Wal-Mart is the world's largest company--it does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway and Kroger combined. But, while they offer consumers low prices, the low prices don’t come without a cost.
Wal-Mart’s 21,000 suppliers are under high pressure from the company to provide cheaper and cheaper goods--and a lot of them. The only solution for many companies is to close down shop in the United States and use overseas suppliers. As written in the article, "One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market."
Vendors who do business with Wal-Mart are likely to experience an initial jump in sales but may have to face consequences to their brand and business later on.
It is American shoppers who ultimately gave Wal-Mart their power, but will we realize the consequences of these low prices before it’s too late?
Fast Company December 2003
Wal-Mart's acceleration is inevitable. The United States is on a rapid downhill trend that will devastate our economy unless we wake up. There is no way the world is going to stand by and tolerate our excess spending and earnings when they are earning so little.
Wal-Mart will make sure that many U.S. jobs go overseas. While that buys us cheaper products, it also presents a dilemma in that many will be forced to find new jobs. This is also happening in the high-tech industry. Much of the programming is shifting overseas--I did it three years ago. I hired four Polish programmers for my Web site for the price of one U.S. programmer.
My guess is that we need to shore up our savings in anticipation of an eventual economic decline.
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