"The Real Walmart"?!? Six Big Fibs in Walmart's New Ad Campaign

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/19/1232091/--The-Real-Walmart-Six-Big-Fibs-in-Walmart-s-New-Ad-Campaign

5. The Claim: "Meet real Walmart shoppers!" Here we meet a businessman, a teacher, a carpenter, a mechanical engineer, a firefighter and an accountant, all of them redolent with middle class status, who proudly shop at Walmart. "Living better," the tag line says, "that's the real Walmart."

The Reality: Walmart's customers are disproportionately poor, Southern and elderly. The fact that none of these demo's made it into Walmart's ad about "Our Customers" means not only that Walmart is a fibber, but also that Walmart is a disser of its own "real" customers.

6. The Claim: "We work directly with manufacturers, eliminating costly markups."

The Reality: If by "work with," the ad means "dictate to," then this claim is accurate. But again, as Charles Fishman, the business reporter who wrote The Walmart Effect asks, what is "the high cost of these low prices?" Walmart's market power is such that many of its suppliers face a stark choice: take dictation from Walmart, or lose half or more of their business. "To survive in the face of [Walmart's] pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas."

Just ask Steve Dobbins, CEO of 75-year old Carolina Mills, a company that supplies thread and yarn to textile manufacturers -- half of whom supply Walmart. His company grew steadily until 2000. Then his customers, with Walmart's gun to their heads -- began a hemhorrage of offshoring in order to find the dirt cheap labor necessary to meet Walmart's low price demands. Carolina Mills shrank from 17 factories to 7 within three years. The way Walmart "works with" its suppliers has been disastrous for American workers.

[obxhead]

1. The Walmart Effect was an excellent book as well.

The next mower I buy will likely be a Snapper because they stood up to Walmart and said no more, we won't build a cheap product to fit your needs.

[mwooldri]

6. The Walmart Effect was required reading at East Carolina for a course I took.

An interesting read - Walmart has its good points, but in the last 20 odd years its bad points have erm... increased.

[jmowreader]

11. Walmart is selling Snappers again

There were three issues Snapper had with Walmart. Price is one, but not the only one or even the largest.

If you go to a Snapper dealer, they unpack the machine, run it for a few minutes, adjust as necessary and provide maintenance. Walmart sold you a sealed box with a very expensive mower in it.

And they were also very concerned about Walmart undermining the existing Snapper dealer network, which dropped from selling 100 percent of the Snapper mowers to 80.

Now each Walmart teams with a Snapper dealer.

I would get one of the new Stihl lithium-ion battery-powered mowers.

[obxhead]

13. Hmmm

Sorry to hear that.

Battery operated just won't keep up with the amount of work I have. I do a fair amount of landscaping side work.

[jmowreader]

14. Then try a John Deere

They make walk-behind mowers, which are in their Commercial line hence must be bought at a John Deere dealer. The JDs sold at Home Depot and Lowe's are "homeowner" grade - okay, but not as awesome as the hardcore stuff.

I was thinking Simplicity, but all they make are zero-turn riders and tractors.

[Rex]

2. A friend needed to use their cash services

and I needed some dog bones for my doggies so I went along. This is a brand new Wal Mart and it was stocked well, but only had 3 people working the registers with about a line of 20+ people in each (there are at least 30 registers). This was on a Friday night and people were very angry with the wait.

Maybe some of the employees are on strike, I didn't see any employees walking around and it is a Super Duper Wal Mart. Kinda strange for this time of year.

[mwooldri]

7. Nope. That appears to be usual at Wallyworld.

Long lines of checkouts and no-one to check you out. If you *have* to go to Walmart, you're better off going in the AM, especially at weekends. PM and weekends are a joke. For me, not going to Walmart for grocery shopping is worth the price. I'd rather be stuck in a checkout line at the Food Lion for 5 minutes rather than 35 at Wal-Mart. Oh, and did I mention my two sons are with me - 10 years and 4? Now here's an advertising slogan for you: "Save Sanity, Live Better. Wal-Mart."

[Agschmid]

12. If you are in line they've already converted you...

No need to really provide service after that. The line loss rate is minimal I am sure

[caraher]

3. 3. The Claim: "Walmart helps customers save on prescription drugs!"

The only time I entered my town's WalMart expecting to leave with a purchase I was there because someone we were helping out needed to pick up a prescription for her daughter. They had no genuine insurance, and the prescription, for a run-of-the-mill antidepressant, was $120 at their pharmacy.

I told her to forget it, and I found an online prescription coupon service that reduced the out-of-pocket price to under $20 at another nearby pharmacy.

The best part is now I can tell people that I went to buy something at WalMart once, but left because it was too expensive

[Saviolo]

4. The whole article was worth it for:

When large corporations are criticized, they squirt PR like a cuttlefish.

Awesome.

[hatrack]

5. But the ink cloud rarely deceives those on the attack who are paying attention

Know when lots and lots of those ads run? Sunday morning talking head show slots.

Not surprising, but it makes you wonder just how stupid the "smart" people who "stay informed" by nuzzling up to the Trough Of Received Conventional Wisdom are.

[Th1onein]

8. I love that adage: squirt PR like a cuttlefish.....

[Saviolo]

9. It's incomplete

It should read:

When large corporations are criticized, they squirt PR like a cuttlefish squirts ink.

But it's pretty easy to extrapolate what the author really meant there

I don't think cuttlefish squirt PR.
Okay, end of grammar bitchin'.

[Laelth]

10. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[DemocraticWing]

15. I went to Wal-Mart earlier

Home for Thanksgiving in the town I grew up in, had to take a family member to Wal-Mart (basically the only store in town) to pick up something. The selection is terrible, and the prices aren't that good. They just suck the lives out of small towns and force people to go there through lack of options. All the "free market" brings to rural America is the destruction of small business and the perpetuation of poverty. People KNOW this, and are willing to say it, but most are too blinded by social issues to ever consider that the way to get rid of Wal-Mart is to get rid of this trickle-down sham system.

[eridani]

16. Welcome to DU! n/t