For buying a gallon of pickles for $2.97.
The only two Dow Jones stocks to rise in 2008 were Wal-Mart, with an 18 percent gain, and McDonald’s, at 6 percent. Wal-Mart sells more than Target, Sears, Kmart, JC Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined
What’s wrong with Wal-Mart? Nothing, legally. For the most part, it’s legit. We have to blame capitalism and the consumer for its repugnant reign.
Wal-Mart does everything it can to get its shoppers that low, low price. The Vlasic Pickle Company quickly discovered the power of the giant superstore. Wal-Mart wanted to make a statement for its low prices by selling a gallon jar of pickles for $2.97. Vlasic went along with the idea and the enormous jar sold like crazy. Every store was selling about eighty jars a week. That’s nearly a million gallons of pickles a month. Wal-Mart sure put Vlasic in a pickle with the experiment. It did dramatically increase the pickle company’s sales, but drastically reduced its profits, lowered the company’s image, and adversely affected farmers. Wal-Mart also ruined it for Master Lock and Levi’s in similar ways.
Yes, Wal-Mart is the devil. It’s widely known that it has poor employment strategies, forces local businesses into bankruptcy, squeezes suppliers, promotes overseas manufacturing, destroys nature, and sucks government assistance dry. But who cares? Obviously not consumers. They already know that Wal-Mart is sketchy, yet they shop there anyway. And the government is not going to step in since the company plays by the rules. If you don’t like it, don’t shop there. What would you do with a gallon jar of pickles anyway?