[at-l] OFF TOPIC Wall Martfabric department closing

[Jim Bullard]

>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Kevin Kirby
>   To: Gadog430 ; CC Wayah ; at-l at backcountry.net
>   Cc: WomenHikers at yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 6:13 PM
>   Subject: Re: [at-l] Wall Martfabric department closing
>
>
>   Wal-Mart needs to go bankrupt. They deserve what ever bad things happen to them. If I had it my way, they would have been bankrupt a long time ago.
>
>   Kirby
>
>   Gadog430 <gadog430 at charter.net> wrote:
>     Wal Mart is very busy right now trying to NOT continue being what made them
>     successful in the first place. I would bet that eventually they are looking
>     at their demise. Generally...you can't go into business as one kind of
>     business and change boats in mid-stream and expect your continued
>     prosperity.
>
>     What are they going to put in it's place? Another department that has
>     clothing that doesn't sell like the other existing clothing departments?
>
>     Dawg
>
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From: "CC Wayah"
>     To:
>     Cc:
>     Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 2:51 PM
>     Subject: [at-l] Wall Martfabric department closing
>
>
>     > First they took my guns from some stores now they take my sewing machine.
>     > What next?
>     > .
>     > For what it's worth. The fabric department has outfitted several of my
>     > friends to hike economically and clothed my daughter when she needed
>     > maternity clothes. I know larger people often also need the dollar
>     fabric's
>     > too.
>     > Competition just isn't there for fabric stores to keep prices down.
>     >
>     > Borrowed from the Hammock camping list.
>     >
>     > " I was in a local Super Center that had just opened, scoping out the
>     fabric
>     > dept. for ripstop as usual (the only reason to GO into a Wal Mart imo, but
>     > that's another thread). The gentleman that was working there told me that
>     > Wal Mart had decided to eliminate the Fabric
>     > departments in all Wal Mart stores.
>     >
>     > I asked another clerk in a different store the next day, and she
>     > verified what he had said. According to what she had been told by her
>     > management, it would be 3 to 6 months before they were eliminated, but
>     that
>     > was indeed the plan. They were not making enough money, one of
>     > them said.
>     >
>     > Both of them gave me the same advice - if I wanted to complain, I
>     should
>     > call 1-800-WAL-MART and make some noise."
>     >
>     > Would some of you ask in your local stores? If this is true, that is bad
>     > news for many people, I am sure (us hammockers aside). I know I always see
>     > people in the fabric department buying $1 and $2/yard material for what I
>     > can only assume is a way for them to make their own clothes and make ends
>     > meet. Guess they will instead have to buy the clothes made in far east
>     > sweatshops that are hanging on the racks 30 yards down the aisle.

Have to buy clothing made in Asian sweatshops? And where exactly do
you think WalMart gets $1/yd. fabric? It isn't off American looms.

Walmart is doing what every savvy business does. They are going where
the money (think volume sales) are. If the fabric department isn't
making money it simply means that the cost of maintaining that dept.
isn't being offset by sales. It is tough making a profit when you cut
prices so low that you have to have volume to make up for the low
price.

We have a group in town that is fighting to keep WalMart out because
they believe that WalMart is enslaving low wage workers in Asia,
underpaying their retail workers here and destroying our communities
by selling cheap imports to drive other retailers out of business.
Well, take a look at labels the next time you are in one of those good
old American retail stores. The clothing comes from Thailand, Vietnam,
etc. just like it does from WalMart. Today I wore a Pendleton wool
shirt (it's chilly here) and I just checked the label. It says "Made
in Mexico".

Just for the heck of it I investigated the wage issue and found that
WalMart is paying its retail workers wages that are average for the
retail industry, in fact they are a bit higher than the average for
the area where I live. My wife used to work in retail locally and
would have liked WalMart wages better than those she earned. She
earned minimum wage and at Christmas she got a 1 cent/hr bonus. 1
cent/hr for that week that is. Her job was PT 20 hours/week so she got
20 cents. Thankfully she went back to school and has a better job now.

All retailers and especially the big chains including KMart, Target,
etc. are playing the exact same game. The reason that WalMart is
bigger is that they are better at the game. But to stay on top they
have to pay attention to what's selling in the kind of volume they
need and eliminate the things that aren't producing profit.

It would be great if profits were secondary to serving the needs of
the community, or even co-equal but that is not how our economic
system is set up. Profits for the owner/stockholders are the only
measure of success for most businesses. Companies like Malden Mills
get attention because they are so rare. Think back to the demise of
Montgomery Ward. The company went out of business not because they
were losing money. They were making a 3+% profit when they went under
but it was a time when stockholders were looking for double digit
returns. Stockholders dumped their MW stock, the value of the company
took a nose dive and they folded. If WalMart folded tomorrow another
company would step into their shoes and nothing would change.

Jim Bullard
http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/