This is like Godzilla meets King Kong.
Wow...business at work.
Interesting.
Wal-Mart is going to save $$$ for Coke with this the way I see it.
A lot of union drivers are going to be upset about it. Coke probably doesn't want that headache.
These are the sorts of shinanigans that make me glad I drink Dr. Pepper and shop at regular grocery stores.
Wal-Mart's creation of a new sportsdrink is a laughable bluff. The sportsdrink market is already saturated and Gatorade is the perennial leader anyway. Wal-Mart is not going to invest the time and money in such an endeavor.
Coke should have called Wally's bluff and threatened to take their product out of their stores. Wal-Mart would have lost some business because everyone and their momma who shop there ends up buying Coke and Coke products anyway.
But I guess it's more comfortable breaking out the kneepads to Wal-Mart instead of competing head-on.
By G*D I LOVE to watch capitalism at work!!!!
Sounds like a win win situation.
The headline had me envisioning a cave full of coke that caved in from the weight of the Wal*Mart built atop it.
Sort of true in a way.
When I worked at a grocery store in mid-Michigan, the grocery workers were not union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) was trying desperately to unionize us, which included some rather unsavory tactics.
The drivers who delivered to our store (Coke, Pepsi, etc. as well as the Kroger drivers who were Teamsters) didn't bug us much about it.
Sometimes the Kroger drivers were noticably late with the twice a week frozen food delivery, which meant I had to stay very late to stock (as I was the store's frozen food person as well as the one day a week morning delivery door person). We assumed it might have had something to do with the union issue, but it might have just meant that the delivery guys were lollygaggers.
Wal-Mart strong-arming businesses again.
The long-term effect?
Eventually, Wal-Mart will force Coca-Cola to distribute their other products straight to the Wal-Mart warehouse and by-pass the local bottlers.
End result? Wal-mart slowly gains a financial advantage over the local bottlers and puts them out of business.
The price of Coca-Cola to the consumer is not the issue right now. What is at issue here will be the ability of the local bottlers to match pace with Wal-Mart's aggressive pricing.
Eventually, Wal-Mart will put all of the local bottlers out of business and will then corner the market on the distribution of Coca-Cola products.
Creative destruction is a by-product of capitalism. New and innovative business models flourish while old business models die out. The success of Amazon.com destroys traditional book sellers. The success of Expedia.com puts traditional travel agents out of business. This sucks if you are a book seller or a travel agent, but in time we refer to these events as 'progress'.
From the title I was thinking this was about Columbia.
Beep-beep.
I talked to a distribution manager at Hallmark Cards once.
Wal Mart summoned him and a bunch of other vendors to their headquarters.
They were all placed in a room around a table. A man walks in and says, "We're picking one vendor. One that writes the biggest check wins. I'll be back in an hour."
Once again WMT hurts the small business owner. Most delievery guys these days are independent contractors. This type of action by WMT hurts those people. They are mandating the same action from bread companies. I have a family member who stands to loose a big part of his route by these changes.
WALMART ping...............(let me know if you want on or off this list that is to counteract the WM bashers........
Let me see if I've got this straight........Coke is being sued and is using possible competition from a WalMart in-house brand for changing it's procedures as a defense for what brought about the suit to begin with????????
As for all this fuss over Coca-Cola, what a bunch of hoo-hah over nothing. Everybody is yip-yip-yapping because local truckers can no longer deliver and stock the shelves at Wal-Marts with soda pop and energy drinks. Well so what? What is wrong with making Coca-Cola deliver their product directly to the Wal-Marts distribution centers? Is this not more efficient? Will this not lower the price of Coca-Cola products to the consumer?
And some here have pooh-poohed the notion that Wal-Marts can make their own brand of sports drink. Well why not? Do some here doubt the power of Wal-Marts? They can stock their shelves with nothing but Wal-Marts brand of sports drink and nobody will want to drink Powerade ever again. Wal-Marts has the capability to put Coca-Cola out of business and Coca-Cola knows it which is why they caved like they did.
What is the deal with Powerade anyhow? I don't like Powerade. I like Gatorade and Gatorade's Propel much better than I like Powerade. But I digress.
So anyway, some here are saying that Wal-Marts has reached the limits of their growth potential. They say they already have too many stores. But I say they do not have nearly enough stores. For example, when I want to go to Wal-Marts, I have to drive nearly 5 miles. This is not good. There should be Wal-Marts closer. I say that Wal-Marts can put 65,000 full-size stores in the USA easy along with 271,000 "convenience-store sized" Wal-Marts. Yes, I think Wal-Marts is getting ready to get into the convenience store business. It is the next logical step.
This is based on U.S. population of 300,000,000.
Obviously Wal-Marts can open far more stores in the rest of the world. For example, in China alone, Wal-Marts can build 310,000 full-size stores and 1.1 million convenience stores.
I just wish Wal-Marts had a better selection of books. Perhap they could open their own chain of bookstores.