Subject:
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Re: lego shopping day
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto
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Date:
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Tue, 12 Mar 2002 06:36:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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452 times
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In lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto, Ross Crawford writes:
> In lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto, Richard Noeckel writes:
> >
> > I here they'll be acquiring Calum's Loblaws for around 16 billion within the
> > next 3 years. They're gonna be such a powerhouse in the decades to come.
> > That means really bad news for competition. Zellers may go the way of
> > K-Mart... that's suck real bad!!!
I don't really see that at all. First, while I've heard the rumour of an
acquisition, I haven't seen this as reported news or announced in press
releases yet. The two organizations, Loblaw Companies and Walmart are pretty
well in non overlapping markets, even though Walmart does cherry pick out of
the food retail market, as does Zellers. The other thing is the 16B figure
is a little too low.
Even if Walmart does acquire Loblaws, it's not necessarily the end of anyone
else like Zellers. Again, Loblaws only buys Walmart the food market which
is separate from merchandise retail. AFAIK Walmart doesn't own any
significant supermarket holdings apart from their Sams Club operations,
which aren't anything like Loblaws. There's also been no real combined
success in jointly doing full service food (which is what Loblaws does) AND
discount merchandising (Walmart, Zellers) together. Which means there's no
real competitive edge, since Walmart, if it acquired Loblaws, would probably
keep the Loblaws brand separate and alive (in fact, even Sears has kept the
Eatons brand separate, even though they're in the same sector/market!)
(Though this might change, I've heard they're going to get rid of the Eatons
brand soon and convert the remaining seven stores to Sears)
The other thing is that Zellers/Hudsons Bay will put up a decent fight.
They've got an excellent IE/Supply Chain team there and can counter
Walmart's traditional strengths. They've held off Walmart plenty fine these
years. Remember when Walmart originally entered the Canadian market by
buying out KMart stores? They said it was over for Zellers. Ain't been
that at all. Zellers has done very well and HBC itself has grown in retail
market share IIRC.
> > *Wal-Mart is evil,
> Also http://lists.essential.org/1998/corp-focus/msg00045.html
I also fail to see how Walmart is evil. Walmart is the fullest extent of
capitalism in retail-and I suppose if you don't like capitalism, then I
guess you can call Walmart evil. But you'd have to call every other company
evil, with probably the exception of some really "good" vendors, who
primarily use that as corporate image.
The link that Ross has provided is just leftish fodder with a bunch of
anecdotal items that provide weak arguments, if you could call them that.
Sure, I would agree that some of the items there are outright bad, (ie,
child labour in Asia) but I don't think any Canadian vendor has a clean
conscience on this subject either. Walmart just happens to be large, which
means it does a proportionate amount of purchasing.
The three other primary complaints however, I do take objection to. First,
the article linked makes the inherent assumption that unions are by nature
good and anyone who works for a company automatically must be for unions.
It does not make any counter argument that perhaps those union organizers
were in the minority, nor does it mention that quashing a union before it
forms is not illegal AFAIK--In fact, many Walmart employees very much
support the firm's antiunion stance and are extremely loyal-to which the
company has been extremely loyal in return. I point to Canada's own Magna
International as a company whose own employees support anti union
practices--Magna being one of Canada's largest companies mind you.
Second, it uses a number of indirect references that somehow Walmart is
responsible by murdering and attacking people in Guatemala. In fact, it
makes a very vague association which would be considered driveby journalism
at best. Walmart certainly does not-it is those companies in these
countries who wish to supply Walmart that are coercing their employees.
This I think is a separate issue, but in fact one of third world countries
and their industries aiming to take part in the global market. Is it wrong?
Yes. Is it Walmart's fault? No. Zellers, Winners and other retail vendors
buy items manufactured in places with corrupt human rights. Very few
retailers carefully select their suppliers. You can't tie that to Walmart
alone, unfortunately.
Third, it ain't Walmart's fault that these small vendors can't compete with
them. All the arguments I've heard about category killers make the basic
assumption that everyone DESERVES market share, which they certainly do not.
It also makes an assumption that having a great deal of market share is some
sort of evil, which it isn't. (FYI, Loblaw Companies owns 40% of the
Canadian food retail market. I don't see anyone saying LCL is evil) There
are plenty of ways to compete against Walmart, which includes selling into
niche markets that Walmart is not part of. The fact that a lot of small
businesses are not agile enough to deal with this is not Walmart's fault.
Business is business and especially in America, capitalism is the default
mode of operation. If you don't like it, you can move to a friendly
protectionist country which can't compete globally, and suffer whatever
consequences that incurs.
I hear these and several other arguments over and over again about Walmart.
Let me add a few ones to the fire: Since no one has mentioned it, you could
also say that Walmart is evil because it's American! One forgets that
Walmart employes tens of thousands of Canadians and makes purchases from
hundreds of Canadian suppliers, who in turn feed the Canadian economy.
The article then finishes off with some flowery tripe about consumption and
traditional values against materialism. That has nothing to do with it.
The fact that Americans (and Canadians) have a society focused around
consumption has nothing to do with Walmart itself. You might say that
Walmart is part of the problem, but so is every other large North American
or western firm, from Coca Cola to Hudsons Bay to Sears Roebuck.
If you want to do something about it, I encourage you to stop purchasing at
Walmart, but also to stop buying from Zellers, or anyone else for that matter.
Calum
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: lego shopping day
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| <snip> (...) Actually, from a Business Operational Viewpoint.... Walmart's merchandizing plan is the best in the industry. Its point of sale is linked to its overall inventory system...which rings up its suppliers when the re-order point is at its (...) (23 years ago, 12-Mar-02, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
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