Has Wal-Mart reached it's peak growth?

Aside from all of their negative publicity, the few things they have done right was to offer low prices and to somewhat help keep inflation in check.

Wal-Mart will be around for a long time and if the competition doesn't get them their own policy changes will, but as far as growth the world is their apple. They have a potential to dominate and control where they want to grow at this point.

They don't really keep inflation in check... Walmart employees are some of the poorest most underpaid people in the workforce. There are hidden costs, such as all of the employees they have at or below the poverty level that qualify for government funded relief and benefits. Hospitals that lose money when the walmart employee cannot pay their bill, etc etc.

Let's hope so. While I like the low prices (who wouldn't?), they're putting everything else out of business to the point that WalMart is the only decent size retail store left in my town.

Now that they're the only game in town, the customer service sucks, what you need is always out of stock, there's never anywhere to park, the store is a constant disaster area... you get the picture.

ETA: I'll second the person that said that WalMart employees get paid next to nothing... and no benefits at all. My mom works there (has for about 7 years) and has nothing to show for it.

They will continue to grow. They haven't drown out all grocers in California yet.

In the U.S., maybe so. They may well have maximum market penetration possible in the U.S. right now, and have been focusing on overseas markets for many years now.

Since the economy is doing well, fewer people have to buy strictly on price. Perhaps if we go into recession this year, WalMart's fortunes will improve.

Wal-mart is getting huge. they have been talking about a wal-mart bank

it is already A huge company. THey have created negative publicty and i agree, i love there low prices!

soon they will open more branches internationally, they plan to conquer the European countries next.

but also driving out small bussiness out in the process, which are important to our economy..

i think for as long as new products are offered at walmart, it will grow.

Yes and probably at some point we'll go back to some Mom and Pop stores, as we all miss the real customer service stores like Walmart can't give.

I think wal-mart will continue to grow into a superstore chain that will have everything at a good price, that is what really matters after all the price of what you pay for, most people have to watch there money and wal-mart is my place to shop. Mike

we can only hope they have. wal-mart, no matter how well the intentions may be, is terrible for our country.

Not yet!! still growing.

We could only be so lucky.

nah,
maybe until later
then we shall revoke
and run it dowN!
yeah!

Well, there are some macro-economic factors which are at work. They DO NOT generally get alot of press.

1. Marketplace saturation - within the United States, they have achieved about as much in the way of revenue or market share as they are likely to, doing what it is they do presently.

2. Overseas markets, The Wal-Mart model has NOT always been a success overseas , Germany and other countries have not always embraced the "American" style of shopping.

3. Resource / logistical limits, barring the exploration and discovery of a Ghawar type oil-field (very unlikely) or the development of a "Mr. Fusion" type cheap/portable high-energy production - for all intents and purposes, we stand at or very near the maximum amount of portable energy available to our species.

Mr. James Howard Kunstler, makes a disturbingly rational projection that the combination of poor/no political leadership over the last few decades on viable energy policy means that the US and by extension the world, are in serious economic/energy jeopardy.

Barring such "miracle" inventions, our society will have to be significantly re-ordered around using MUCH less energy moving stuff around, and doing so very very efficiently or at extreme cost.

Without being too much more expensive, the long trans-oceanic logistical lines which make "cheap" goods available to America and other consumer societies may not be viable, which ironically might be good for the US, in that manufacturing would have to come back to the Americas (at the least).

In the near term, Walmart may be able to adjust to certain amounts of increased costs into their supply chains, but they start loosing the benefits of economy of scale at a certain point, what that point is exactly is anyone's guess.

Longer term, oil and other resource constraints both in the US and abroad, are likely to more significantly impact not just Walmart but other firms. There is also one other factor I haven't mentioned.

4. Stability - overall, one needs to consider the other end of "arbitrage" and evaluate how stable it is in the long term and in the case of Walmart and other "big box" suppliers, the answer is - again - unclear.

Arbitrage is just a fancy word for outsourcing or moving manufacturing/production of good or services overseas.

The reasoning, is simplicity itself, why pay Americans workers health care or high salaries when we can obtain slaves or near-slave labor in Africa, India, Indonesia or China.

Workers in these countries are not paid anything even resembling a "living" wage, and commonly have no benefits to speak of short of regular food and occasionally housing.

Essentially, the question you have to ask is how rapidly does that arbitrage cycle move, from US to Canada, to Mexico to China, to India, to Myanmar or Uganda or somewhere else.

India and China are just the most populous, and well known but as salaries increase in these countries (as they are), Wal Mart and other firms simply move production to cheaper labor markets.

Eventually, they will find a rock-bottom towards which they cannot go any further down in costs on salaries etc. The question is how inherently stable is that economy / country.

While the idea of living in a resource constrained world may be objectionable to "objectivst" tendencies in our political outlook, in the foreseeable future, I am not necessarily a long-term mis-misanthropically minded thinker.

As someone pointed out, about the Alien sci-fi movies, there is an "inside" joke in the last Alien movie where it is casually mentioned that Weyland-Yutani Interstellar otherwise known as "The Company" throughout the series was purchased by none other than Walmart.

Nope. It will only get bigger. I think Wal-Mart will be around for a long long time.

they're gearing up for another big boom. keep your eye on the illegal immigration issue and wal-mart. you'll see. or just go to one of their management meetings.

It will keep on growing until all of America is one big Wal-Mart. We will be living in apartments there, and getting food easier. The crowds will be terrible...

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