Bull crap. If walmart ever raised their prices they would have competition all over the place. The reason the local stores don't make it is they charge to much.
Sam Walton started out with one Store. With that store he ran other stores in that town out of business. It was pretty simple. He bought for less and he sold for less. If it takes a big operation how did Walton run people out of business when he only had two little stores in two different towns. Some of the store he ran out of business in that town had dozens of stores. But they couldn't compete with Sam. Before he had a successful store, sam had gone into business and failed. After his first store failed, he went back to work for J.C. Penny to get enough bucks to try it again. It took him a while but he finally figured it out.
That is alwasy the case. Henry Ford started 5 car companies. The first four went under or the investers kicked him out His 5th car company made it. Dave Thomas was working at a Kentuckey fried Chicken place when he got Jim Rhodes to get him the money to try the first Wendy's. Ray Krock had to con a Coke Distributor into loaning him a coke fountain to use in his first McDonalds . He didn't have the bucks to buy one. How many greasey spoons have Ray and Dave run out of business. Thomas was an orphan. He did not know who his mom or dad were. He was raised in the Columbus Ohio orphanage. It takes a hell of an orphan whose entire experience is cooking chicken at a KFC to talk his way into the governors office, sell the governor, and have the goveror find people to put up a quarter of a million dollars to do a hamburger place. But that is what dave did.
Walton Krock, and Thomas all, grew when they used the profits to open more stores. The day Sam Walton opened up his first store, the Kressge family owned Kmarts and had many millions to Sam Waltons borrowed thouands. Sam destroyed them by buying for less and selling for less. Every place WalMart gotes against KMart, Kmart loses.
It is the genius of Walton's bias for older workers who work harder and steal less, and an inventory control system that maximizes return on investment that is a lot of the WalMart success. The final piece of the puzzle is WalMart refuses to buy from distributers. They buy direct and sell for less.
My son started a pet store 5 years ago. He started it with 4 gand he had saved. Our local WalMart had a huge fish tank and sold fish and lots of other pet supplies. My son could not affort the fancy tank. He worked like heck and took very small margins and had many small fish tanks that took lots more labor. But he cut prices and sold a hell of a lot of fish and fish supplies at small margins. Two years ago the local WallMart manager called him. He wanted to know if my son would be intersted in buying the fixtures in the WalMart pet section. Walmart was dropping the local pet department. They were losing money on it. My son bought the fixtures including the fish tanks for 10 cents on the dollar. He ran the local WalMart out of the pet department business and bought their fancy fixtures for next to nothing. He is opening another store.
I did not finance my son at all. But he did prove you can beat an exiting WalWart in a line of business they had established. My son proved anyone with brains and ambitions can beat Walmart. It is hard to be big and efficient and Walmart sure is big.
It takes a hell of a lot of work to beat Walmart. But it took a hell of a lot of work for WalMart to get to where it is today.
The Local Walmart epanded the tools department. They added tools in the floor space that used to hold the pet stuff. I hear they are hurting the local Sears store on tool sales.
Specialty hardware (woodworking, etc.) is something that WalMart can't handle. Fish/pets is another good example. Managing a pet store takes skill, good knowledge of your stock (it doesn't just sit there like floor mats and cheap shirts), and LOTS of hard, devoted work.
No way some part-timer in the WalMart who looks in on the fish after dusting the Rubbermaid stuff and sweeping the floor is going to be able to keep those little finny fellows swimming upright (instead of doing the back float on the surface), let alone looking chipper and frisky in a nice clean tank that says, "Buy Me!"
We did tropicals for years and then branched out into salt water. Once we were living in a place that allowed cats, we switched to breeding and showing Siamese cats. Now we're doing obedience and agility with a Chocolate Lab. . . . WalMart can do none of the above.
You win the debate, such as it was.
Walmart is in turn, going to be beaten eventually by another retailer not yet making headlines.Since the founder has passed on, you can see the difference in company operations at a lot of stores.The business cycle continues for the next generation.All is as it should be.
You're making some sense on this thread but that statement is blatant stupidity. Not for anything, but tropical fish aren't imported from China.
How can a local widget store buying American widgets compete with Walmart when they bulk-buy them from China 500,000 at at time? I'm sure you understand the economics of buying in quantity.
Yeah, maybe Walmart gives the customer what it wants price wise (price is not value BTW) but you can't say "anyone" can beat Walmart. That's just dumb.
Good for your son. Do you give him credit for running my Wal-Mart out of the pet business two years ago? Fish, birds and hampsters were replaced with more toys.
It's difficult to beat ChinaMart. Who can compete with slave labor?
So, Tator, how have YOU done it??
D
I think Kmart has committed suicide by hiring exclusively morons. I have never once found an employee in any Kmart that could help me buy anything. Walmart somehow hires several cuts above Kmart's level.
I reward Walmart's good sense in hiring mostly functional people by shopping there. I punish Kmarts insistance on hiring nitwits by avoiding shopping there whenever possible. I think a lot of people do the same and that is a big part of Walmart's success.