Mouselock, your objection seems to be to consumers, not Wal-Mart. They’re the ones who are too stupid to recognize that Wal-Mart products are inferior quality, apparently.
Me? Not because I think a brand deserves loyalty bar none, but because I think setting up a positive reward feedback cycle (you make a good product, you deserve a larger share of the return than someone who makes a mediocre one) is a healthy thing for a consumer driven economy. Wal-Mart type businesses muck with that, essentially substituting their brand for the product’s through market clout. Which would be fine if we could implicity trust Wal-Mart’s decisions for ourselves, but we can’t.
Hence why it’s evil.
I’ve read this three times and can’t figure what you’re talking about.
How long until we see Wal-Mart brand brake pads? 30% cheaper, and only 5% less effective! Who cares about 5%, anyway, right?
Ever heard of cost-benefit analysis?
The thing I really don’t get is the objections like “Wal-Mart bribes city councils” and “Wal-Mart censors its stuff.” What, like the small town businesses didn’t?
I live in a small town in Michigan. They didn’t even have a mall here until about 10 or so years ago. Now we have a mall, which hurt a lot of small businesses, a huge Wal-Mart, a huge Lowes, a huge Barnes & Nobles, etc.
A number of the small mom-and-pop shops went down. What’s interesting is how many have adapted and survived. The owner of the local bookstore changed the store into a wonderful used and rare books store and is making more money now than they ever did before. There’s a local hardware store that has survived Lowes etc. by offering a lot of “special” personalized service, plus making sure that every person who walks into the store is made to feel like family: free coffee and sodas and juice and popcorn when you walk in, VERY knowledgeable people who smile a lot and make you feel like you’re their only customer, they will special order anything you need (we had an old humidifier and the sponge inside was no longer being made - they tracked down a source for me and the manager dropped a couple off at my house on his way home) etc.
But no doubt, stores that sold the same thing as the Big Stores have gone down. And that is sad in many ways. But for those of us old enough to remember when Malls first started populating America, the same thing happened at that time also.
If a small-town bookstore doesn’t stock a particular book, it’s not a big deal. If the local mom-and-pop computer store won’t stock an M-rated game in a local store, it’s not that big a deal. The effect is local.
If Wal-Mart censors something, it affects all Wal-Marts. And those towns which no longer have shopping alternatives because Wal-Mart drove out the local businesses are screwed.
If a small-town bookstore doesn’t stock a particular book, it’s not a big deal. If the local mom-and-pop computer store won’t stock an M-rated game in a local store, it’s not that big a deal. The effect is local.
If Wal-Mart censors something, it affects all Wal-Marts. And those towns which no longer have shopping alternatives because Wal-Mart drove out the local businesses are screwed.[/quote]
Yeah, that power is the one thing I fear about them. Wal-Mart appears to have so much power that they could dictate the content of various things such as software - and who can afford to produce two versions?
You’re right on the censor thing - they have much wider control that than the old mom & pops. But do you know why they censor? Because their small-town customers fucking want them to, that’s why.
I agree it’s a problem, but I don’t see a resolution to it.
The mall analogy is about right, I think. Same as the big box chains driving out the regional big box chains, which had driven out the local general goods stores.
If people said they wanted hardcore porn, Wal-Mart would probably be selling it because they’re in the business of making money.
(Well, people do want porn, but they don’t want to buy it in public.)
I hope everyone fighting for those “little guys” shops at their stores, and spends the extra cash on their products. Remember, don’t use Pricewatch; buy computer stuff from your local mom&pop store. Don’t go to grocery chains, buy from that little indie gas station on the corner.
(It’s probably ironic or something that Wal-Mart probably is under more scrutiny than your local market, so that hot dog may not be as bad as you think.)
Correct. That’s why everyone buys the cheapest car possible. That’s why Mercedes is going out of business. Nobody would eat at Le Cirque 2000 - I hear that it’s being replaced by a McDonald’s. Can you remember the last time you saw a $100 bottle of wine? Because now that Wal-Mart sells wine, the wineries that don’t sell to them have all gone under.
The parts of your argument that aren’t incoherent are simply wrong.
Look here, the upscale mass market consumer who wants higher quality shops at Target. They also have a very efficient inventory system and are vertically integrated in a lot of their merchandise lines.
For the 26 weeks ended 8/2/03, Target revenues rose 8% to $21.31 billion. Net income rose 3% to $707 million. Here we have a viable alternative to Walmart.
Wal-Mart Economy: Neutral.
Lowering Wages: Bad.
Disrupting Communities: Good.
Policing The Culture: Neutral, as the rest do this too.
Dominating Suppliers: Good. Really good; why in god’s name would this be bad?
Are you arguing that 30% of the market for diapers is sufficient for anti-competitive action?
