Wal-Mart has done some very innovative things to help keep costs lower, not only for them, but some of the manufacturers they work with. These are two “classic” I have heard over and over.
The stocking system can automatically tell a company like Proctor and Gamble that store X has so many units of a product such as Tide available and they are selling at Y rate. This allows P&G to send appropriate amounts of Tide to store X at certain times, reducing over production and storage.
The also got deoderant manufacturers to eliminate the cardboard boxes deoderant was sold in. This save millions in shipping costs for Wal-Mart and probably saved the deoderant manufacturers millions in manufacturing.
On a side note - Wal-Mart also hires a lot of people that otherwise wouldn’t have a job opportunity. There are some out there that need to prove that they can show up and work for a set number of hours for six consecutive months before moving on to something else.
One of the principles of lean manufacturing is incorporating lean back through the supply chain and forward to the seller. Everyone benefits from leaning and streamlining.