The Pros And Cons Of Walmart

Walmart; growing up this was what my siblings and I referred to as the W-word. When a friend would mention an outing to the retail store we would exclaim “You shop at the W-word?!” this was always followed closely by a sharp gasp. There are two groups of Walmart shoppers; the first wonder how they would live without the large retail store; then there is the second, who hate Walmart with a passion, some even going as far as to never step foot in the store. If you are part of the first group you probably have been deceived into believing into believing the slogan “Save money, Live better,” When the horrific truth about Walmart is hidden just behind the yellow smiley face. Being a big shiny retail store can make it seem enticing, but
According to CBS News, Walmart’s recent raise in hourly pay, now at a rate of $9.39 per hour, or approximately $19,531 per year, is below the official federal poverty line of $20,420. At the end of CBS’s post, they had a worker’s response to a blog post by Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillion, she made a comment about the wages offered by Walmart is just made worse by the hours Walmart has apparently been cutting since August. While I’m sure all workers have complaints about their jobs, the fact that someone can ask for horror stories specifically from Walmart workers and have over 2,000 responses, most of which are long paragraph stories, is more than a little concerning. These stories ranged from complaints about customers to horrible treatment from managers to poor benefits. An author for Tough Nickel, known simply as Edward, wrote an article called “Why Never to Work for Walmart” claims to have had five different jobs on three separate occasions in the course of five years. Mr. Edward has had firsthand experience in several areas of Walmart, the place that he describes as “dreaded land of awfulness.” The first thing he complains about is, of course, the healthcare benefits. “I paid for the best plan and had 71 dollars come out of every check, but when I went to the doctor, I still had a mountain of a deductible to conquer.” Mr. Edward finally decided to
The FastCompany published a story called “The Walmart You Don’t know” elaborated on the pressure Walmart puts on its vendors to bring down their price. “Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.” Walmart wants stores to bring down their prices till they’re barely breaking even, and if they don’t, Walmart pulls out; “for any product that is the same as what you sold them last year, Wal-Mart will say, ‘Here’s the price you gave me last year. Here’s what I can get a competitor’s product for. Here’s what I can get a private-label version for. I want to see a better value that I can bring to my shopper this year. Or else I’m going to use that shelf space differently.’ While this might seem like a good thing to you as a customer, in terms of these businesses, it can leave them struggling to stay afloat, which of course can lead to bankruptcy and if you think about it that way, no brand means no one to bring the product. “In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and who have given that power to Wal-Mart.” The article explains, “Part of Wal-Mart’s dominance, part of its and part of its arrogance, is that it presumes to speak for American shoppers.”