet dealers. Taiwanese, not too surprisingly. Stuff for keeping your car running – Prestone, Mobil, Valvoline, Texaco – same as all other retailers. The groceries are no more Chinese than the groceries at Shaws or Stop & Shop. Ammunition? Winchester, Remington, Federal, same as what everybody else carries. Knives? Gerber, Buck, Wenger, Victorinox – good stuff, same as everybody else’s. Calculators? HP (which have been made in Asia for years, of course, but that’s not Walmart’s fault). Shoes and clothes are Asian, but they are everywhere else, too.
Is Walmart bipolar? Do the they have to go from one extreme to another? No, I don’t think (hope) so. Hopefully, they’ll find the happy medium (middle road), where they can be profitable and provide quality goods.
Poor people do not “want” low prices. They NEED low prices. Sam Walton knew that an built the biggest employer in the USA.
If you want design — go to Target.
Journey from Blue to Green and back to Blue.
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USA! USA! (Prius? UN? Eh… )
It almost goes without saying that a Volt or Prius is good only as a shorthaul, inter-urban vehicle. But those who are truly “green” and live in these enclaves would be better off investing in a bus-pass than a $40k vehicle that can only be used within the confines of the city.