Wal-Mart claims that it benefits local communities when it enters a new area. Evaluate this claim, referring to textual and audio-visual information that you have encountered.
Introduction
Nowadays, Wal-Mart is quite common in our daily life and it also impacts us unconsciously, such as the shopping habits. Although this global chain supermarket asserts that they bring positive effect on the area where they located in and commissioned the consulting firm Global Insight to write a report in order to prove their point, some people still distrust it. For example, Jared Bernstein and L. Josh Bivens had composed a brief named “The Wal-Mart debate a false choice between prices and wages” in 2006 to doubt the Wal-Mart’s claim. Moreover, Irwin, E.G., and Clark, J’s research about the local costs and benefits of Wal-Mart is also supply some evidence.
In this essay, I will describe the real Wal-Mart from the Bernstein’s study. Firstly, I will summarise the Wal-Mart effect to customers. Then I’ll move on to compare the advantages and disadvantages of working as a Wal-Mart’s employee. Thirdly, I’ll analyse the Wal-Mart effect to the environment around it. At last, I tend to make a conclusion about whether this Global Company did like what it said.
Customers
As the biggest beneficiaries of Wal-Mart’s low price, whether we shoppers enjoy the best service? It can be seen clearly that because of the wide ranged goods and low price of stuff, we can buy all the products which we want in “one-stop shopping” and spent lower money to living better live, and consumers even can save about 25 percent of their food budget alone in this store (Hausman & Liebtag, 2005, p113). Meanwhile, the shop which located in the fringe of towns is not only can change citizen’s shopping habits from shopping in city center to countryside, but also convenient for the people who living in more rural areas (Irwin, E. G., & Clark, 2006, p113). However, the customer service at
References: Jared. B & L.J.B (2006). THE WAL-MART DEVATE A False Choice Between Prices and Wages. Applied Economic Policy Institute. Irwin, E. G., & Clark, J (2006). The local costs and benefits of Wal-Mart. The Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.