Essay on Is Walmart Good?

On the other hand, Sebastian Mallaby cares for the customer and the profits of the company, rather than the worker and their working conditions and wages. He suggests that Wal-Mart actually saves people money and is “a progressive story” (620). Their discount on food alone increases the welfare of the shoppers by fifty billion dollars a year. If you were to count all of Wal-Mart’s products into that same estimate, it would increase ten times. “This is very good news for poor and middle class families,” says Mallaby, because in this situation the customer really comes first. Even though the workers are not treated the best, they still have an advantage over the shoppers. They have less pay, but receive discounts on all of Wal-Mart’s merchandise whenever they shop there, which should be a plus for them. Compared to most companies Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart, a "Big-Box Retailer" employs more than 2.1 million associates worldwide and has two-thousand seven-hundred stores in the United States with many more in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Central America, Chile, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom, making Wal-Mart the largest retailer in the world. "Wal-Mart accounts for upward of 30 percent of U.S. sales, and plans to more than double its sales within the next five years" (Lynn 29-36). Why is Wal-Mart so successful, and is Wal-Mart actually bad for America?

Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue (approximately four hundred and eighty billion dollars) and the largest private employer in the world with two point three million employees. Walmart is also one of the world's most valuable companies by market value, and is also the largest grocery retailer in the U.S. “One Nation Under Walmart” is a case about how Walmart has taken over the retail business and the effects of their market domination. The case also shows statistics of how much percentage Walmart is of many suppliers’ sales. According to the case Walmart has a 30% market share of all household items. Twenty-eight percent of Dial’s business and twenty-four percent of Del Monte’s business go through Walmart stores. It is also worth noting that Walmart imports ten percent of all United States imports from China. The case states that Walmart is able to offer cheaper prices because they put so much pressure on their suppliers to lower their prices. The case, “One Nation Under Walmart”, explains the problems that some people have with the massive retailer. One of these problems is how Walmart has forced numerous local businesses to close their doors through their extremely competitive pricing. They are able to purchase bulk goods at such low prices and thus pass the savings onto customers. As a result of these lew costs, rivals are driven out of business which results in a loss of jobs. Jobs are vital to the success of a community and with Walmart causing job

Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”.  It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of

Walmart is bad for America, as some say. The Globalization essay that was handed out in class had many good points. It states that Walmart puts many smaller businesses out of service. A recent study by

Wal-Mart founded in 1962 by Sam Walton is now the largest American retail corporation. With thousands of chains of stores and warehouses Wal-Mart monopolized the American retail industry. In addition, Wal-Mart is the second largest retail corporation in the world employing of two million employees world-wide. As one of the most valuable corporations in the world Wal-Mart continues to improve their sales annually while offering some of the lowest prices available. Wal-Mart’s famous low price guarantee, come at a high expense of the environment, the small businesses, education, the rights and safety of the consumer, but most importantly their employees. Although Wal-Mart has plays a dominate role in American economy, this “American”

Walmart hurts local communities and drives out small businesses. “In the old days you actually support a family selling electronics or running a general store. But you can’t support a family working at Walmart. The vast majority of the jobs that Walmart create are very low paying. Large numbers of Walmart employees are on welfare, and this is part of the reason why we have seen an expansion in the number of the working poor in America.’-economyincrisis.org

On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas. Over 50 years later, Wal-Mart became known as the largest private employer in the United States and the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart have expanded to over 4400 stores across the globe. Americans truly love Wal-Mart. When there is not any groceries at house the first thought comes to mind is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart have the cheapest and lowest price that everyone can afford, so when the groceries are scarce at home most often Wal-Mart will be the next stop. People love shopping at Wal-Mart since it is more convenient than any other store around. Wal-Mart plays a tremendous growing role in America’s economy. More than 100 million customers visit Wal-Mart every week, but is Wal-Mart good for economy? This a question that many Americans never assumed or inquired. Wal-Mart is effecting America in a lot of ways. Wal-Mart has devastated thousands of small industries and innumerable manufacturing jobs over the past decades (Economy in Crisis). Wal-Mart has become so massive in retail that it sells five times more than any other retailer in the country. Sadly, 85% of the items on Wal-Mart’s shelves comes from foreign countries. This in turns hurts America’s economy, taking thousands of jobs away and taking countless revenue. Wal-Mart is a textbook illustration of where our economic system is headed.

The misguided young man who wrote the pro-Wal-Mart editorial needs to ask himself if he really needs most of the products that Wal-Mart sells. Are they really necessary for survival? Probably not. We must break the chains of corporate domination that are strangling American democracy and spreading misery across the world. We must break our addiction to senseless consumption that

Wal-Mart’s sheer size gives it unrestrained economic power which allows it to drive down costs in the retail and manufacturing sectors and to enact its own standards with regards to its work force.

“Up Against Wal-Mart” by Karen Olsson, a senior editor at Texas Monthly and who’s article appeared in Mother Jones, introduces her article through the perspective of a Wal-Mart worker. She focuses on the negatives of Wal-Mart by telling the real life struggles of different Wal-Mart employees. “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” by Sebastian Mallaby, a columnist for the Washington Post, focuses his article on what Wal-Mart critics say and attempts to defend Wal-Mart by comparing Wal-Mart to other retailers. Even though Karen Olsson and Sebastian Mallaby both examine the negative effects of Wal-Mart, Olsson berates Wal-Mart’s unfair treatment towards employees and the unlivable wages that the world’s largest retailer provides while Mallaby

Some may claim a Walmarts’ arrival in a community is helpful to improve the growth and development in the community, but others tell a different story. Many claim that a Walmart is great way to create new jobs in the community. They are partially right, between construction and development, plenty of jobs are created. Also, about 300 retail jobs are created based on the amount needed to run a Walmart super center twenty fours a day, seven days a week. However, Kenneth Stone, a professor of economics at Iowa State University, conducted a study in which two Super Walmart centers in two different states were evaluated. The study lasted about two years and showed that for every one job Walmart had created, 1.4 jobs were lost in local communities (Davidson 1). Walmarts’ low prices come with additional costs that we are

     When you talk about Wal-Mart the first thing that you have to remember is that they are the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart employs more people in the United States than any other company and is second only to the federal government in the number of employees that they have on the payroll. These are important facts to consider in that due to their tremendous size, Wal-Mart has an enormous

The fact that most are within short driving distance to other supermarkets, makes it worth for the consumers to go to Wal-Mart first, see what they have, and then from there go to the other stores. People who shop at Wal-Mart, trust that they will be able to find most if not all of their shopping list. Even if it is farther than another store, people are willing to go the extra mile or two to get the savings they would not be able to find anywhere else. Wal-Mart’s slogan sums up how their customers shop and enjoy the savings, “Save money, live better”.  I couldn 't agree more. With people being able to save money, community’s benefit immensely. Especially low-income communities, Wal-Mart is good because it gets money into the citizen’s pockets and encourages them to spend more than they would or could have before. “This then allows them to have some money to invest in productive assets or to buy those other things that will make their lives more comfortable and enjoyable” (Urbach). Customers of Wal-Mart aren’t just happy because of the deals they get by shopping at those stores. What makes Wal-Mart customers the happiest is knowing that from the money they saved, they have extra to spend on other things.

They turned a small company into one of the largest corporations in the entire world. They have completely redefined what it means to be a big business, and have had many good impacts on society. While this is true, Wal-Mart has not always had the best business practices, receiving many different criticisms over the years. Some criticisms include its relations with people and businesses outside the United States, its role within local communities, and its labor policies and practices. Wal-Mart has always been the superstore that prides itself on lower prices, so much so that it has looked to manufacture in other countries for the cheap labor. Wal-Mart has become so big, that it has stores and plants all over the world. Wal-Mart even does most of its business overseas. “Chinese suppliers, or “partners,” reportedly provide Walmart with about 70 percent of the nearly $420 billion worth of goods that it sells globally each year” (SCHELL). Wal-Mart has even gone as far as to move one of its headquarters to China. Wal-Mart is helping China, and China is helping Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is bringing in lots of jobs and products for the Chinese people to buy, while China is providing everything Walmart needs to keep growing as rapidly as they are. Wal-Mart is one of the worst offenders of the global sweatshop problem, and because of this they had lots of criticism of their labor policies and practices. Wal-Mart is not a