The Retail King Wal-Mart

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Recommended: Wal-mart’s competitors and their ability to imitate wal-mart’s advantages

Wal-Mart has quickly become the world's largest company with its one stop shopping convenience and low prices. There is no debating that Wal-Mart is a dominating force in the American and world economy. However, there is a clash between two different views of how Wal-Mart achieved this status. The defenders of Wal-Mart say that they are so successful because they are market savvy and make good economic decisions. The other side argues that Wal-Mart only became successful by killing off all their competition with their low prices. The only thing that matters to those that like the company is that they save consumers money through their low prices, but you cannot tell this to all the owners of smaller stores that Wal-Mart has put out of business, such as Gary E. Hawkins. The CEO of a family-owned supermarket in New York, he said "It will be a sad day in this country if we wake up one morning and all we find is a Wal-Mart on every corner." This is obviously a conflict of different interests, and it is unclear as to whether Wal-Mart is beneficial or harmful to the economy.

Wal-Mart grew to its enormous size mainly because of the low prices it offers its consumers, which seems to be an obvious benefit to the economy. New England Consulting estimated that Wal-Mart saved U.S. customers $20 billion in 2002 alone. With the price cuts other retailers make to compete with them factored in this total reaches $100 billion. When you combine these savings with the convenience of being able to buy ones food, clothing, electronics, gas, and almost anything else one could desire in one place you have a winning formula. The low prices they charge get them large percentages of the consumer's money, which in turn allows them to charge such low pri...

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...their success. As Edward Weller of ThinkEquity Partners said, "I don't think Wal-Mart can ever be underestimated, they are so very good."

Bibliography

1. Bianco, Anthony and Zellner, Wendy, BusinessWeek: Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful? Oct. 6, 2003.

2. Elliot, Dorinda and Powell, Bill, Time: Wal:Mart Nation, Jun. 27, 2005.

3. Forbes:http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/forbes/P100080.asp?GT1=5809, Wal-Mart's Next Victims.

4. Kirkland, Rik, Fortune: Wal-Mart's RX for Health Care, April 3, 2006.

5. Lavelle, Marianne, U.S. News & World Report: Wal-Mart's Most Wanted, Jun. 27, 2005.

6. Mansfield, Edwin and Behravesh, Nariman, Economics U$A, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2005.

7. McGinn, Daniel, Newsweek: Wal-Mart Hits the Wall, Nov. 14, 2005.

8. Zimmerman, Ann, Wall Street Journal: Wal-Mart Boss's Unlikely Role: Corporate Defender-in-Chief, Jul. 26, 2005.

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