Sweet Wal-Mart Deal Turns Sour For Local Businessman St louis area: Wa

[ikojo]

Another example of how Wal-Mart squeezes everyone to get their way. We all suffer. Now 25 people in the St Louis area have lost their job.


http://ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=72179

Sweet Wal-Mart Deal Turns Sour For Local Businessman


Peter Wolff had a pretty good deal going, selling hundreds of thousands of pails of cotton candy to Wal-Mart. But, after a short while, Wal-Mart became one tough customer, making demands Wolff couldn't meet.

snip

Wolff was selling hundreds of thousands of pails a month, but he says Wal-Mart was squeezing to get the price even lower, to meet their motto of "every day low prices". Wolff bought more equipment to meet Wal-Mart's demand for cotton candy. He was working with margins of pennies per pail.

Wolff says Wal-Mart became his only customer, and after cutting costs he couldn't do it any more, and during the summer, heat shrunk some of the product, and Wal-Mart demanded he pay for shipping, in refrigerated trucks.

snip

That was the deal breaker for Wolff, and now, he's laid off his work force, about 25 people, and he's headed to bankruptcy. Wal-Mart officials, especially the buyer who worked with Wolff, would not talk about what happened.

[Spinzonner]

1. Live by the sword of WalMart

Die by it

[No Mandate Here.]

2. ...And the Walton Family is celebrated

for making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Each. There was a cover story in Fortune Magazine (I don't get or often read it) last month.

Slave wages. Tax concessions forced upon municipalities. Wholesale wrecking of local downtown businesses. Predatory Pricing. Medical and social welfare costs because their employees are below income thresholds.

I could possibly go on. I WILL NOT ever shop there. I wish there was a Costco store anyhere near me.

[arkie dem]

10. To top it off,

the Walton family owns Arvest Banks lock, stock, and barrel.Their own little personal piggy bank..!!! Here in NW Ar there's an Arvest Bank on every corner. When they bought out the bank I used, I closed out my accounts. Arvest is expanding rapidly look for one in your neighborhood soon. The Waltons need many banks to cache all their cash.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. Boycott the bastards!

God, I hate that company.

[Nadienne]

4. No wonder you can't get stuff that's Made in the US at

Wal-Mart. They demand things that are cheaply made.

[whosinpower]

5. That is SOP for walmart

Up here, I have heard that sort of story time and time and time again.

[LostinVA]

9. My Father Refuses to Deal with Them

He makes material/textiles, and when a vendor calls with an order, my father asks if it's to make stuff for Wal-Mart. If the answer is yes, he won't do it. My father is a major Repub, bordering on Freeper in some regards (Affirmative Action, welfare, etc.), but he blames Wal Mart for destroying the US textile industry, and for squeezing every cent out of US vendors until the vendors are ruined... then going to China. He's been railing about them since the fake "Made in America" campaign of over a decade ago.

So, my father at least will put his match his principles and his bottom line.

[flygal]

6. Ho Ho Ho - Meeeeery Christmas

When will Chinamart realize people can't buy their stupid shit when they don't have jobs ?!!

[scarletlib]

7. Sad to say Walmart wasn't always this way

When Sam Walton was alive (and I am not condoning his total business practices with this post), he did insist on giving his employees decent pay and benefits. At one time Walmart was a good place to work for in the retail business. He also used to insist on buying a lot of stuff that really was made in the USA.

After he got out or when he died and lost control of the company thats when it really started the worst of its terrible predatory practices.

[MadHound]

11. Whoa friend, where do you get that idea?

Sam Walton was the SOB who started this whole mess. He was the one who invented the idea of vertical integration monopolies. Sam was an asshole from day one, he was just good at hiding it behind a friendly, folksy veneer.

I worked at an inventory service decades ago, well before Walton died, and we would travel around the South and Midwest doing inventory counts for various WalMarts. During this time I got to meet and talk with many Wal Mart employees, some of whom had been with the store since the beginning. Believe me, that had many many horror stories to tell of dear old Sam's evil ways. Lock-ins, unpaid OT, low, low poverty wages, all that we hear about now and worse. These pratices didn't spring fully formed from the forehead of the Walton heirs, it had already been put in place by Sam himself.

If you don't believe me, go talk to some of the old-timers in Arkansas. They'll give you the straight story, not airbrushed one that is put out by the Walton PR dept.

[Imalittleteapot]

8. If it can happen to a giant like Rubbermaid,

an American manufacturing icon, it can happen to any business. Vendors beware.

[electricmonk]

12. Ripple effect too

Some company was selling him 100's of thousands of plastic tubs so there goes a large contract for that company. Plus the company selling the sugar and other ingredients for the candy and so on.

[fob]

13. Now THAT'S trickle down economics defined fully!

[JHB]

14. But you don't understand!

Those dollars aren't lost, they go to the stockholders like the Walton Kids, and they buy their limos, houses, furniture, tax-free bonds, tuck some of it away in numbered offshore accounts, vacation on the Riviera.... ummmm.... ummm....

Quick, gimme that bucket of kool-aid (SLUURP!) Oh, YEAH!

You're all just a bunch of commie-lib whiners who hate America!


(/sarcasm, for those who haven't figured it out aleady (/sarcasm in the /sarcasm tag))

[MisterP]

15. their motto is "once you get behind someone

stab the knife in them and twist, TWIST, TWIST!"

[Javaman]

16. When one dances with the devil...

expect to be burned. I don't feel sorry for him, I feel sorry for the 25 people that worked for him.

[donco6]

17. Repeat ad infinitum . . .

. . . and you have the real story of Wal Mart.