Discussion of Target and Wal-Mart

TARGET > WAL-MART

Target Donates 3X more than WAL-MART

An advertisement on a local TV state from Wal-Mart bragging about giving $5/sec. Target gives $3.30/sec. That works out to $104,000,000 in donations for Target and $157,248,000 for Wal-Mart. Indexing that to total revenue, Target gives $1 for every $444 spent, while Wal-Mart gives $1 for every $1,425 spent. Target donates 3.2X more than WM, who donates less than 1/10 of 1% of its revenue.

A Substantial Number of Wal-Mart Associates earn far below the poverty line

In 2003, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861.The 2003 poverty line for a family of three was $15,260. [“Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?”, Business Week]

Wal-Mart can cover the cost of a dollar an hour wage increase by raising prices a half penny per dollar. For instance, a $2.00 pair of socks would then cost $2.01. This minimal increase would annually add up to $1,800 for each employee. [Analysis of Wal-Mart Annual Report 2005]

Wal-Mart forces employees to work off the clock

In 2002, statisticians estimated Wal-Mart shortchanged its Texas workers $150 million over four years by regularly not paying them for working through their 15-minute breaks. [Sources include Associated Press, "Federal Jury Finds Wal-Mart Guilty in Overtime Pay Case," Chicago Tribune, Business 3, 12/20/03 and Steven Greenhouse, “Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock,” New York Times,

A specific case was in Kansas City where Verette Richardson had clocked out of her 10pm-8am shift and was headed to her car when her manager ordered her to turn around and straighten up the stores apparel dept. OUTTA CONTROL

Putting Small Businesses Out of Business

In personal experience, Wal-Mart was supposed to come to my hometown of Burnsville, NC, which is the only town in the county of Yancey. Our county has the second highest unemployment rate in the State 2nd to Vance County. Luckily at a town meeting the majority concurred that they didn’t want Wal-Mart. Our small town thrives off of tourism and our small businesses that the locals own. If Wal-Mart came to our town, our little “Mom and Pop” stores would have been wiped out. This is currently happening in Spruce Pine, NC, in Mitchell County. The small businesses in Spruce Pine are slowing shutting down. The “downtown” area only has 6 or 7 stores still open.

Wal-Mart is able to sell for so much less because they have the means to buy so much more in bulk without a lot of overhead. According to The New York Times, 85% of the inventory of Wal-Marts is shipped from overseas because it is SO much cheaper to pay someone in China to do 40X as more work for the same cost. It’s practical slave labor. Smaller businesses can’t afford to do that so they can’t sell their items even NEAR the Wal-Mart prices or else they won’t even break even, much less make a profit.

Yes you can go to Wal-Mart and find items you’ve never even heard of, because they have EVERYTHING.. But when it comes down to it you are supporting the downfall of private/small businesses.

TARGET just sells a lot, not a lot for MUCH less!

Target also sells practically everything, and when customers see that, they think that they threat small businesses too. Target purchases their inventory at a lower cost than small businesses yes, but they don’t drop their prices to practically nothing just to get more customers. They give all businesses a chance, so if someone decides to shop at Target, that’s ok, because they are paying the same price if they went to a privately owned, smaller business.

WAL-MART AND SAMS CLUB ARE HYPOCRITES!

As WM is putting so many small businesses OUT of business, here they own Sam’s Club. Sam’s Club is a large wholesale warehouse that sells in bulk. Their tag line is, “We’re in the business for small businesses.” I’ll let you ponder that one.

RANDOM FACTS AND FIGURES

World's largest retailer,