What is America's problem with Wal-Mart?

Question

I have heard a lot of people saying "don't shop at wal-mart" but what are the reasons? No one will say. In detail guys.....

Answer 1

I not only HATE to shop there, but I lived and worked in Bentonville, AR for 3 years. I was in the International Merchandising Division as a Buyer's Asst. Seeing it from the inside makes all the difference. Once I moved, and several years later, I worked as a vendor and experienced the other side of it. Bottom line- they are screwing the economy in more ways than one. A lot of people make the assumption that it doesn't affect them, and it DOES. For more information on just HOW they affect you even if you don't work there or don't even KNOW someone who works there- go to Wal-Mart Watch's website. Warning though- do NOT give out your information to these people. They are passionate about their cause and want you to be too. So just read up and become informed. Really interesting stuff. Also, I sat a few offices down from Lee Scott and worked with his daughter in law. Not a real reputable man.

Answer 2

Sam Walton was a good man. He would not approve of the way Wal-Mart is run today. Wal-Mart's employees used to be happy, the envy of the retail world, but not today. The happy Wal-Mart culture of yesterday is all but gone. Wal-Mart's employees consider the 'associates' title bestowed upon them as a hollow label. They don't get paid enough, or have enough benefits, because obviously to increase either would bite into Wal-Mart's tremendous profits. Wal-Mart currently has over 5,000 lawsuits pending against them, and most of the plaintiffs are past employees with a job-related grievance. 80% of Wal-Mart's products are either made overseas or made from products that are made overseas. A large majority of their imported products are made in China, which is growing rapidly and soon will be a direct competitor to the United States. In small communities, which have always relied on smaller stores, the smaller stores can't survive when trying to compete with Wal-Mart's prices. Most of the smaller competitors to a new Wal-Mart store will be out of business in 3 months. They don't care where they build their stores, as long as they get built. Having a Wal-Mart within sight of your home lowers it's property value, which is usually not addressed by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is HUGE. They grossed 300 billion dollars last year, which is more than most countrie's GDP. People are wary of them because any one organization that large gives people a "Big Brother" feeling. They have stores in 10 of the largest and most prosperous countries in the world, and their next promising market is China. They are already the largest company in the world by a very large margin, and if left unchecked, there is no limit to how large Wal-Mart can get.

Answer 3

The problem with Wal Mart is the fact that if they aren't stopped we wont have a choice of places to shop. Wal Mart sells items that Target and K Mart and others sell but for less. Now if target and Kmart go belly up and other similar retailers go belly up leaving wal mart as the only player in the game, what do you think will happen ?

Let's say I have the only lemonade stand for say a 10 mile radius. When people come to buy my lemonade I can charge them whatever I want simply because I'm the only lemonade stand in town. And that is what wal mart is working towards. Total retail domination !

For years the big three u.s. auto makers could basically make any kind of car they wanted to and Americans had no choice but to buy big gas guzzling pieces of crap. Well now that we have other auto makers in the game, the big 3 u.s. auto makers r now suffering. We now have a choice of multiple car brands to choose from and that's why wal mart needs to be stopped because if they're the only retailers in a particular area they can do whatever they want.

Answer 4

I never shop there unless I have to I absolutely cannot find the item anywhere else.
I boycotted them for several reasons:
1) Have you seen the episode of Frontline about it? (If not check out the site at the bottom---you can see the full show online.There is another documentary available on DVD about it too, which I have not seen entitled " Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" by Edith Arana, Red Esry, Rev. Altagracia Perez, and Donna Payton. Supposedly Wal-Mart attempted to have it stopped but was not able to. I do know people that work there that were instructed not to watch it.)

2) extremely poor service. If you go in there looking for something, you can never find it & if you ask someone that works there they send you on a wild goosechase before you find out they do not even carry it! Last time I was in there, I went for two items, it took forty-five minutes & I was not able to get either one of them! One of the items [Scotchgard] they did not even know what it was! Then I lost money in the soda machine, but the line for customer service was wrapped all the way around to the corner of the store, filled with people wanting to make returns. I asked a manager if they could help me & they said waiting in that line was the only way to get my money back. They only had one of three counters open, but there were several employees just standing around gossiping. The manager could have at least sent people over to open the two other counters so people did not have to wait so long. I have had several similar instances when the employees are unhelpful. I work in customer service & it just makes me so mad that I bend over backwards to help my customers but that it is extremely difficult to get good service when I go somewhere. Like, when you ask their employees if there are any in back---they do not even check. They just say the do not. Or when you ask where something is and they say "If it's not over there I don't know where it is" .
3) Lack of selection. In most cases they only carry one name brand & their housebrand & the namebrand carried is not the one I use.
4) Some items (especially the clothes) are low quality. We used to call them "Wal-Mart-fall-a-parts growing up.
5) I can almost always find stuff cheaper somewhere else. I do not know why everyone thinks they are so cheap!

(Sorry for any typos, spell check was not working.)

Answer 5

I'll tell you why Wal-Mart sucks.

THE PEOPLE!!! I don't mean to bash anybody who might shop there, but they are low-lifes! They go to Wal-Mart like it's a supermarket!! And the people that work there are totally incompetent!! I mean, the greeting man at my local Wal-Mart has one arm!! I'm not saying that's wrong, but to see a guy with one arm say "Welcome to Wal-Mart" the minute you walk in the door totally ruins your shopping experience. If you can, go to Target. It's like Wal-Mart, but more clean and nicer.

Q: How do you know that God has a sense of humor?

A: Just go to Wal-Mart, and look at people!!

Hah, got that from Carlos Mencia.

Answer 6

Wal-Mart keeps many employees just below 40 hours a week so they don't have to pay benefits.
They buy in so much bulk that they can sell for cheaper than small businesses, and many downtowns are ghost towns because of it.
They have horrible customer service, returns, the employees are downright rude because they don't give a crap about an employer that doesn't give a crap about them.
It's overcrowded, full of people beating their kids, and the people are all so rude and angry.

Answer 7

Wal-Mart is the worst occasion of company greed in background!! Your tax money pay for Wal-Mart's greed: The envisioned entire quantity of federal guidance for which Wal-Mart workers have been eligible in 2004 became $2.5 billion !!! that's 2.5 BILLION we could use for our faculties or in spite of else OUR money must be used for. this is the sorrowful certainty that Wal-Mart workers are at poverty point whilst that terrible corporation makes billions of greenbacks each and each 12 months. end procuring at Wal-Mart and deliver them a message that they supply united states of america a undesirable call.

Answer 8

As far as I know, it's because Wal-Mart buys products that were made overseas in poor working conditions, and because they pay their employees in the store minimum wage and don't allow labor unions.

Answer 9

All the weird people shop there, especially at 2 in the morning. I know cause I was there...I guess that makes me a weirdo. :)

Personally, I don't like to shop there because it's soooo big. And crowded. And it feels like you don't matter since no one is around to help when have a question, and the sheer size of the store makes you look around in awe.

Answer 10

I don't shop at WalMart for the following reasons among others:

They come into areas and drive smaller stores out of business. Their economy of scale makes it impossible for these small businesses to compete on price.

Though they seem to be trying to address this, they offer horrible benefits to their employees. In California, a sizable portion of children receiving health benefits through the MediCal program are the kids of walmart employees, who are unable to afford health insurance and don't get it through their jobs.

Finally, the stores are laid out poorly, the staff is unhelpful, and their merchandise is consistently of low quality.