Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Walmart

Austin Salbeck




With all of the different businesses out in retail, Walmart and there partner company Sam’s Club, are some of the most successful businesses still around for over 40 years the company has been growing and growing. Founded by Sam Walton, Walmart was to help customers get what they needed and also their employees by giving a various amount of jobs and all different positions. 

As of late last year, Walmart has been closing down their grocery stores known as the neighborhood markets costing people their jobs and removing a local store out of some areas. Now as of earlier this year, Walmart and Sam’s Clubs have closed over 60 stores affecting thousands of workers and customers. Employees were given no information about this prior until the day of closing. After this Walmart also eliminated some of their higher positions in stores such as some management positions on no notice as well. I find this to be strange as Walmart has been making more and more profit over the years and that there are stores all over states and even in some other countries as well and then they give no notice to employees about them being let go from their jobs. I find this to be morally wrong and then afterwards, they decide to give new employees and some current positions as well an increase by a dollar every hour. It may seem like a little amount but it all adds up in the end. Even though Walmart is a large company, you would think they would have some decency to tell their employees that they lost their jobs due to the store shutting down then just letting them come to their store and see a large “Closed” sign.

Works Cited

Peterson, Hayley. “Walmart Is Abruptly Closing 63 Sam's Club Stores and Laying off Thousands of Workers.” , Business Insider, 11 Jan. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/walmart-suddenly-closes-sams-club-stores-2018-1.

20 comments:

  1. I personally don't see this very shocking because today there is more and more competition today. For example stores like Target and other retail stores cause some very big competition. And many of the competitors have better products or have more liked brands. And there are so many Walmarts around I think it is imaginable that more will start to close, as other new stores arise.

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  2. I agree with you, not giving workers a notice and leaving them without a job is morally wrong and with such a large company like Walmart you'd think they handle that better. I belive companies like Walmart will become less and less on the prize of amazon on their food stores opening. They are changing the game and could put Walmart out the door.

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  3. I think that the reason for these stores closing down are due to the rise in online shopping. When so many more products can just be shipped to your door within 1 day, customers are starting to realize that it is just as useful to buy it online. I think the trend of stores closing will keep going a little bit, but will eventually steady out.

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  4. I do not find this to be that strange. With the rise in online shopping, the demand for products from Walmart has most likely decreased, since a lot of it can be easily purchased online through companies like Amazon. This closing of the Walmart stores has most likely caused frictional unemployment, since the people have been laid off from their old job and will most likely be in search for a new job.

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  5. I agree with you that it is unfortunate that Walmart didn’t give the workers much notice. However, based on your picture you provided, it seems like Walmart has had an increase in online shopping. This probably is the cause of the stores closing because the stores are generating less revenue and are unable to stay open since online shopping has become more popular. It is also hard for Walmart to stay in business because they have so many other strong competitors that are similar to them. Maybe if they change something to stand out that only they have, this can help prevent more people from getting laid off unexpectedly.

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  6. I also find these closing surprising because Walmart has been such a powerhouse company in the last few years. Recently, big company names like Walmart and Amazon have been knocking out small businesses, as these small business’ products are now produced by these larger, more substantial businesses. It will be interesting to see how these closings affect Walmart’s revenue, if at all.

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  7. Although I agree with you that the companies should have given employees more of a notice about losing their jobs, I do not find it surprising that demand for stores like Walmart is decreasing because of the current craze for online shopping. Many people would rather order stuff online than have to drive to the store; it's much easier to sit on a couch and order from a computer. Websites like Amazon Prime make this possible and they even give the option of free shipping, which makes it even more convenient.

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  8. Although Walmart continues to make big profits each and every year, they are probably closing some of their stores and getting rid of some of their high level jobs because they are being greedy. Walmart is wanting to keep more of their profits to themselves instead of paying some of those profits to their numerous employees. This is a strange strategy that is sure to leave people angry for being unemployed, but is at the same time smart on Walmart’s part so that they can continue to make more profits.

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  9. I am also surprised that many Walmart stores are closing. They do have an online store and it has almost everything that a consumer could possibly would want to purchase. The company has improved their online stores to stay in business and to keep up with their competitors. I doubt that Walmart will go completely out of business because it is such a large company. But after seeing that they have closed around sixty stores, they will gain more competition and lose more revenue.

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  10. I had not heard about the closing down of Walmart stores before reading this, yet I wasn’t too surprised. Recently, there have been a lot of businesses closing down stores because of an increase in online shopping. A lot of times there is more variety online, and it is more efficient to get the goods we want delivered right to our doors. But, this is bad for our economy that Walmart has let go so many employees. More people will be unemployed and that will begin to increase the unemployment rate if they are unable to find new jobs. It will be interesting to see if the convenience of online shopping starts to shut more stores down.

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  11. The popularity of the online shopping world is on the rise and because of this, stores like Walmart shutting down do not really surprise me. Walmart has a lot of competition, such as Target which is generally believed to have higher quality stuff as well as things like Amazon that sell the exact same products they do. If the consumer can buy the same product and has to pay a little extra for the comfort of not leaving their home, then many consumers may choose this option. I believe that Walmart will not just diminish in the next year. After all, they still are a powerful company with a lot of stores still open around the nation. However, it is easy to see how convenience and technology come into play and are negatively impacting their sales.

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  12. I didn't realize that Walmart was starting to close down but now that I know it makes sense. There is a large need for fast online shopping and Walmart doesn't meet those needs. Target is starting to pull ahead of Walmart because it has a better reputation. Target does have much better quality than Walmart but it is very apparent now and that is one reason why Walmart is losing so many costumers. People want the best quality they can get with also getting a bang for their buck and Target seems to be satisfying those needs more than Walmart.

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  13. That's super mean of Walmart ): It seems so popular around the country so I don't get why so many of their stores are closing down. Some of the people that work at my local Walmart have simple jobs like just saying "Have a good day" when I walk out of the store and it gives me the biggest smile ever, I can't imagine people like that get fired so easily and left without a job. ):

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  14. This is very interesting. I find it interesting because when driving through towns, there's always a Walmart. They are very popular stores that offer almost everything for consumers. For Walmart to be causing stores to close down and taking down high positions and lower employment is confusing. They must not be receiving as much profit or popularity from consumers. This may be because online shopping has become very high in demand as well as other super stores such as Costco, Target and Meijer. Walmart could be receiving less notice which could be the cause for loss of employment and closure of stores.

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  15. I definitely agree with you in that it seems unfair to workers that Walmart wouldn't tell them prior to shutting down their stores. That being said, I don't find it all that surprising that they actually are closing down their stores. While Walmart is a highly profitable company, there is a high demand for online shopping these days, so most of their profit is most likely coming in that way. Because of this, the opportunity cost for them to keep these actual stores open is no longer worth it.

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    Replies
    1. It definitely is unfair to not give notice for the shutdown, because the many workers came in and learned they lost their job. It also was unfair to any people who came in to the store and found out they had to go elsewhere. While the online shop gets better, it will ruin the ability to shop at Walmart for many who don't have internet access and no longer can go to their Walmart.

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  16. Very interesting topic as Walmart as one of my frequently visited stores. I had no idea this was happening, but it does surprise me. I know a few people who work for Walmart and enjoy it so it also surprises me that they are not informing their employees about stores shutting down. Walmart does have a lot of competition with other popular stores like Target, Meijer, etc. Although Walmart often is known for cheaply made products, we also are able to buy name brand foods at a cheaper price than at Pick 'n' Save or other grocery stores. Personally, I prefer Walmart over these stores because I know I am paying an appropriate price. In the end, Walmart should address closing their stores with a better approach so employees can have some time to search for a new job. This would be considered cyclical unemployment because it is a downturn in Walmart's business cycle.

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  17. Although this seems like a very uneducated decision it actually is very strategic. It is quite unfortunate that many employees are losing there jobs but big business always has a tendency to things like that. While this fact is true there are a lot of reasons that John Furner (CEO of Sam's Club) made this executive decision. First off because there are so many different Walmart's and Sam's Club's so close together that the stores had overlapping customers. Because of this and their false predictions that certain populations would grow. It no longer made sense to have certain locations open since they were gaining no more business by having two or more stores in nearby locations. Also in the locations that are shutting down there will be e-commerce distribution centers that will be opened instead for the company. This may not replace all the jobs that were lost from the closings of these stores but it will help soften the blow. This was a well placed practical decision by the company that just happened to have lost people's jobs.

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  18. Its surprising that Walmart is still making a profit. I think by decreasing the number of stores they have, that's less bills to pay for those stores. If shopping is moving online, then paying for property is useless. Its bad that Walmart has to get rid of employees however. Even though some employees get raises, the ones who lose their jobs don’t receive anything.

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  19. It is no surprise that Walmart is making the profit it is making. They are a monster in the industry, as well as the largest employer in all of the United States. In addition to that the Yodeling boy has brought massive amounts of positive attention to Walmart because now people our age think of a funny meme whenever they think of Walmart, rather than a dark dingy conglomerate.

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