Liquor Dealer

This is a very long read but it should be required reading!
Please take the time to wade through this - makes no difference where you live or what you do - read this!


The Wal-Mart You Don't Know
> >http://fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
> >
> >The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost.
> >Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does
> >business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping
> >our way straight to the unemployment line?
> >
> >A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar
> >is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in
> >swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass.
> >It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar
> >of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing,
> >and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell
> >in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.
> >
> >Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less
> >than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn,
> >who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar.
> >"Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents
> >what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for
> >$2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand."
> >
> >Therein lies the basic conundrum of doing business with the world's
> >largest retailer. By selling a gallon of kosher dills for less than
> >most grocers sell a quart, Wal-Mart may have provided a ser-vice for
> >its customers. But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had
> >spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium
> >for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And
> >the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of
> >Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial
> >statement.
> >
> >Indeed, as Vlasic discovered, the real story of Wal-Mart, the story
> >that never gets told, is the story of the pressure the biggest
> >retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of
> >bringing us "every day low prices." It's the story of what that
> >pressure does to the companies Wal-Mart does business with, to U.S.
> >manufacturing, and to the economy as a whole. That story can be
> >found floating in a gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart.
> >
> >Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's
> >largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General
> >Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5
> >billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what
> >
> >number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. And in its own
> >category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer
> >has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears,
> >Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. "Clearly," says
> >Edward Fox, head of Southern Methodist University's J.C. Penney
> >Center for Retailing Excellence, "Wal-Mart is more powerful than any
> >retailer has ever been." It is, in fact, so big and so furtively
> >powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate
> >being.
> >
> >Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest
> >possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never
> >reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic
> >products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will
> >charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one
> >outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the
> >high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze
> >profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of
> >its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to
> >blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in
> >favor of outsourcing products from overseas.
> >
> >Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for
> >decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no
> >question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American
> >jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the
> >late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American,"
> >has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone,
> >buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of
> >all Chinese exports to the United States.
> >
> >One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives
> >non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the
> >things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of
> >establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the
> >Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so
> >centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers
> >into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to
> >overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of
> >retailing."
> >
> >Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's
> >president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina
> >company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel
> >makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily
> >until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone
> >either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories
> >to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have
> >begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that
> >they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.
> >
> >"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S.
> >cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure,
> >it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says
> >Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are
> >shopping ourselves out of jobs."
> >The gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart became a devastating success,
> >giving Vlasic strong sales and growth numbers--but slashing its
> >profits by millions of dollars.
> >
> >There is no question that Wal-Mart's relentless drive to squeeze out
> >costs has benefited consumers. The giant retailer is at least partly
> >responsible for the low rate of U.S. inflation, and a McKinsey & Co.
> >study concluded that about 12% of the economy's productivity gains
> >in the second half of the 1990s could be traced to Wal-Mart alone.
> >
> >There is also no question that doing business with Wal-Mart can give
> >a supplier a fast, heady jolt of sales and market share. But that
> >fix can come with long-term consequences for the health of a brand
> >and a business. Vlasic, for example, wasn't looking to build its
> >brand on a gallon of whole pickles. Pickle companies make money on
> >"the cut," slicing cucumbers into spears and hamburger chips.
> >"Cucumbers in the jar, you don't make a whole lot of money there,"
> >says Steve Young, a former vice president of grocery marketing for
> >pickles at Vlasic, who has since left the company.
> >
> >At some point in the late 1990s, a Wal-Mart buyer saw Vlasic's
> >gallon jar and started talking to Pat Hunn about it. Hunn, who has
> >also since left Vlasic, was then head of Vlasic's Wal-Mart sales
> >team, based in Dallas. The gallon intrigued the buyer. In sales
> >tests, priced somewhere over $3, "the gallon sold like crazy," says
> >Hunn, "surprising us all." The Wal-Mart buyer had a brainstorm: What
> >would happen to the gallon if they offered it nationwide and got it
> >below $3? Hunn was skeptical, but his job was to look for ways to
> >sell pickles at Wal-Mart. Why not?
> >
> >And so Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles went into every Wal-Mart, some
> >3,000 stores, at $2.97, a price so low that Vlasic and Wal-Mart were
> >making only a penny or two on a jar, if that. It was showcased on
> >big pallets near the front of stores. It was an abundance of
> >abundance. "It was selling 80 jars a week, on average, in every
> >store," says Young. Doesn't sound like much, until you do the math:
> >That's 240,000 gallons of pickles, just in gallon jars, just at
> >Wal-Mart, every week. Whole fields of cucumbers were heading out the
> >door.
> >
> >For Vlasic, the gallon jar of pickles became what might be called a
> >devastating success. "Quickly, it started cannibalizing our
> >non-Wal-Mart business," says Young. "We saw consumers who used to
> >buy the spears and the chips in supermarkets buying the Wal-Mart
> >gallons. They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when
> >they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough."
> >
> >The gallon jar reshaped Vlasic's pickle business: It chewed up the
> >profit margin of the business with Wal-Mart, and of pickles
> >generally. Procurement had to scramble to find enough pickles to
> >fill the gallons, but the volume gave Vlasic strong sales numbers,
> >strong growth numbers, and a powerful place in the world of pickles
> >at Wal-Mart. Which accounted for 30% of Vlasic's business. But the
> >company's profits from pickles had shriveled 25% or more, Young
> >says--millions of dollars.
> >
> >The gallon was hoisting Vlasic and hurting it at the same time.
> >
> >Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' "
> >says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"--even $3.49 would
> >have helped tremendously--"and they said, 'If you do that, all the
> >other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear
> >threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as
> >ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you
> >don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our
> >competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if
> >you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so
> >indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart
> >relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were
> >made at the CEO level.
> >
> >Finally, Wal-Mart let Vlasic up for air. "The Wal-Mart guy's
> >response was classic," Young recalls. "He said, 'Well, we've done to
> >pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it. We can back
> >off.' " Vlasic got to take it down to just over half a gallon of
> >pickles, for $2.79. Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic
> >filed for bankruptcy--although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone
> >agrees, wasn't a critical factor.
> >
> >By now, it is accepted wisdom that Wal-Mart makes the companies it
> >does business with more efficient and focused, leaner and faster.
> >Wal-Mart itself is known for continuous improvement in its ability
> >to handle, move, and track merchandise. It expects the same of its
> >suppliers. But the ability to operate at peak efficiency only gets
> >you in the door at Wal-Mart. Then the real demands start. The public
> >image Wal-Mart projects may be as cheery as its yellow smiley-face
> >mascot, but there is nothing genial about the process by which
> >Wal-Mart gets its suppliers to provide tires and contact lenses,
> >guns and underarm deodorant at every day low prices. Wal-Mart is
> >legendary for forcing its suppliers to redesign everything from
> >their packaging to their computer systems. It is also legendary for
> >quite straightforwardly telling them what it will pay for their
> >goods.
> >"We are one of Wal-Mart's biggest suppliers, and they are our
> >biggest customer, by far. We have a great relationship. That's all I
> >can say. Are we done now?"
> >
> >John Fitzgerald, a former vice president of Nabisco, remembers
> >Wal-Mart's reaction to his company's plan to offer a 25-cent
> >newspaper coupon for a large bag of Lifesavers in advance of
> >Halloween. Wal-Mart told Nabisco to add up what it would spend on
> >the promotion--for the newspaper ads, the coupons, and handling--and
> >then just take that amount off the price instead. "That isn't
> >necessarily good for the manufacturer," Fitzgerald says. "They need
> >things that draw attention."
> >
> >It also is not unheard of for Wal-Mart to demand to examine the
> >private financial records of a supplier, and to insist that its
> >margins are too high and must be cut. And the smaller the supplier,
> >one academic study shows, the greater the likelihood that it will be
> >forced into damaging concessions. Melissa Berryhill, a Wal-Mart
> >spokeswoman, disagrees: "The fact is Wal-Mart, perhaps like no other
> >retailer, seeks to establish collaborative and mutually beneficial
> >relationships with our suppliers."
> >
> >For many suppliers, though, the only thing worse than doing business
> >with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart. Last year,
> >7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States
> >(other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a
> >contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest
> >consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its
> >business with Wal-Mart. If Dial lost that one account, it would have
> >to double its sales to its next nine customers just to stay even.
> >"Wal-Mart is the essential retailer, in a way no other retailer is,"
> >says Gib Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., who is leading a yearlong
> >study of how to do business with Wal-Mart. "Our clients cannot grow
> >without finding a way to be successful with Wal-Mart."
> >
> >Many companies and their executives frankly admit that supplying
> >Wal-Mart is like getting into the company version of basic training
> >with an implacable Army drill sergeant. The process may be
> >unpleasant. But there can be some positive results.
> >
> >"Everyone from the forklift driver on up to me, the CEO, knew we had
> >to deliver [to Wal-Mart] on time. Not 10 minutes late. And not 45
> >minutes early, either," says Robin Prever, who was CEO of Saratoga
> >Beverage Group from 1992 to 2000, and made private-label water sold
> >at Wal-Mart. "The message came through clearly: You have this
> >30-second delivery window. Either you're there, or you're out. With
> >a customer like that, it changes your organization. For the better.
> >It wakes everybody up. And all our customers benefited. We changed
> >our whole approach to doing business."
> >
> >But you won't hear evenhanded stories like that from Wal-Mart, or
> >from its current suppliers. Despite being a publicly traded company,
> >Wal-Mart is intensely private. It declined to talk in detail about
> >its relationships with its suppliers for this story. More
> >strikingly, dozens of companies contacted declined to talk about
> >even the basics of their business with Wal-Mart.
> >
> >Here, for example, is an executive at Dial: "We are one of
> >Wal-Mart's biggest suppliers, and they are our biggest customer by
> >far. We have a great relationship. That's all I can say. Are we done
> >now?" Goaded a bit, the executive responds with an almost hysterical
> >edge: "Are you meshuga? Why in the world would we talk about
> >Wal-Mart? Ask me about anything else, we'll talk. But not Wal-Mart."
> >
> >No one wants to end up in what is known among Wal-Mart vendors as
> >the "penalty box"--punished, or even excluded from the store
> >shelves, for saying something that makes Wal-Mart unhappy. (The
> >penalty box is normally reserved for vendors who don't meet
> >performance benchmarks, not for those who talk to the press.)
> >
> >"You won't hear anything negative from most people," says Paul
> >Kelly, founder of Silvermine Consulting Group, a company that helps
> >businesses work more effectively with retailers. "It would be
> >committing suicide. If Wal-Mart takes something the wrong way, it's
> >like Saddam Hussein. You just don't want to piss them off."
> >
> >As a result, this story was reported in an unusual way: by speaking
> >with dozens of people who have spent years selling to Wal-Mart, or
> >consulting to companies that sell to Wal-Mart, but who no longer
> >work for companies that do business with Wal-Mart. Unless otherwise
> >noted, the companies involved in the events they described refused
> >even to confirm or deny the basics of the events.
> >
> >To a person, all those interviewed credit Wal-Mart with a
> >fundamental integrity in its dealings that's unusual in the world of
> >consumer goods, retailing, and groceries. Wal-Mart does not cheat
> >suppliers, it keeps its word, it pays its bills briskly. "They are
> >tough people but very honest; they treat you honestly," says Peter
> >Campanella, who ran the business that sold Corning kitchenware
> >products, both at Corning and then at World Kitchen. "It was a joke
> >to do business with most of their competitors. A fiasco."
> >
> >But Wal-Mart also clearly does not hesitate to use its power,
> >magnifying the Darwinian forces already at work in modern global
> >capitalism.
> >Caught in the Wal-Mart squeeze, Huffy didn't just relinquish profits
> >to keep its commitment to the retailer. It handed those profits to
> >the competition.
> >
> >What does the squeeze look like at Wal-Mart? It is usually
> >thoroughly rational, sometimes devastatingly so.
> >
> >John Mariotti is a veteran of the consumer-products world--he spent
> >nine years as president of Huffy Bicycle Co., a division of Huffy
> >Corp., and is now chairman of World Kitchen, the company that sells
> >Oxo, Revere, Corning, and Ekco brand housewares.
> >
> >He could not be clearer on his opinion about Wal-Mart: It's a great
> >company, and a great company to do business with. "Wal-Mart has done
> >more good for America by several thousand orders of magnitude than
> >they've done bad," Mariotti says. "They have raised the bar, and
> >raised the bar for everybody."
> >
> >Mariotti describes one episode from Huffy's relationship with
> >Wal-Mart. It's a tale he tells to illustrate an admiring point he
> >makes about the retailer. "They demand you do what you say you are
> >going to do." But it's also a classic example of the
> >damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't Wal-Mart squeeze. When
> >Mariotti was at Huffy throughout the 1980s, the company sold a range
> >of bikes to Wal-Mart, 20 or so models, in a spread of prices and
> >profitability. It was a leading manufacturer of bikes in the United
> >States, in places like Ponca City, Oklahoma; Celina, Ohio; and
> >Farmington, Missouri.
> >
> >One year, Huffy had committed to supply Wal-Mart with an
> >entry-level, thin-margin bike--as many as Wal-Mart needed. Sales of
> >the low-end bike took off. "I woke up May 1"--the heart of the bike
> >production cycle for the summer--"and I needed 900,000 bikes," he
> >says. "My factories could only run 450,000." As it happened, that
> >same year, Huffy's fancier, more-profitable bikes were doing well,
> >too, at Wal-Mart and other places. Huffy found itself in a bind.
> >
> >With other retailers, perhaps, Mariotti might have sat down,
> >renegotiated, tried to talk his way out of the corner. Not with
> >Wal-Mart. "I made the deal up front with them," he says. "I knew how
> >high was up. I was duty-bound to supply my customer." So he did
> >something extraordinary. To free up production in order to make
> >Wal-Mart's cheap bikes, he gave the designs for four of his
> >higher-end, higher-margin products to rival manufacturers. "I
> >conceded business to my competitors, because I just ran out of
> >capacity," he says. Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep
> >Wal-Mart happy--it handed those profits to its competition.
> >"Wal-Mart didn't tell me what to do," Mariotti says. "They didn't
> >have to." The retailer, he adds, "is tough as nails. But they give
> >you a chance to compete. If you can't compete, that's your problem."
> >
> >In the years since Mariotti left Huffy, the bike maker's
> >relationship with Wal-Mart has been vital (though Huffy Corp. has
> >lost money in three out of the last five years). It is the
> >number-three seller of bikes in the United States. And Wal-Mart is
> >the number-one retailer of bikes. But here's one last statistic
> >about bicycles: Roughly 98% are now imported from places such as
> >China, Mexico, and Taiwan. Huffy made its last bike in the United
> >States in 1999.
> >
> >As Mariotti says, Wal-Mart is tough as nails. But not every supplier
> >agrees that the toughness is always accompanied by fairness. The
> >Lovable Company was founded in 1926 by the grandfather of Frank
> >Garson II, who was Lovable's last president. It did business with
> >Wal-Mart, Garson says, from the earliest days of founder Sam
> >Walton's first store in Bentonville, Arkansas. Lovable made bras and
> >lingerie, supplying retailers that also included Sears and
> >Victoria's Secret. At one point, it was the sixth-largest maker of
> >intimate apparel in the United States, with 700 employees in this
> >country and another 2,000 at eight factories in Central America.
> >
> >Eventually Wal-Mart became Lovable's biggest customer. "Wal-Mart has
> >a big pencil," says Garson. "They have such awesome purchasing power
> >that they write their own ticket. If they don't like your prices,
> >they'll go vertical and do it themselves--or they'll find someone
> >that will meet their terms."
> >
> >In the summer of 1995, Garson asserts, Wal-Mart did just that. "They
> >had awarded us a contract, and in their wisdom, they changed the
> >terms so dramatically that they really reneged." Garson, still
> >worried about litigation, won't provide details. "But when you lose
> >a customer that size, they are irreplaceable."
> >
> >Lovable was already feeling intense cost pressure. Less than three
> >years after Wal-Mart pulled its business, in its 72nd year, Lovable
> >closed. "They leave a lot to be desired in the way they treat
> >people," says Garson. "Their actions to pulverize people are
> >unnecessary. Wal-Mart chewed us up and spit us out."
> >
> >Believe it or not, American business has been through this before.
> >The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the grocery-store chain, stood
> >astride the U.S. market in the 1920s and 1930s with a dominance that
> >has likely never been duplicated. At its peak, A&P had five times
> >the number of stores Wal-Mart has now (although much smaller ones),
> >and at one point, it owned 80% of the supermarket business. Some of
> >the antipredatory-pricing laws in use today were inspired by A&P's
> >attempts to muscle its suppliers.
> >
> >There is very little academic and statistical study of Wal-Mart's
> >impact on the health of its suppliers and virtually nothing in the
> >last decade, when Wal-Mart's size has increased by a factor of five.
> >This while the retail industry has become much more concentrated. In
> >large part, that's because it's nearly impossible to get meaningful
> >data that would allow researchers to track the influence of
> >Wal-Mart's business on companies over time. You'd need cooperation
> >from the vendor companies or Wal-Mart or both--and neither Wal-Mart
> >nor its suppliers are interested in sharing such intimate detail.
> >
> >Bain & Co., the global management consulting firm, is in the midst
> >of a project that asks, How does a company have a healthy
> >relationship with Wal-Mart? How do you avoid being sucked into the
> >vortex? How do you maintain some standing, some leverage of your own?
> >This July, in a mating that had the relieved air of lovers who had
> >too long resisted embracing, Levi Strauss rolled blue jeans into
> >every Wal-Mart in the United States.
> >
> >Bain's first insights are obvious, if not easy. "Year after year,"
> >Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., says, "for any product that is the
> >same as what you sold them last year, Wal-Mart will say, 'Here's the
> >price you gave me last year. Here's what I can get a competitor's
> >product for. Here's what I can get a private-label version for. I
> >want to see a better value that I can bring to my shopper this year.
> >Or else I'm going to use that shelf space differently.' "
> >
> >Carey has a friend in the umbrella business who learned that. One
> >year, because of costs, he went to Wal-Mart and asked for a 5% price
> >increase. "Wal-Mart said, 'We were expecting a 5% decrease. We're
> >off by 10%. Go back and sharpen your pencil.' " The umbrella man
> >scrimped and came back with a 2% increase. "They said, 'We'll go
> >with a Chinese manufacturer'--and he was out entirely."
> >
> >The Wal-Mart squeeze means vendors have to be as relentless and as
> >microscopic as Wal-Mart is at managing their own costs. They need,
> >in fact, to turn themselves into shadow versions of Wal-Mart itself.
> >"Wal-Mart won't necessarily say you have to reconfigure your
> >distribution system," says Carey. "But companies recognize they are
> >not going to maintain margins with growth in their Wal-Mart business
> >without doing it."
> >
> >The way to avoid being trapped in a spiral of growing business and
> >shrinking profits, says Carey, is to innovate. "You need to bring
> >Wal-Mart new products--products consumers need. Because with those,
> >Wal-Mart doesn't have benchmarks to drive you down in price. They
> >don't have historical data, you don't have competitors, they haven't
> >bid the products out to private-label makers. That's how you can
> >have higher prices and higher margins."
> >
> >Reasonable advice, but not universally useful. There has been an
> >explosion of "innovation" in toothbrushes and toothpastes in the
> >past five years, for instance; but a pickle is a pickle is a pickle.
> >
> >Bain's other critical discovery is that consumers are often more
> >loyal to product companies than to Wal-Mart. With strongly branded
> >items people develop a preference for--things like toothpaste or
> >laundry detergent--Wal-Mart rarely forces shoppers to switch to a
> >second choice. It would simply punish itself by seeing sales fall,
> >and it won't put up with that for long.
> >
> >But as Wal-Mart has grown in market reach and clout, even
> >manufacturers known for nurturing premium brands may find themselves
> >overpowered. This July, in a mating that had the relieved air of
> >lovers who had too long resisted embracing, Levi Strauss rolled blue
> >jeans into every Wal-Mart doorway in the United States: 2,864
> >stores. Wal-Mart, seeking to expand its clothing business with more
> >fashionable brands, promoted the clothes on its in-store TV network
> >and with banners slipped over the security-tag detectors at exit
> >doors.
> >
> >Levi's launch into Wal-Mart came the same summer the clothes maker
> >celebrated its 150th birthday. For a century and a half, one of the
> >most recognizable names in American commerce had survived without
> >Wal-Mart. But in October 2002, when Levi Strauss and Wal-Mart
> >announced their engagement, Levi was shrinking rapidly. The pressure
> >on Levi goes back 25 years--well before Wal-Mart was an influence.
> >Between 1981 and 1990, Levi closed 58 U.S. manufacturing plants,
> >sending 25% of its sewing overseas.
> >
> >Sales for Levi peaked in 1996 at $7.1 billion. By last year, they
> >had spiraled down six years in a row, to $4.1 billion; through the
> >first six months of 2003, sales dropped another 3%. This one
> >account--selling jeans to Wal-Mart--could almost instantly revive
> >Levi.
> >
> >Last year, Wal-Mart sold more clothing than any other retailer in
> >the country. It also sold more pairs of jeans than any other store.
> >Wal-Mart's own inexpensive house brand of jeans, Faded Glory, is
> >estimated to do $3 billion in sales a year, a house brand nearly the
> >size of Levi Strauss. Perhaps most revealing in terms of Levi's
> >strategic blunders: In 2002, half the jeans sold in the United
> >States cost less than $20 a pair. That same year, Levi didn't offer
> >jeans for less than $30.
> >
> >For much of the last decade, Levi couldn't have qualified to sell to
> >Wal-Mart. Its computer systems were antiquated, and it was notorious
> >for delivering clothes late to retailers. Levi admitted its on-time
> >delivery rate was 65%. When it announced the deal with Wal-Mart last
> >year, one fashion-industry analyst bluntly predicted Levi would
> >simply fail to deliver the jeans.
> >
> >But Levi Strauss has taken to the Wal-Mart Way with the intensity of
> >a near-death religious conversion--and Levi's executives were happy
> >to talk about their experience getting ready to sell at Wal-Mart.
> >One hundred people at Levi's headquarters are devoted to the new
> >business; another 12 have set up in an office in Bentonville, near
> >Wal-Mart's headquarters, where the company has hired a respected
> >veteran Wal-Mart sales account manager.
> >
> >Getting ready for Wal-Mart has been like putting Levi on the Atkins
> >diet. It has helped everything--customer focus, inventory
> >management, speed to market. It has even helped other retailers that
> >buy Levis, because Wal-Mart has forced the company to replenish
> >stores within two days instead of Levi's previous five-day cycle.
> >
> >And so, Wal-Mart might rescue Levi Strauss. Except for one thing.
> >
> >Levi didn't actually have any clothes it could sell at Wal-Mart.
> >Everything was too expensive. It had to develop a fresh line for
> >mass retailers: the Levi Strauss Signature brand, featuring Levi
> >Strauss's name on the back of the jeans.
> >
> >Two months after the launch, Levi basked in the honeymoon glow.
> >Overall sales, after falling for the first six months of 2003, rose
> >6% in the third quarter; profits in the summer quarter nearly
> >doubled. All, Levi's CEO said, because of Signature.
> >"They are all very rational people. And they had a good point.
> >Everyone was willing to pay more for a Master Lock. But how much
> >more can they justify?"
> >
> >But the low-end business isn't a business Levi is known for, or one
> >it had been particularly interested in. It's also a business in
> >which Levi will find itself competing with lean, experienced players
> >such as VF and Faded Glory. Levi's makeover might so improve its
> >performance with its non-Wal-Mart suppliers that its established
> >business will thrive, too. It is just as likely that any gains will
> >be offset by the competitive pressures already dissolving Levi's
> >premium brands, and by the cannibalization of its own sales. "It's
> >hard to see how this relationship will boost Levi's higher-end
> >business," says Paul Farris, a professor at the University of
> >Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. "It's
> >easy to see how this will hurt the higher-end business."
> >
> >If Levi clothing is a runaway hit at Wal-Mart, that may indeed
> >rescue Levi as a business. But what will have been rescued? The
> >Signature line--it includes clothing for girls, boys, men, and
> >women--is an odd departure for a company whose brand has long been
> >an American icon. Some of the jeans have the look, the fingertip
> >feel, of pricier Levis. But much of the clothing has the look and
> >feel it must have, given its price (around $23 for adult pants):
> >cheap. Cheap and disappointing to find labeled with Levi Strauss's
> >name. And just five days before the cheery profit news, Levi had
> >another announcement: It is closing its last two U.S. factories,
> >both in San Antonio, and laying off more than 2,500 workers, or 21%
> >of its workforce. A company that 22 years ago had 60 clothing plants
> >in the United States--and that was known as one of the most socially
> >reponsible corporations on the planet--will, by 2004, not make any
> >clothes at all. It will just import them.
> >
> >In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and
> >who have given that power to Wal-Mart. Part of Wal-Mart's dominance,
> >part of its insight, and part of its arrogance, is that it presumes
> >to speak for American shoppers.
> >
> >If Wal-Mart doesn't like the pricing on something, says Andrew
> >Whitman, who helped service Wal-Mart for years when he worked at
> >General Foods and Kraft, they simply say, "At that price we no
> >longer think it's a good value to our shopper. Therefore, we don't
> >think we should carry it."
> >
> >Wal-Mart has also lulled shoppers into ignoring the difference
> >between the price of something and the cost. Its unending focus on
> >price underscores something that Americans are only starting to
> >realize about globalization: Ever-cheaper prices have consequences.
> >Says Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills: "We
> >want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health
> >care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything
> >manufactured under those restrictions."
> >
> >Randall Larrimore, a former CEO of MasterBrand Industries, the
> >parent company of Master Lock, understands that contradiction too
> >well. For years, he says, as manufacturing costs in the United
> >States rose, Master Lock was able to pass them along. But at some
> >point in the 1990s, Asian manufacturers started producing locks for
> >much less. "When the difference is $1, retailers like Wal-Mart would
> >prefer to have the brand-name padlock or faucet or hammer,"
> >Larrimore says. "But as the spread becomes greater, when our padlock
> >was $9, and the import was $6, then they can offer the consumer a
> >real discount by carrying two lines. Ultimately, they may only carry
> >one line."
> >
> >In January 1997, Master Lock announced that, after 75 years making
> >locks in Milwaukee, it would begin importing more products from
> >Asia. Not too long after, Master Lock opened a factory of its own in
> >Nogales, Mexico. Today, it makes just 10% to 15% of its locks in
> >Milwaukee--its 300 employees there mostly make parts that are sent
> >to Nogales, where there are now 800 factory workers.
> >
> >Larrimore did the first manufacturing layoffs at Master Lock. He
> >negotiated with Master Lock's unions himself. He went to
> >Bentonville. "I loved dealing with Wal-Mart, with Home Depot," he
> >says. "They are all very rational people. There wasn't a whole lot
> >of room for negotiation. And they had a good point. Everyone was
> >willing to pay more for a Master Lock. But how much more can they
> >justify? If they can buy a lock that has arguably similar qual-ity,
> >at a cheaper price, well, they can get their consumers a deal."
> >
> >It's Wal-Mart in the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand. And the
> >Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save
> >money helped that hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales. Not
> >consciously, not directly, but inevitably. "Do we as consumers
> >appreciate what we're doing?" Larrimore asks. "I don't think so. But
> >even if we do, I think we say, Here's a Master Lock for $9, here's
> >another lock for $6--let the other guy pay $9."
> >
> >Charles Fishman is a senior writer at Fast Company . Andrew Moesel
> >provided research assistance for this story.
>

__________________
Life isn't always a bowl of cherries, sometimes it's more like a jar of Jalapenos --- what you say or do today might burn your ass tomorrow!!!

rogue49

Yep...survival of the fittest...ain't that the American way? [/sarcasm]

I don't really shop at Wal-Mart, it just doesn't interest me.

floydthebarber

I never shop at Wal-Mart. That kind of store is not my idea of shopping.

__________________
wish you were here

Endymon32

Do they sell walls?

debaser

Needs more anti-trust...


I can't stand that store. This is one more step in the "lowest-common denominator" syndrome that is gripping this whole country.

If all you are willing to pay for is crap, then by all means carry on. Walmart gets not a dime of my money...

__________________

Endymon32

Debaser is correct. If you like the store go there, if you dont, then shop else where. You dont need government interference, you need informed consumers. I dont like the government interfering in the market too much room for special interestes and corruption.

toronto2003

There is a reason why you can by such cheap products. They are produced by American owned companies in third world countries, where they don't pay minimum wage, health benefits and don't have to meet environment laws. Who cares if a few peasants get cancer and die so long as the product is produced cheaply.

nirol

As always, nice article, LD.
I worry about this too, I used to work in int'l shipping and am philosophically a free trader, but with skepticism. Nafta was for a free trade zone, but why was it thousands of pages?
My state (NC) is getting killed, textiles is about gone, and Furniture is going.
Part of this is the failure of manufacturers and stores to educate customers on their advantages: Better service, quality, etc.
Furniture is a strong example, most of the manufacturers here are importing 60% of their product line to compete with big box retailers, the goods are inferior, but the customers have decided that case goods that are built to last a life time are not important, "Hello particleboard and vinyl veneers!".

__________________
'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

Ustwo

And the problem is what?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

MSD

What we need is to follow LD's example and reveal the other side of the double-edged sword. Educated consumers are a far better influence on policies than government regulations. While regulations may have a more immediate effect, a boycott coming from the bottom is better than restrictions from the top. When the people think, they will force change. When the government regulates, the people will resent the same change.

Endymon32

But I want cheep pickles. It sounds like Valasic has a problem, not me.

Liquor Dealer

It'll be your problem when all you can get are cheep (sic) pickles. When all the quality is gone that's all there'll be left.

__________________
Life isn't always a bowl of cherries, sometimes it's more like a jar of Jalapenos --- what you say or do today might burn your ass tomorrow!!!

Ustwo

So you are saying that because of Wal-Mart all quality products will be destroyed? That people won't be willing to pay more for quality? That our only pickle choise will be some fetid cucumber marinated in rusty brine? That the free market breaks down in the face of low prices?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

debaser

No, the free market breaks down in the face of artificially low prices, which is what Walmart is forcing on the market (see article above).

__________________

Zeld2.0

Yep defenitely

Wal-Mart just doesn't get a cent of my money, but unfortunately, people don't see the other side and say "hey if its cheap, lets buy it" - but what it hurts is the rest of fellow Americans who have lost jobs/interests because of it

Endymon32

So if Walmart sells fetid pickles, the customer has no other choice? I really dont see the big problem.

debaser

Did you read the article? The issue is not so much with customer choice as it is with the artificially low pricing scheme costing the jobs of the very people who are buying the stuff.

__________________

Ustwo

Sorry but I don't buy it, pun intended.

If the prices are too low to sustain the industry the company goes under. If the company goes under, wal-mart has nothing to sell.

So stuff is going overseas, its not walmart that is to blame.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

debaser

The issue is that the only way to continue to sell stuff at the prices Walmart insists on selling at is to send the production overseas. The threat made by Walmat is that if the company does not sell at their artificialy low prices, Walmart will make the product itself, thus forcing said company out of an enourmous slice of market share, and quite possibly business altogether.

I am rather suprised to see the "invisible hand" crowd overlooking a aberation every bit as severe as price-fixing is on the other extreme.

__________________

Liquor Dealer

I normally agree with Ustwo but I can't in this instance. Wal-Mart doesn't give a damn about anyone but Wal-Mart. If they can't expand and find product horizontally they expand vertically and make, or have made, their own label. The whole intent of the article is to show just how rabid they can get and that the end result is the export of jobs. The fact that they force American business to be competitive is fine - the fact that they can leverage them out of business by virtually blackmailing them on price isn't fine - If you do a little bit of checking you'll find that Wal-Mart is the most sued business on Earth. A law suit is filed against Wal-Mart about every thirty seconds and only a small percent are by customers - most are by suppliers.

__________________
Life isn't always a bowl of cherries, sometimes it's more like a jar of Jalapenos --- what you say or do today might burn your ass tomorrow!!!

Ustwo

Most large retail sellers do the same thing wal-mart does. My wife works for a company that markets its own product rather then take the price cuts demanded by the big retail sellers. It makes it harder to get to your market, but it can be done. I personally rarely shop at wal-mart. I do sometimes shop at home-depot and other 'super stores' which I am quite sure do the exact same thing wal-mart does. Wal-mart now IS the biggest and I'm sure it gets sued all the time, but for what? About the only thing that could 'get' wal-mart is if they become a monopoly, and despite some fears that they will, I rather doubt we will see that happening anytime soon.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

james t kirk

Who the hell would EVER buy a gallon container of pickles anyway. That would last me just about a life time.

Seriously though, the underlying SERIOUS problem as i see it is that Walmart packs considerable clout and in order to obtain cheap goods, they put the squeeze on manufacturers who end up shipping production to China and Indonesia.

I don't know about you, but just about everything out there these days from flatware to cell phones seems to be made in China. How far till the manufacturing sector in North America collapses?

Then what?

People need to support their local economies

BigGov

Most large retail sellers want to make a profit, yes, but they do not bully companies like Wal-Mart does. They demand an extremely low price for every product they carry, which is very bad in the end for the business because it limits their profits drastically. As an end result the company has to move jobs overseas to just stay in business.

__________________
One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink but then held it out over the beer and yelled "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"

ShadowWraith

Heres my view on sort of a larger scale:

The problem is that theres all this money flowing out of the U.S. and to other countries. This is better on a global scale because it pumps money into the economies of other countries which allows them to grow but it also takes advantage of the people their who are willing to work for literally pennies a day. For example, the average worker in china makes less in a year then a minimum wage worker in the U.S. does in a week. But anyway, thats another problem.

Getting back on topic, the problem with all this outsourcing is that its taking away jobs from Americans. Americans without jobs are people who don't pay taxes and the government relies on taxes to fund welfare programs to support these jobless people. so if the american people have no money then the government is kinda screwed too. Right now its only mostly manufacturing jobs which have gone overseas, but countries like India and China are slowly taking over other industries especially engineering and IT. Call up a dell tech-support office and you'll probably hear an indian voice. Go buy a new car from GM (i think it was) and its engine was designed by indian engineers.

Walmart is one big reason this happened, and yet people still say say so what, it doesnt affect me, poor guys over at masterlock or the pickle company just got shafted. Just remember this quote:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. "

guthmund

I don't think it's so much that people won't pay more for quality. It's more how can quality stay in business when only so few pay for quality. I won't go so far as to say that Wal-Mart is evil; I'll reserve the right.

I have had the luxury of watching Supercenters come into two different communities over the years. The first one completely decimated the local business community and bankrupted more than a dozen stores in the area.

The second one has only been up for about a year so the effect really hasn't been felt one way or another on the community yet.

A friend of mine was going to expand his fast food franchise and open a second store on some land he was going to lease from Wal-Mart that they weren't going to use. The list of demands came pretty quick. (How highway access was going to be handled; What hours the joint could operate; where employee parking was to be situated, holiday decoration, Wal-Mart reserved the right to forcefully remove them from the premises if they couldn't adhere to these standards, etc....) The list of concessions were ridiculous, but this was the price of doing business with Wal-Mart. My friend chose not to. To be honest, it was one of the reasons I went to work with him while he set up shop.

Wal-Mart has an enormous influence in the area. I'd rather like to see if the folks who are praising the Wal-Mart name live in "Wal-Mart Zones"

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.

chavos

i personally refuse to shop there...mostly that's a statement of my socio-economic class, but also 'cause walmart is a dingy piece o' crap.

the article makes several deserved points-walmart markets artifically low prices, and is capable of putting way too much pressure on other companies, not to mention individuals.

that they've been busted, repeatedly, for underpaying workers is what does it for me. there's a case up here in MN where they would force people to work unpaid overtime, or lose their job to an undocumented immigrant. pretty shitty choice if you're poor enough to be working at walmart.

james t kirk

While i agree with what you are saying.

Would you be surprised to know that I am also forced to work overtime for free and I work for a consulting engineering firm.

It's the greatest trick ever invented. It's called a "salaried position". Basically it means that, yeah, your work week is 40 hours but we pretty much expect you to work at least 50, better yet 55 on average. Sometimes you will work even 90 or a 100 hours a week.

We will bill the client for every hour you work, i.e. 100 hours a week and we will pay you for 40, keep our share of the 40, then we will keep ALL the additional 60 hours you worked too.

Happens every week of my life.

lurkette

That's fine, but you're not working at minimum wage, and you accepted the salaried position knowing how the game is played. These people (WalMart employees) are working for crap wages and often count on overtime to make ends meet. They signed on to a non-salaried position expecting that if they work overtime they get paid for it. I personally think the situaiton you describe at your workplace is unconscionable, but it's even more despicable to take advantage of often poorly-educated and poorly-paid employees who more than likely lack the skills and mobility and resources to just go find another job.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

rogue49

Personally...if I was Vlasic...I would realize the impact to my overall business,
and discontinue the gallon jug.

You have a choice...sell the smaller jars, make your profit by volume over the year.
No need to give it all away at once.

When it comes to pickles...Vlasic is the Wal-Mart of this industry.
They've got the name, and the consumers want it.
They need to start playing hardball with Wal-Mart...or even refuse to sell to them.
Believe me, people will buy Vlasic pickles at the Grocery store,
instead of any generic brand that Wal-Mart might come up with.

One thing I found out about business, when I owned my own,
even the most sweet little old lady will try to take you for everything she can get.
Both the companies & the consumers are ruthless.
You set the rules, they have to figure out if they will play by them.
If they won't, then you need to come up with a new set of rules that will make you profit.

It's the name of the game, it's been going on for years.
BTW...sooner or later...the Feds will get involved.
You don't play around with this much money,
and the government doesn't stick their nose in it.
There just has to be enough attention made to it,
and then they will get their "attention".

But it takes some time...and a lot of momentum.
The oil industry
The train companies
The telephone company
Microsoft
etc, etc, etc.

Sooner or later, they become a target when they get big enough.

Ustwo

From my experiance thats not true at all. For my wifes company, it would be a 25% reduction in price in order to work with the biggest retailer. They decided not to.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

chavos

lurkette already said what i was going to say...ain't even the first time that happened....

but, yeah-overtime for an hourly worker earning $6 an hour is crucial. Working part time workers 40+ hours a week and still denying benifits, something i'm sure that salaried position... its not cool that you don't get paid for work you do...and i hope that changes. but when walmart does it to the working poor, i think its a new and more egregious level of corporate sin.

Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich has a very good section on Walmart, researched here in the twin cities. highly reccomended.

TheHornDog

wow guys ... don't get so upset

jorgelito

I think Wal Mart will eventually "eat itself".

What's so great about it anyways? I live in the second largest city in America and there is no Walmart anywhere near us. So obviously the're not everywhere. I always thought Walmart was just for hicks and rednecks. Where are these Walmarts? I'm curious....

Anyways, these companies don't "have" to do business with Walmart. Do they sell Rolexes? I'm sure Rolex is just fine without doing business there. Levi's is just managed poorly and made bad decisions. If you don't like it. don't shop htere, if you don't want them in your neighbore hood, say so.

They trieds coming here last year and were voted away.

chickentribs

Interesting read - the article is a couple of years old, (as is the post) and I have heard a lot of this from friends of mine who have sold to Walmart. Jorgelito, you wouldn't have seen Walmarts in the big cities. They have only started coming into them recently because they have literally exhausted every small town in the US. The strategy was why compete with other retailers in Chicago or LA? Let's go to small towns where people will drive 40 minutes to come to us and the only competion is a mom & pop store that they put out of business within 6 months. It worked like clockwork for them and they are doing the same thing in Europe now - kinda scary.

The biggest sin though was when I bought the newest Beastie Boys CD there, threw it into my car and found out that Walmart made them remove all curse words from the record. I bought another one somewhere else that day and will never walk into one of those facist stores again. Done. Oh - and I know John Marrrioti from the story. I sold to them when he was at Huffy. Small World.

__________________
Oft expectation fails...
and most oft there Where most it promises
- Shakespeare, W.

alansmithee

Unlike many others, your friend chose not to do business with them. The problem isn't Wal-Mart, it's shortsighted execs who don't realize the long term effects of dealing with wal-mart. If you ever enter a situation with a retailer who constitutes 50%+ of your business of course there will be problems.

Hardknock

Ok, I admit, I still shop there, mainly for groceries. Wal-mart is cheat and if you dig deep enough, they might just be a major addition to the demise of the manufacturing section in the US by driving down prices so much that quality is non-existent. I'm aware that a lot of people don’t like wal-mart and don't want them in their neighborhood because of the low-wage jobs. I don't really blame them either. Competition doesn't hurt wither buy only to a point.

n0nsensical

Won't someone think of the cucumbers?!

But seriously folks, complaining about outsourcing is pointless and rather selfish in my opinion. It would be much more productive to complain about corporate executives making millions of dollars a year, even more for the privilege of being fired, while at the same time receiving massive tax cuts. I hate to turn this into a Bush post, but let me just say lots of people are reaping what they sow. This is the richest, most innovative country in the world. We can think of better things for ourselves to do than manufacture padlocks. People in Zimbabwe WISH their jobs COULD be outsourced.

ShaniFaye

There will always be people willing to pay more for things, I really dont see the problem, just like some of the posters here said that wal mart is not their kind of store, they will continue to shop in the stores that over charge for things.

I am addicted to pickels, I could eat them all day long, a gallon jar doesnt last long in my house and personally I CANNOT stand the way vlasic's taste and wouldnt buy them no matter how much they were.

There are many companies in the world that do not pay MORE for overtime, its according to the labor laws in their state and the company policy as to whether its paid at straight time or time and a half. One of my best friends works there and has no problem with what he gets paid and they are very flexible with his time off. When someone takes a job its their responsibility to find out the paying policy's of that company before they accept it. I am a "salaried" person and knew full well that any overtime isnt compensated for....but I am also not docked for anytime I had to have off. I was just homebound for a solid week with bronchitis and I dont lose any vacation time or money because of it.

Im at walmart at LEAST once a week,I used to buy my groceries at Target, but they dont sell a lot of name brands I want to buy, or if they do, they are more expensive that what walmart sells it for, I see no reason to have to do without and shop somewhere else.

Where we live walmart supplies what the average american needs at a price they can live with, no way am I going to pay more money at another store when I know walmart has it cheaper, thats not good money management in my opinion.

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Superbelt

Actually, I have read before that the loss of american jobs (caused by companies like wal-mart [read the article]) has as a whole brought down american wages (obvious)
Wal Mart's prices are low in comparison, but when factored in for inflation, they actually cost more of our weekly wages now than they did 40 or 60 years ago.

In effect, Wal Mart is making your average purchases more expensive.
We are becoming beholden to the Low-Low Price of Wal Mart.

Walmart is a cancer, but Americans are the problem for shopping there. What we will see happen in the next ten, twenty years will all be our fault.
The absolute absence of anything american made and the ability for us only to purchase tinky crap that was made in a country that very well could be our military adversary several years down the line.
Wal Mart shoppers are selling this nation down the tubes.
And you should be ashamed.

smooth

Well, if you can find them in your area, Saddat makes the best pickles I have ever tasted.

Also, are you aware that Target is a responsible company with its employees? It pays them living wages and doesn't work to the bone. That might be one good reason to do without right there.

My wife and I shop at local stores and socially responsible shopping centers. Our food and consumption habits have changed over the course of a few years, but only for the better in retrospect.

Before we stopped eating meat, we switched to certified organic meat. It was at least twice as expensive as the cheap stuff. So we reduced our consumption by half. Of course, dieticians explain now that US citizens eat way too large of portions, anyway. Similar type of thing, to our thinking.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman