About a year ago a woman at church mentioned that she likes to shop at Wal-Mart not just because it’s cheap but because she feels like she’s supporting a Christian business seeing as Sam Walton (the founder of Wal-Mart) was a Christian. I knew enough about Wal-Mart at the time that warning bells were sounding loud and clear in my head, but I didn’t really know enough about Sam to respond very well. So I decided then and there that I needed to do some research.

The barista at my favorite cafe suggested that I start with source material. Rather than reading what others say about Wal-Mart, perhaps I should start with what Sam himself has said. So that’s what I did. (Sometimes barista’s give great advice.) I read Sam Walton’s autobiography, Made in America: My Story -- an ironic title given that there was a huge controversy over Wal-Mart’s "Made in America" program and that the focus of the book is in many ways more on Wal-Mart than on Sam.

I came to the following conclusions as I read the book:

1) Sam Walton may have called himself a Christian, but the reality was that he bowed at the alter of Commerce. Though he paid God lip service (He loved to start out his stock holder meetings by singing the national anthem then praying.) he very clearly worshiped retail. (For more on this, please read my review of his autobiography.)

2) Sam Walton was a real people person. He could make the lowliest clerk, who was being overworked and underpaid, feel like she was one of the most important cogs in the great machine called Wal-Mart. This personality trait was probably one of the most important characteristics in terms of building an identity for Wal-Mart as a corporation.

3) Sam Walton was a man driven to be the best at whatever he did and he was willing to do whatever it took to make sure he wound up on top.

Having an opinion on Sam was a start. But Sam was not Wal-Mart, much as the two of them are intimately linked in the minds of many Americans even today. So I pulled two more books off the shelves of our local library:

1) How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It by Bill Quinn, and
2) In Sam We Trust : The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart, the World's Most Powerful Retailer by Bob Ortega.

After glancing through Bill Quinn’s book, I immediately tossed it. The book may be entirely true for all I know, but it was written in a clearly biased manner and didn’t appear to me to have very good documentation. My goal was not to slam Wal-Mart just because I wanted to slam Wal-Mart. I wanted to approach my inquiry fairly and I wanted to base my conclusions on facts and figures, not emotion.

So then I turned to Bob Ortega’s book. I was pleasantly surprised not only by it’s impeccable documentation, but by his fairness and thoroughness as well. In many cases he talked directly with the people involved in Wal-Mart, from executives to workers. Though he may have had an agenda in writing the book (just as I had an agenda in doing my own research) I still feel that he tried his very best to fairly address the whole of Wal-Mart’s activities -- pointing out the smart business decisions as well as the ethically suspect ones.

The Content of Ortega’s Book

Over half of In Sam We Trust is the history of Wal-Mart, its predecessors or its competition. Ortega is seriously thorough in approaching this subject. As a person
who is not very interested in business dealings in general, I have to admit that I plodded through parts of this book. At the same time, I appreciated Ortega’s thoroughness because I knew that there was no way I would have investigated the topic so thoroughly on my own, and I’d rather read someone else’s synopsis than have to personally plod through the source material.

Ortega begins his book with a brief review of Sam Walton’s life, his personal history, and his activities that lead to the creation of Wal-Mart. Much of this was simply a synopsis of Sam’s autobiography, which I had just finished reading. But I was encouraged by the fact that Ortega came to many of the same conclusions that I did in reading Made in America. His impression of Sam’s spiritual life was identical to mine as was his reactions to Sam’s strengths as a people person and his drive to being the absolute best at whatever he put his hand to.

Ortega then backed up all the way to the mid-1800’s and briefly surveyed the history of retailing in America. He traced trends and innovations within, and the men and companies that drove, the retail industry. He pulled out threads that would later bear heavily upon the success of Wal-Mart. And he showed very clearly that many of Sam Walton’s winning ideas had come from other retailers who either failed to implement them well, or who had the ideas but were thwarted by their superiors within their respective corporations.

In Wal-Mart’s early days it had very little competition. The first store was opened in 1962, the same year that both Target and K-mart got their start. But Wal-Mart was located in rural areas of middle-America and grew very slowly at first, staying safely away from the competition which was based primarily in large urban areas to the east. But as retailers expanded their reach, they slowly began to encroach on each other’s territory. As Ortega gets to this part of his story, he stops to look extensively (considering this is a book on Wal-Mart) at the chief competition, K-mart.

K-mart, unlike Wal-Mart, had been slow to integrate computer technology which slowed not only its operations within stores, but which hampered its ability to track goods and restock efficiently. Sam Walton, on the other hand, liked to keep his finger on operations at all of his stores, something he could initially do by visiting each store regularly thanks to a beat up old airplane he purchased and flew himself. However, as his operations grew, he recognized that personal visits would no longer be feasible, so he invested heavily in computers and computer tracking. From Wal-Mart headquarters, Sam was able to track sales not only by store, but by product or even by sale type (cash/credit) in real time. (In fact, it is this detailed use of technology that enabled Wal-Mart, in 2004, to change direction on a dime as sales were slow the day after Thanksgiving. Within a day a new sales strategy was devised and within two days it had been fully implemented in all of Wal-Mart’s American stores.)

K-mart also had a policy of recruiting from within it’s own ranks. Executive positions were always filled from within. So problems within the company were often reinforced, rather than eradicated. Sam Walton, on the other hand, had a policy of hiring only the best in a given area. If it meant hiring someone straight from the competition, that’s what he would do. In fact, Sam regularly searched for employees (from managers to executives) among the competition. He not only ended up with a topnotch employee, but the competition ended up with one less. And he got the extra benefit of bringing in fresh ideas straight from these other retailers. Sam had no qualms about stealing ideas from others and was often found in the stores of other retailers with a mini-recorder in hand, even when the store had a posted policy against that very thing. (And he would get away with it as he explains in his autobiography.)

About two thirds of the way into the book, however, Ortega starts to look directly at some specific company practices such as union-busting, employee policies that were unfairly enforced, and contracts that Wal-Mart had with sweatshops -- most specifically with their Kathie Lee Gifford line of clothing -- and their subsequent policies regarding such sweatshop merchandise. He details how, after Sam Walton’s death, the upper management became even more obsessed with the bottom line and how, when Sam’s brother, Bud, spoke out in favor of the Wal-Mart employees during a stockholders meeting, the executives unambiguously ignored him. Sam Walton had been obsessive in making Wal-Mart a great retailing chain. The executives he left behind took up his mantle with strict orthodoxy.

The Dark Side of Wal-Mart

“You won't hear anything negative from most people. If Wal-Mart takes something the wrong way, it's like Saddam Hussein. You just don't want to piss them off.” -- Paul Kelly, founder of Silvermine Consulting Group, a company that helps businesses work more effectively with retailers

Wal-Mart clearly has a dark side and Bob Ortega was meticulous is going straight to the source as much as possible when documenting it. He contacted suppliers in Central America and Asia that do business with Wal-Mart. He poured through court documents and he met with former Wal-Mart employees to get their stories directly. He also met with organizers who were trying to stop Wal-Mart from moving into their communities and he documented the results for those municipalities that failed.

You really should read the book if you want to know more about Wal-Mart’s dark side, but I’ll summarize some of Ortega’s findings here.

Employee Relations:

Employee conditions were rough during Sam Walton’s time. In his autobiography he admits to paying his employees less than all other retailers. His autobiography also attests to the long hours managers were expected to put in (without overtime pay). But after Sam died, things only got worse. (Which is why Bud tried to stand up for the employees in that stockholder meeting I mentioned earlier in which he was stoutly ignored.)

Employees were fired or punished for issues that managers were allowed to get away with. Wal-Mart was found guilty on more than one occasion of racial discrimination. And, as Ortega said, “What’s more interesting about these cases is the behavior of higher-ups at Wal-Mart once they became aware of the situations--how they often ignored the complaints, how they often acted not to correct the problems, not to oust these troublesome managers and restore the aggrieved employees, but rather to cover up and defend fundamentally indefensible actions, to claim the workers were fired or had left for other reasons, claims that courts and commissions found time and again simply were not credible.”

Employees also tried to organize on several occasions and each time they were met with threats and direct punishments. When Wal-Mart’s butchers tried to organize, Wal-Mart responded by removing their positions from Wal-Mart entirely. Wal-Mart now has a central meat packing plant and they ship their meat across the US. When truckers tried to organize, they were met with threats from Sam Walton himself. (And recently (Fall 2004/Winter 2005) a Canadian Wal-Mart that did manage to organize, was shut down within a matter of months.)

Sweatshop Labor:

Ortega focused on a specific line of clothing that Wal-Mart developed to combat a popular line put out by K-mart. The Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line boasted that a percentage from each sale would “go toward helping AIDS and crack addicted children in New York.” (quote from Kathie Lee Gifford in testimony before The U.S. House Subcommittee On International Organizations And Human Rights) Unfortunately, a reporter trying to uncover labor abuses in clothing lines for another company, instead found children who were making clothes for the Kathie Lee Gifford line.

Ortega uses this example not simply to document that Wal-Mart was selling clothing made by children, but to highlight Wal-Mart’s response to the discovery. It is one thing to unknowingly purchase clothes made by children. It is another thing entirely to continue the practice once the situation has come to light. And worse yet, Wal-Mart failed to take a proactive or positive stance in dealing with the issue (something which other companies who were caught in the same position did manage to do.)

Ortega went so far as to contact U.S. Customs officials in Hong Kong who “confirmed in interviews for this book that, for more than two years, they repeatedly warned Wal-Mart buyers and visiting company executives about the quota-busting problems--even giving them documentary evidence--and were ignored. One customs inspector said that the third time he personally told Wal-Mart’s head buyer in Hong Kong about the problem, “he said to me, ‘I’ve told the people in Bentonville about this, and told them I share your concern. All they told me was not to worry about it, that we’re not the importer of record.’” In other words, Wal-Mart didn’t care if illegal practices were taking place in their supply chain as long as no one could pin anything on them.

Harry Wu, a human rights activist, approached Wal-Mart concerning their purchases of jeans made in China by prison labor. He asked, and was allowed, to speak at a stock holders meeting. After he spoke, there was no discussion and the issue was never addressed throughout the rest of the gathering. Ortega writes, “Leaving the meeting, a somber Wu (former Chinese political prisoner) told Harbrant and Fiedler that he hadn’t seen a meeting like that since the last Communist rally he’d been forced to attend in China.”

Deceit as standard corporate policy:

There were three examples of Wal-Mart behavior that particularly struck me as being deceitful. The first has to do with Wal-Mart’s response to municipalities that try to block a Wal-Mart from moving in. The second was in Wal-Mart’s response to a campaign against it that pointed out it’s “Buy American” program was largely a sham. And the third had to do with unscrupulous advertising techniques.

When a group formed that tried to block Wal-Mart from moving into their community, one of Wal-Mart’s responses was to pour money into an organization known as “National Grassroots” which would then purport to advocate for citizens who did want the Wal-Mart. However, “National Grassroots specialized in fighting grassroots efforts through what have come to be known as ‘AstroTurf’ operations: creating the appearance of grassroots support for a project, irrespective of whether any exists or not, and then cultivating local community leaders to come on board.”

In 1992, Dateline aired an investigation into Wal-Mart’s “Made in America” campaign. In addition to showing footage of children working in Bangladesh to make clothes for Wal-Mart, the show also included hidden camera footage of “Made in America” signs hung up over imported goods. Wal-Mart’s response was to “strongly encourage” their suppliers to run ads in support of Wal-Mart. Bob Ortega describes the corporation’s response this way, “To fight back in public, executives decided to draft others to defend Wal-Mart, in what would be made to look like a spontaneous outburst of support. Wal-Mart’s public relations people designed newspaper ads for the company’s vendors to sponsor, defending the Buy American program. Suppliers were given sample ads with phrases such as “Thanks, Wal-Mart” and “We Support Wal-Mart’s BUY AMERICA program” in huge print. Wal-Mart buyers were to ask vendors to use their own words, to make the ads seem their own. Wal-Mart “recommended” that vendors, depending on their size, either buy full-page ads in national newspapers such as USA Today (for $65,810) and the Wall Street Journal (for $110,629) or buy ads in local newspapers. Wal-Mart helpfully included a list of newspapers, phone numbers, and names of whom to contact, and what the rates for a full-page ad would be ($2,790 at the Biloxi Sun-Herald, for example). Vendors were supposed to say the ads were their idea and were warned not to run them before Wednesday morning, the day after the broadcast.”

Another investigative report found that Wal-Mart was mislabeling competitors prices on shelves, or comparing Wal-Mart prices to other store’s prices -- but for a larger sized version of the product (without indicating that the comparison was not for the same sized product). Many Wal-Mart stores also had a marketing ploy in which they would fill two shopping carts with items; one shopping cart held only items from Wal-Mart with a label indicating how much those items would cost in total and the other held similar items from a leading competitor with the competitor’s total cost shown. But the shopping carts were so heavily wrapped in cellophane that it was hard to see that the Wal-Mart products were often of smaller sized versions of the product than the competitors cart held or were products of a cheaper quality (a $5 wind up watch from Wal-Mart compared to a $15 battery operated watch from Target).

So What’s to Be Done?

As Ortega concludes his book, he points out that there’s really only one way to affect change in a company in which the bottom line is the be all and end all. The wallet of the American consumer can speak volumes to the Wal-Mart executives. It’s up to us to tell Wal-Mart that we don’t approve of their employment practices, their continuing push to squeeze every penny out of manufacturers (thereby pushing jobs overseas), and their deceitful business practices.

Ortega is by no means calling for an end to Wal-Mart. But he does want Wal-Mart to take responsibility for its actions (without having to first be dragged to court and forced to take responsibility as has been the historical path for this company). He wants Wal-Mart to use its size and clout to achieve some good (as McDonalds has done for the chicken industry and against genetically modified potatoes, and as the Gap has done for workers in third world countries).

I highly recommend that you read this book. It would be an excellent book for book groups -- a great springboard for discussion. And I suspect that even people well versed in the workings of Wal-Mart will find some eye-openers between these pages. Certainly not everything that Ortega says is negative. As I pointed out before, the author is very good at giving credit where credit is due and Sam Walton’s genius is clearly laid out as Ortega delineates the history of Wal-Mart. I really feel that this is the kind of book where people on both sides of the Wal-Mart debate can come together and start to sort through the issues, seek the truth, and find the higher ground.

"Thomas Coughlin, who was vice chairman of Wal-Mart's board and formerly held the title of president of Wal-Mart Stores, resigned from the world's largest retailer in March after Wal-Mart found what it said was a pattern of expense-account abuses and the use of false invoices to obtain reimbursements.

"Following his resignation, accusations emerged that Coughlin may have used undocumented expense payments of as much as $500,000 to pay for anti-union activities."

-- see CNN's entire article here or see more on Wal-Mart's union practices in another CNN article here.

A group called Wal-Mart Watch put a full page ad in today's New York Times. (If you haven't seen the ad, you can see a pdf version here.)

Highlights from the ad:

"Year after year, Wal-Mart's low pay and meager employee benefits force tens of thousands of employees to resort to Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance. Call it the "Wal-Mart Tax." And it costs you $1.5 billion in federal tax dollars every year."

"The $1.5 billion Wal-Mart tax doesn't even include state tax dollars spent on Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance. And it doesn't include the millions of dollars that communities pay every year to provide new roads, electricity, sewer, and water lines for Wal-Mart stores. The company has a $10 billion annual profit, but won't even build the driveways to its stores."

And here's some of the info. they post on their website about Wal-Mart:

* California spends an estimated $89 million annually providing public assistance to Wal-Mart’s employees.
* In Georgia, over 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees are on state-funded healthcare.
* Wal-Mart spends $1,300 less per employees on healthcare than average retailers and $2,100 less than average U.S. companies (according to a recent Harvard Business School study)

They have a great research library that lists journal articles, book titles and television and radio programs that address the problem of Wal-Mart. They also list primary sources for the facts that they have posted on their ad (and on the site).

I wonder if they're going to start addressing the union issues, use of illegal immigrant issues, and use of child and slave labor overseas issues next.

“Wal-Mart’s business was built upon a foundation of
honesty, respect, fairness and integrity.”
-- from Wal-Mart’s statement of ethics

Sam and Helen Walton opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 (the same year that Kmart and Target got their start). Though the chain initially grew at a slower rate than its competition, in the 1980’s its growth took off. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. opened the first SAM’s club in 1983 and the first Supercenter in 1988.

Unlike most retail chains, Wal-Mart’s identity is closely bound up with the image of its founder. Though Target and K-mart were both started by corporations (the Dayton company and the Kresge corporation respectively*), Wal-Mart was begun by a charismatic, and extremely competitive, country boy. As Sam himself admits in the forward of his book, Made in America, “my life is all wrapped up in Wal-Mart.”

Because of this, many people ascribe to Wal-Mart values that they have first attributed to Sam Walton. Sam grew up in a small town. He was a deacon at his church (before Wal-Mart took over his life). He had four kids and he enjoyed hunting. He appeared to be a Christian, all-American, family man. And if Wal-Mart was built by Sam and Sam was true to these values, then doesn’t it follow that Wal-Mart is a Christian, all-American, family oriented kind of business?

Though Wal-Mart does make a pretense of being these things when there might be a financial benefit to doing so, it’s fairly clear that Wal-Mart exists to make money. And if more money could be made from presenting a different image, I have no doubt that Wal-Mart’s image would change in a heartbeat.

Sam Walton

“I don’t know that I was that religious, per se, but I always felt like the church was important.” -- Sam Walton, Made in America

Sam went to church and was even a deacon. He felt that it was important to raise his kids within the church and explains, “Church is an important part of society, especially in small towns. Whether it’s the contacts and associations you make or the contributions you might make toward helping other folks, it all sort of ties in together.”

It’s interesting to note, however, that whenever Sam mentions church in his autobiography, it’s in relationship to community or values (both of which he used toward commercial ends). God doesn’t appear to be part of the picture.

The man lived, breathed, and ate retailing. In fact, he was so thoroughly invested in his retailing obsession that even family took second place. On vacations, it was a given that if they drove past a retail store (any retail store) they were going to have to stop so that dad could go in and investigate. Sam was constantly checking out the competition, searching out what they were doing right, and then adding that new found idea to his repertoire. And when Sam found an employee working for his competition that he thought was particularly competent, he’d offer them a job in his own store.

The man would work until 10 pm on a saturday night (this after getting to the office at 3 am to prepare for the Saturday morning management meeting) and then get up Sunday morning and go back to work. (I assume he'd leave work just in time to show up for the church service?)

Though Sam Walton might have claimed to be a Christian, the true driving spirit within him was Free Enterprise. While wistfully considering possible futures for his grandchildren he lists: 1) finding a cure for cancer, 2) bringing culture and education to the underprivileged and 3) becoming missionaries for free enterprise to 3rd world countries. And near the end of his autobiography, as he looks back contemplatively on his life, he says, “ I am absolutely convinced that the only way we can improve one another’s quality of life, ... is through what we call free enterprise -- practiced correctly and morally.”

Spiritually the man was bowing at the alter of retail, but before his employees and the public eye, he gave God and country lip service. Bob Ortega writes in his book, In Sam We Trust, “Once the satellite system was up and running, the annual meetings were broadcast to all the stores.... Every year, the production got more involved, the meeting longer, the flag-waving more intense. In 1989, the meeting began with videos of patriotic scenes played on three giant screens as 7,000 people recited the pledge of alledgiance; then, as the lights came up, a prayer followed, led by Walton at the edge of the stage, down on one knee, head bowed, and Wal-Mart baseball cap in hand.”

Perhaps Sam’s sense of spirituality can best be described in what has become known as “the Sam Pledge” (written by Sam Walton and described by him in his autobiography), "From this day forward, every customer that comes within 10 feet of me, regardless of what I'm doing, in this house, I'm going to look him in the eye, I'm going to smile, I'm going to greet him with a -Good morning,' or a Good afternoon,' or a What can I do for you?' - so help me Sam!" Sam saw himself as the god of Free Enterprise in America.

Walmart Values

“When Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart Stores, he established
the ‘Three Basic Beliefs’ to which we remain firmly committed:
* Respect for the Individual
* Service to our Customers
* Strive for Excellence
The Three Basic Beliefs go hand in hand with the integrity and
ethical conduct that is the foundation of our business.
-- from Wal-Mart’s statement of ethics

Wal-Mart claims to have respect for the individual, but I’m not sure which individual they’re referring to. They certainly couldn’t be referring to their employees. “Wal-Mart faces lawsuits in 30 states for allegedly forcing hourly employees to work overtime with no pay,” according to a Washington Times article. Wal-mart has fought against the unionizing of it’s employees several times, even to the point of shutting a store in Quebec down rather than have to deal with the union. And a UC Berkeley (pdf) study has determined that Wal-Mart’s employee practices cost the state of California as much as $86 million annually in health related and other assistance costs.

At the same time, the individual that Wal-Mart claims to have respect for couldn’t be those who are manufacturing the products they sell, either.



*George Dayton opened Goodfellows in 1902. In 1903 the corporate name changed to the Dayton Dry Goods Company, and in 1910 the name changed again to simply, the Dayton Company. In 1962, The Dayton Company opened the first Target ("a new idea in discount stores"). Kmart evolved out of Kresge's, which was started in 1899 by Sebastian Spering Kresge. The Kresge corporation opened the first Kmart discount department store in 1962.

A friend recently added as an aside during our conversation that Sam Walton was a Christian, one more reason to shop at Walmart. I wanted to puke but thought it would be rude so instead I filed her comment away and decided to document just how "Christian" Walmart values are.

"Wal-Mart's business was built upon a foundation of honesty, respect, fairness and integrity." -- from Wal-Mart's statement of ethics

If you know of articles, news, info. that says otherwise, ping me.

[this is another transfer from my old website. as i reread the post i could already hear Darryl's opinions in my ear. i considered pre-empting expected arguments and decided to leave it as is, instead.

this was originally posted fall/winter 2002.]

			(why i am) Pro-Choice I've been led to believe that those who support "family values," by definition, support families and the values that help those families to remain close knit and self supporting. That's why I'm so often surprised to find that those "family values" supporters shop at Walmart. Why do sooooooooo many christians in this nation, who claim to support family values, support giant government bureaucracies or giant unregulated corporations, and the government corporate welfare system (so much for "free-markets"), which undermine the true empowerment of families? The God of Unlimited Profit is very seductive and I believe has infested the gospel of many churches. Christians on the left usually err on the side of Big Government as saviour, and Christians on the right usually err on the side of Big Corporations as saviour. And the gospel is usually lost. -- Brett Lutz Now, I have to admit that I've shopped at Walmart before, and Home Depot and Target just to name a few. But that doesn't mean that I should have. Let me explain: By supporting Walmart (and many other chains), you are essentially encouraging homogeneity. As chains force out the local mom and pop stores and restaurants (and each other... note that Kmart isn't doing too well), we begin to lose the ability to choose where we'd like to shop. Once upon a time we could choose between several mom and pops as well as the chains. The chains, however, will soon reduce our choices only down to other chains (and in some places this has already happened) and eventually the chains will duke it out among themselves until there's only a few remaining to choose from. And what will your choices be then? If you don't like what they stock, then you're just out of luck because there will be no where else to go. (And I haven't found a mega-chain yet that special-orders items for customers.) Darwin believed that the fittest would survive. However, its easy to be "more fit" when you're unfair. Chains aren't only unfair to the mom and pop shops, but they're increasingly unfair to their consumers, their employees and the communities they're located in. And though Walmart makes an ideal icon to slam, even such well loved favorites as McDonalds are at fault. I doubt that, Sam Walton (Walmart), Ray Kroc (McDonalds), and Sebastian Kresge (Kmart) set out to wipe out choice. In fact, I suspect that they thought they were helping to bring about more choice. And initially, they were. But as these corporations saturate communities, they will eventually (and have already begun to) reduce our choices (for where to shop, what we can buy when we shop, and even for where we work). Unfair to Consumers Consumers are loosing their ability to choose. Not only does the increasing presence of chain stores reduce the number of shopping options for the average consumer as all of the mom and pop options are wiped out, but the stores themselves only carry a set offering of products and are generally not able to special order items. (Thank God for the internet!) "I have personally seen Wal-Mart and other discount stores completely shut down a small town in southern Indiana. Businesses which had been in operation for years were closed and the only opportunities for employment were minimum wage jobs. In addition, clothing and other items are of a low quality, not really quality for price." --anonymous in the San Diego area (from Lawmall) The sheer buying power of some of these behemoths can even affect availability of items. If a manufacturer is looking to put a new product on the market, they often need to have that product get picked up by one of the larger chains or they won't be able to sell enough to make a profit. So if Home Depot decides it doesn't like your new gizmo, then its likely that your new gizmo might not hit the market at all (and anyone who would have jumped at the chance to own that new gizmo is just out of luck). Likewise, if a chain store does decide to sell your little gizmo, they may make you sign a contract that forbids you from selling your gizmo to any other company or even directly to consumers. (So now anyone who isn't near a Walmart or Home Depot is the one out of luck.) Chains also reduce choice by making their product selection, their store layout, etc. all part of their branding. For the most part, when you walk into a new Meijers, or a Super K, or a Walmart, you can size up the layout (groceries on the right or groceries on the left?) and find the department that you want right away because you're already familiar with how that store lays out its products. (Actually, I've noticed that once you've got Meijers down pat, you can figure out Walmart pretty quickly, etc.) This is part of what makes these stores appealing. I know that when I'm traveling, its comforting to walk into a store and be able to find what I want pretty quickly without having to ask. But at the same time, this sameness lacks originality and creativity. I find it ironic that most Americans don't like "religion" because certain things are expected of them, and they'll have to learn the in's and out's of the "religion." Yet the big wigs at these chains have us fully trained to memorize the layout of their stores, to know their product selection, to accept their product selection, to purchase from their product selection, to believe their product selection is what they say it is (see PBS's article on Walmart stocking-or not stocking-American made products), and to sign up for the card that will give us "discounts" on all of these products (while giving away our personal information to those same corporate big wigs). "My experience with superstores - Home Depot, etc. - is that they have a broad range of products but lack depth. I find myself patronizing the niche retailers - the specialty bookstore, or 'Real Goods' catalog for products I want. My concern with superstores is that they ... define what's marketed without concern for origin of product (e.g. Chinese prison labor) or ecological consequences." --anonymous in the San Diego area (from Lawmall) In a similar vein, chains like McDonalds train us to expect hamburgers to taste a certain way (too much sodium, grain fed cows, white bun, grease). No matter what McDonalds you go to all across America, those hamburgers will taste identical. (That is, they will unless one of the employees has "doctored it up" somehow with something disgusting. See Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.) We can't walk into a McDonalds in Colorado and see what a Colorado cow tastes like as opposed to a California cow. (And I'll bet some of you didn't even realize that cows fed on different foods tasted different! Well... they do.) Ditto the food-tasting-the-same argument with Starbucks, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc. They're selling a brand. Their goal is not to sell the best food in the region that the food is being sold in. Their goal is to make all their food taste the same so that you'll get used to it and want only that and then you're hooked on that branded taste (and the branded means of purchase and the branded special deals, etc.) and you'll buy more and more and make the corporate execs. wealthier and wealthier. Unfair to Employees "The lawsuit charges that Wal-Mart, the self-proclaimed fastest growing and largest private employer in the United States, has systematically avoided paying employees their full, earned wages. Wal-Mart provides perverse incentives for managers to lower overhead costs, the largest component of which is employee payroll, by offering financial compensation and bonuses." -- from the website of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP To be perfectly honest, I've never known any Walmart employees personally. So I don't know from personal experience how they're treated. All I know is what I've heard from friends and what I've read in the paper about the law suits that have been brought against them. (Even the Germans are upset with Walmart's labor practices.) Apparently Walmart's push is so great to lower prices that it is fairly common for employees to be expected to work off the clock and to work overtime at no pay (at least, that's what these lawsuits allege). Executives seem to do quite well at Walmart with the company having been ranked as one of the top 100 companies to work for. However, for the non-executive types, take home pay is often under $250/week. And while Walmart employees may start out at about the same pay rate as most other retail stores, the pay doesn't increase at the same rate. According to PBS, a majority of Walmart's employees with children live below the poverty line. Unfair to Communities No one likes a huge vacant lot with a huge vacant warehouse type building on it. But Walmart's corporate strategy has been to completely saturate an area until they become their own competition. (Have you ever wondered why a Walmart will move in when there's already one or two in town as well as several Target's, Kmarts, etc?) They then become their own competition, effectively pushing out all other competition (bye, bye Kmart!). Then, once the competition has been wiped out, they shut down on of their own stores, leaving a vacant building. (Don't believe me? Check out Walmart's expansion pattern across the US. -- scroll down to the center of the page) Cities want a "solid tax base" and business properties tend to provide more tax income for the city than residential "Local officials often fall for the seductions and political appeal of luring new national chains... but fail to consider the greater losses that occur when the local business base is undermined." -- from the website Reclaim Democracy.org properties. So rather than having everyone in your little burb travel to the neighboring blurb to shop, you want the mall/Walmart/Home Depot in your own town. (At least, this is the prevailing philosophy.) However, even though you've got that mall, the neighboring community will probably decide to get some tax money for itself and will allow a similar mall to move in. Both can't survive so eventually one goes belly up and now the loser city no longer has that tax income, it also has an eyesore to deal with as well. The big box stores could care less about what's best for the city or what's best for the citizens. Their goal is profit and they will do whatever it takes to get it. (think Enron, WorldCom, etc.) Small businesses, on the other hand, live and die with the city. If Ann Arbor, MI dies, the small businesses will die with it. Meijers, on the other hand, will just abandon shop there and move on to greener pastures. Big box business may act like it cares for the community, but the health of the community will, in the long run, barely affect it. Therefore, what do they really care? What Can I Do? Shop locally. That doesn't mean shop at the Walmart near you. It means shop, as much as you can, at the little, locally owned businesses in your neighborhood. If you don't know which businesses are independently owned, check out your local independent newspaper (the one that you can pick up free at the cafe). Though these newspapers may have some chain sponsorship, they often have even more sponsorship by the local, independent businesses. You can also look in the phone book or online for a local Independent Business Alliance. There are some times when shopping locally means spending more, but that isn't always the case. Some small stores have better prices for their regular customers. (A corner store in San Francisco charged us $3.50/pint for Ben & Jerry's ice cream. But once the guy got to know us he'd say, "For you -- three dollars." Chain stores just don't work off of relationships that way. Likewise, at another SF video store, I've brought videos back a day late before and because the woman has gotten to know me, she has waved the late fee.) Farmers markets are an example of local business. And most farmers markets have bargain prices (and incredibly fresh food). Local bakeries may cost more per loaf, but they may also have special deals such as a free loaf after so many purchased, or they'll give you a free slice every time you come in. (OK, OK, so there's a franchise that does this too. But I've got to admit, they're a pretty darn smart little franchise that runs a lot like a little independent store.) Shop for taste, originality, sustainability as well as for bargain prices. Sure, Walmart may sell something cheaper, but the local independent store may sell something that's fresher, more personalized, or that will last longer. The extra cost may be well worth it. I bought a pint of strawberries at Walmart once (shame on me!) and ended up throwing most of them into the compost pile. They were either unripe or molding (in the same container!). I went back to paying more at the organic store for strawberries that taste like strawberries. The "cheaper" strawberries at Walmart actually cost more because only a few were edible. Resources (in addition to the ones listed above) Boulder Independent Business Alliance Boulder's independent businesses have joined forces both to support each other and to keep chain businesses at bay. PBS - Store Wars: The Story PBSexplores the effect of Walmart upon just one small town. There are also related issues covered here such as sprawl and big business (and lots of links to more resources). Reclaim Democracy