Wal-Mart Deserting The United States?
Unemployment refuses to shrink here in the United States and no retailer is feeling the financial pain more than Wal-Mart.
The company that began as a five-and-dime in rural northwest Arkansas opened its annual shareholder meeting last week with Bollywood-style dancers, Asian balancing acts and Brazilian martial artists representing some of the 14 foreign countries in which Wal-Mart operates.
Last year, its international division topped $100 billion in sales for the first time and this year it is expected to surpass the United States in number of stores. As Wal-Mart expands, the loyal base, here at home, is being ignored and deserted.
This is the next phase of Wal-Mart domination. It built its business in small towns and suburbs across the United States, but now international sales are growing at almost nine times the rate of domestic sales.
Wal-Mart already was facing stalled growth at home after saturating the market, and that has been exacerbated by the weak labor market and high gas prices, which have battered the chain’s core customers and depressed sales. That means the company has become increasingly reliant on the appetites of international shoppers to pick up the slack and drive growth, mirroring a broader global shift in purchasing power.
“The U.S. consumer is tired,” said Dean Junkans, chief investment officer for PNC Wealth Management. “I think it’s very possible that you can kind of have the global consumer kind of take the baton.”
Wal-Mart opened its first international store in Mexico in 1991 and has grown both through acquisitions and its own innovation. At first glance, it might be difficult to spot a Wal-Mart in another country. Though it is synonymous with the big-box stores it helped pioneer in the United States, Wal-Mart has nine international store formats ranging from relatively tiny Bodega Aurrera Express stores in Mexico to a cash-and-carry warehouse in India to the traditional box in Canada. It operates under 55 different banners — Acuenta in Chile, Asda in the United Kingdom and Seiyu in Japan.
“The most important thing that they stress is pricing,” said Francisco Chevez, an analyst with HSBC Securities. “That’s what has made the difference.”
Economists have long predicted that consumers in emerging economies would not only manufacture most of the world’s goods but also buy them. China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest auto market in number of vehicles sold. Foreign sales account for roughly 30 percent of revenue of S&P 500 companies, up from 20 percent a decade ago. By 2014, the International Monetary Fund forecasts, emerging economies will contribute more to the world economy than developed nations.
As long as it doesn’t ‘do a McDonalds’ and head over here.
We’ve enough weird people in Sainsburys and Tesco thank you very much.
Walmart is a step too far!!!!
All I can say I wish they would just disappear faster and let little local places come back. They are just to big and have such power over lots of other businesses, it is not even funny anymore. I think I saw something said, next to the fed government they are the biggest employer here. Don’t get me started on the profits they are getting and how badly they pay the employees, to where many of them are on food stamps and welfare assistance. Damn, I could rant about Walmart for a week and still not get everything on paper at how bad this corporation is.
I don’t do Walmart ever, they treat the employees terribly and nearly every person I know who has shopped there for one item or the other says, oh item broke gotta get a new one. I buy local, even if it is a little more, that way my money is going right back into my own community.
I respect you so much for your principles Gwen. More of us need to stand on principle, yet we yield for the sake of convenience. Unless one is very poor (I understand these are tough times)most of us could find a workaround for shopping at Walmart.
At Walmart-Mexico, they have people who bag for tips.They don’t get wages, just tips. Can you imagine how much a poor Mexican is able to tip ?
The way they treat small manufacturers is criminal. Let alone cultures hosting them to profit.
I’m just effin’ mean anymore about my values, Bro. Really, I’ve had enough. I afford it because I’ve devoted my life to following my own dreams… not an honest living or the heart stopping mind numbing, ultimately most amazingly rewarding choice of being a mother… or father for that matter. I’ve taken to the beat of that ‘different drummer’. Yet, when I see the devotion, the sacrifice and the back breaking work of parents… I am totally humbled and realize
while there is everything right with my own choices for myself… I gave up something that I will never know… if it is was greater…for me. My way of saying,
I can afford to be the ‘principled one’ … I thinking only of myself.
really
ya know?
You make choices based what is best for your family. Everyday. Hard choices.
I make my responsibilities for my own political views a seriously real matter, though, true. Thanks Oso.
Gwen,
So much in life is a trade-off. I don’t mean that to be casual, rather my observation as a parent. The highs are so high, the lows are so low-yet those people who are in the way on the freeway or at a store, who watch stupid TV shows or wait in line for hours on holidays to be the first to buy some stupid piece of crap-most were or still are the treasured child of their parents. So ultimately, are we parents doing what we did for the world or for our own pleasure?
Gwen is 100 percent right on this one. Wal-Mart bleeds a community dry while shipping the money out. It tries to cut corners in every aspect of it’s operation. Having people work 38 hours to avoid having full time employees, lawsuits for forcing people to work during their lunch and break times, even taking out life insurance policies on employees without their knowledge, forcing communities to subsidize it’s employee health benefits by avoidance.
Sure you can get cheap prices, but those cheap prices do have a high cost.
When Sam Walton was around, a long time ago, it may have had some honor and community responsibility. Those days are long gone.
(I love that phrase “sucked the market share marrow from the US bones”, Gwen. Can I steal that?)
Hoist away dude.
Ta Krell. It’s just that … I’m not a sweet as I used to be. LOL
Wal Mart has nothing to do with anything community oriented except abusing, neglecting and leeching from them. They are culturally abusive, stereotypically inclined, refuse generators of what
my little sister insists is the only affordable groceries she can find.
Many friends and family use Wal Mart because this the fiscal reality.
Yeah. Well, I’m poor and pressed too.
But I still keep as small a carbon footprint as I can.
I stick to my boycotts’ to maintain some kind of personal integrity while so much can zap my emotional state of mind lately and I don’t do Wal Mart. Does anyone realize how many cultures are abused by this corporation in order to offer high profits and low cost?
How many small businesses do they engulf and devour per hour? (drama has its’ place)… They crush small businesses who they step on market share wise and those who work to develop business with them.
No… dog eat dog and profits are not my choice.
Fuck that.
Now that they have sucked the market share marrow from US / Canadian bones, they are headed into global territory. Yeah, nice company. It hurts that friends and family think it’s a ‘matter of survival’ to shop there.
Ok. Soapbox removed.