Welcome to our forum.
I saw a 60 minutes piece about 10-15 yrs ago about what the Wal-Mart machine does to small town businesses, US manufacturers and some of the business practices they've been sued over (like selling pharmaceuticals for less than cost to kill the local drugstore and then raising prices back to their norm after the competition closes, against the law BTW and they lost but they'd already won the battle by then). I NEVER shop at Wal-Mart. My wife unfortunately does somewhat when by herself but she knows I refer to them as the "Evil Empire" and fortunately she does little there and knows I have no interest in going with her. Even though I'm a bargain buyer I'll gladly buy at Target even if it's a little more. There was an article a while back that there are cities in California that voted to keep Wal-Mart Supercenters out and Wal-Mart is fighting it without success so far. I'll have to look for it.
Whew. For a second I thought HS was in bed with these rapers.... Walmart puts the screws to suppliers. They get the supplier to make full commitements to walmart and when the suplier is completey dependent on them, they start making price demands. Companies are forced to produce cheaper and cheaper products just to meet Walmarts price points...Levi Strauss, and of course the imfamous.Vlassic pickle. This should be required reading for every buinsess student and every shopper:http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
Walmart puts the screws to suppliers. They get the supplier to make full commitements to walmart and when the suplier is completey dependent on them, they start making price demands.[/url]