If you look at the "garbage pile" outside their purchasing office of vendors that have gone bankrupt ... you'll be amazed at the number of them and the size of some of them.
Selling to Wal*Mart is like getting a first free dose of nose candy from the local salesman. Man (they say) it feels good ... but in the end ... you're DEAD!
Wal*Mart premise is a house of cards, they base their savings on volume and use that volume to get discounts from manufacturers to maintain Wal*Mart's market share with consumers. At first when Sam ran it, everything was "American made" ... remember that? Well now see if you can find something you want that is made in America at Wal*Mart. Why? Because the local manufacturers in America cannot handle the profit losses of working with Wal*Mart ... so the Wal*Mart purchasing crowd turns to China and the third world. Where they don't pay their manufacturing employees. Wal*Mart simply supports the poor labor and environmental practices of our international competitors. The money you spend at Wal*Mart is appreciated by the Chinese as they build their new submarines and weapons.
Seeing Wal*Mart fail would be cheered by many ... not politically, but because they lost their jobs trying to work with Wal*Mart that only cares about the discounts from their suppliers ...NOT THE QUALITY!!!
(Unless you've experienced this first-hand, you haven't got a clue what Wal*Mart is "about.")
I’ve heard about that aspect of Walmart, and I have no doubt your personal knowledge of it is true.
As far as my experience, it’s all from the customer end, and I’m amazed that such a place can stay in business ... given how trashy they are, how bad the customer service is, and the kinds of misfits they hire. Walmart is truly an example of how many people will buy low-quality junk. As I said, I ONLY go with a particular name-brand item that I have verified before is quality, and (as I said) I’m always glad it’s a SEALED product! ... :-) ...
Having visited the WM headquarters in Bentonville I must say I surprised. The place looks like a state penitentiary building surrounded by giant metal buildings.
They certainly don’t waste any dough on the HQ facilities.