Week 8 chapter 17

A critical finding shows that Wal-Mart’s current customers along with its necessary growth segments are becoming increasingly less inclined to shop at Wal-Mart because of the company’s business practices.
.Wal-Mart is staking its future success in a new advertising campaign, which survey results indicate consumers do not believe is credible.  Consumers overwhelmingly reject the notion that shopping at Wal-Mart saves the average family who shops there enough money to provide any benefits resembling the ads’ claims. Only four percent of survey respondents believe Wal-Mart’s annual savings claims.
.The company’s new advertising campaign won’t help Wal-Mart regain the ground it is losing with existing and potential customers.  On the contrary, it appears that Wal-Mart’s customers neither believe that they are saving more nor living better because of Wal-Mart.




 

Week 8 chapter 17-Advertising and public relations

Wal-Mart has never had a great reputation among its suppliers. For years it has been accused of sourcing goods locally in new markets only as a competitive tactic to drive out other retail customers and then ending the relationship in order to bankrupt the local supplier.
.A recent study by researchers at UC Berkeley's Labor Center has quantified what happened to retail wages when Wal-Mart set up shop, drawing on 15 years of data on actual store openings. The study found that Wal-Mart drives down wages in urban areas, with an annual loss of at least $3 billion dollars in earnings for retail workers.
.The study has been finalized and published, and the published findings produced a different number for the annual loss in retail earnings than the preliminary figure we used in the film. The published study ultimately found that Wal-Mart actually reduced the take-home pay of retail workers by $4.7 BILLION dollars annually. Unfortunately for the retail workers this statistic concerns, Wal-Mart's effect on retail wages turns out to be worse than consumers had anticipated.

Week 7 (chapter 15) Retailing

Wal-Mart is abandoning its one-size-fits-all approach to retailing in an effort to increase sales. Wal-Mart officials are realizing that they need to broaden their low price platform in order to continue to compete in more markets. Wal-Mart's merchandise will now reflect one of six demographic groups, including African-Americans, affluent, empty-nesters, Hispanics, suburbanites and rural residents. The company also plans to renovate its 3,400 U.S. stores over the next year to reflect the needs of these six different groups.

This is risky for Wal-Mart because they're changing a supply chain that was developed on low-cost efficiency for a divided customer relationship management-based chain. It's also interesting from a standpoint of enabling price discrimination. They could potentially charge rural customers due to market power, especially in grocery, which is characteristic of local markets.

Week 6-consumer decision making

The growing pains of many businesses are highly documented by the media as they go from domestic to foreign markets. Because of the company’s enormous monetary value, which is frequently compared to Gross Domestic Products of entire nations, Wal-Mart’s missteps in many countries have been critically commented on by writers and journalists around the world. Cultural challenges have oftentimes been the hallmark of Wal-Mart’s experience around the world

Additional information

These are the top five eco-friendly products that have been on the rise since 2007 according to walmart:

1. Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs – Average adoption rate of 19.7 percent (up from 13.39% in 2007)

• Delaware leads the category with an adoption rate of 25.8 percent

2. Organic baby food and formula – Average adoption rate of 4.12 percent (down from 4.31% in 2007)

• California continues to lead the category with an 8.58 percent adoption rate

3. Organic milk – Average adoption rate of 1.58 percent (up from 1.15% in 2007)

• Virginia has the highest adoption rate of organic milk at 2.7 percent

4. Extended life paper products – Average adoption rate of 67.5 percent (up from 50.77% in 2007)

• Minnesota has the highest adoption rate with 78.1 percent

5. Concentrated/reduced-packaging liquid laundry detergents – Average adoption rate of 76.3 percent (up from 22.86% in 2007)

Week 5

In July 2006, Wal-Mart announced its withdrawal of operations from Germany because the firm was losing some $250 million per year on sales of $2.5 billion. Wal-Mart's 85 big-box stores were sold to German company METRO AG, a much bigger player with 550 stores in Germany. Commentators blamed competitive prices from national discounters as well as German consumer rejection of American-style signature features such as stores outside of town centers, employees required to smile and heartily greet customers, and baggers at checkouts.

Week 5-Developing a global vision

International sales are now responsible for some 20 percent of total company revenues. And sales from stores outside the U.S. are growing faster than Wal-Mart's American retail operations which include walmart.com online stores. Leading the way is Wal-Mart's U.K. subsidiary ASDA, a supermarket chain that generated some 42% of international sales in fiscal 2006.

Week 5-Developing a global vision

Many are surprised that Wal-Mart's operations have contributed to America's growing deficit. One has to consider that very few of Wal-Mart's products are made in the United States. In fact, Wal-Mart imports more foreign-produced goods into America than any other single company. As the U.S. dollar weakens, more money flows out to pay for foreign products thus worsening America's trade imbalance.Some 60% of Wal-Mart products are imported from such countries as fast growing south Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. The company's biggest trading partner is China. In 2004, the company's trade with China accounted for about 10 percent of the total U.S. trade deficit with the Asian economic powerhouse.