Is Walmart Stores good for America or not?

Wow, I can really get off on a rant here.

As a small business person, I would say most emphatically no. Sam Walton started out with a pricing strategy aimed at wiping out the Ben Franklin (a dime store) down the street because they wouldn't promote him. The deal was he would undercut the competition until he drove them out of business, then raise the prices in the store once he "owned the town". They still do this. Other than their advertisements, they are generally HIGHER on most items than other local stores, unless its something people will really notice, like macaroni and cheese or underpants.

If you are in school, you probably don't remember what downtowns used to be like before Wal Mart. In a town of 2000 people, our town had 3 department stores (sold jeans, sewing stuff, kids clothes, inexpensive shoes, etc); 2 hardware stores, two drugstores, one mens store, two womens clothing stores, a shoe store, two or three grocery stores, a gift shop, a card shop and several restaurants. They were all family owned and operated, with the exception of the large grocery store, which hired union help. Most of the stuff sold was made in the USA.....shoes, jeans, dresses, sweaters, paint buckets, radios, etc. The restaurants sold inexpensive meals that were made fresh and an actual waitress who knew the way you liked your coffee brought it to your table.

About three years BEFORE wal-mart opened its doors in our county, they started "shopping" the stores, and anything you carried in your store that they carried too, they undercut your cost, and advertised it in the papers and got people to drive to their stores in neighboring counties. (35 miles away.) This started to really hurt the stores, and we got to realize you cannot sell any brands that Wal Mart might sell, or they will wipe you out. The year they opened, 18 businesses closed in our town, and 42 more in the county. We lost the union grocery store. Once they left, Wal Mart raised their food prices. All the clothing stores closed. Now the only place you can find decent clothes within 60 miles is at a used clothing store.
Over 250 full time jobs were lost, and Wal Mart hired people for less money, no benefits, and most of the people who work there are part time, with very erratic weekly schedules. Our town has more people on welfare and public assistance, food stamps, etc than ever before. Magnify that by an entire country, and you begin to see some bad effects.

But thats not all. To feed the ever growing popularity of "Low Low Prices", Wal Mart buyers started demanding that manufacturers cut their prices every year, or they would go elsewhere. So the manufacturers got to the lowest prices they could, and realized, hey, we can't pay American wages and still sell to WalMart, so they start manufacturing in Mexico, China, India, etc. So then we lost the manufacturing jobs.

All the while, the quality of merchandise goes down, down, down, to the point where jeans don't last 5 years anymore, they have to be replaced every year. Countries like China that don't have pollution standards like we do are ruining the environment to make cheaper dog food and disposable clothes. We are polluting more and more with every boatload of imported crap. But the consumers got a real taste for being able to buy more for less, and eventually it ended up being the new way of retailing. Everything got cheaper....a washing machine is cheaper now than it was 10 years ago. Know why? Maytags aren't made here anymore, they are imported. Washers used to last 30 years. Not expensive ones either. Now they last about 6, unless you spend about twice as much. Everything has changed.

I am not against any other corporation. I studied retailing and business in college. I am an American consumer, and I understand that the business cycles change and the consumer ultimately dictates what they want. But I bet the consumers wouldn't have wanted to have so many people lose their jobs, so many families without healthcare (WalMart is Americas largest employer, and very few of their employees have health care).

Target, KMart, CostCo, and other mass retailers are not inherently vindictive. You will find great deals there, and in the few Mom and Pop stores you still see. Better deal than WalMart? Clip coupons and shop your local grocery store. Get your meat from the local butcher, produce from a veggie stand. It probably didn't get shipped from half a world away, and it will taste much better. Buy a pair of the best jeans you can afford, and wear them for years. Buy quality over quantity whenever possible.

Good luck on your essay. For more information, PBS has a great documentary on WalMart.

I grew up in a town like Mayberry, the town on the "Andy Griffith Show" ....you might see it on Nick at Night. Everywhere you went, the shop owners knew you, the people worked for a lifetime in the same place. I used to make the rounds every day....free bubblegum from the gas station attendant, Pepsi in glass bottles at Uncle Dougs garage (car repair place), penny candy at the Ben Franklin, ice cream in the afternoon down the street from Dads store (it was made in the building, and cherry cokes were made fresh), buy seeds and sinkers by the ounce at the hardware store, go see movies at the cinema and get your pop, popcorn and three boxes of candy for five bucks. Visit the barbershop and spin around on a stool while your friend got a haircut and the men all talked a different kind of gossip than the women did in the hairdresser. The saddest part is, I still live in the same town. Most of that is gone, and a good share of these places were still here five years ago, still the same people working, the same awesome ice cream, the same guy pumping gas. Now we have doctors offices where the department stores were. Every other store is empty. A whole shopping center is empty. We don't even have a dollar store anymore.

So, would you say that it was good for the country? I vote no on that.

P.S. I don't know a single person who works in the Wal Mart store. And I prided myself on knowing everyone in town. (I don't shop there, but I do walk there in the really cold and really hot weather.)