Yeah, right...it they just "found themselves bound. Not that some Vlasic senior executive made a ridiculous decision to enter into such an agreement, oh, no, of course not.
Forced to continue offering the deal or lose its entire Wal-Mart account, the company saw its profits squeezed for two and a half years before Wal-Mart finally let it “up for air.”
Again, what kind of moron delegates decisions on product production to a retail outlet? They should have remained legally able to say, "Sorry, we're halting production of gallon jars next month. Deal with the quart jars."
In January 2001, after Wal-Mart was done making its “statement,” Vlasic filed for bankruptcy.
And from the evidence in the article, blaming that on Wal-Mart is a huge stretch - but it's not hard to see how Vlasic's sales, marketing, and legal departments are at fault.
FWIW, I don't shop at places like Wal-Mart - I follow the Francisco d'Anconia dictum to buy "the best my money can find". But this article is hysterical socialist propaganda masquerading as concern for "da workin' man" - a propaganda piece that could have come right out of Howard Dean Laboratories. ;)
Dear Mr. Jeeves,
"Again, what kind of moron delegates decisions on product production to a retail outlet?"
"Morons" who want to sell to Wal-Mart.
If you decide to sell to Wal-Mart, you have to let them into your house, and you have to do things the Wal-Mart way. This is a double-edged sword. Wal-Mart introduces business processes and technologies to its vendors that enable its vendors to become more efficient and excellent competitors. But its vendors do contractually lose a certain amount of their autonomy to Wal-Mart.
If you want to sell your manufactured products through the largest retailer in the world, that's the deal you have to take. There are folks lining up to take the deal.
As for Vlasic, if I recall correctly, the company was in financial trouble BEFORE the Wal-Mart deal, and saw the Wal-Mart deal as a way back to solvency. Needless to say, it didn't work.
sitetest