Can Wal-Mart's PR campaign save its stock?

[NNN0LHI]

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P114414.asp

If you've held the stock for five years, you've lost money. But Wal-Mart plans to aggressively battle to restore its reputation.

By Robert Walberg

The name Wal-Mart generates more raw emotion these days than most companies. People either love the company for its prices, service and selection, or they loathe it for squeezing the small-town mom-and-pop shops out of business. Yet few would argue that the company has not been an enormous financial success. From 1980 to 1996, Wal-Mart's sales jumped from $1 billion a year to more than $100 billion. During this amazing growth, the stock soared by more than 8,000%, turning many shareholders into millionaires.

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs) has kept the double-digit growth coming, despite its now-giant size. Over the last five years, sales have grown from $181 billion to $285 billion, with net income surging from $6.2 billion to $10.3 billion. Unfortunately, investors who waited until 2001 to buy into Wal-Mart's success story have enjoyed little to no success.

Sales may still be climbing something more than 11% per year, but the stock has gone flat. In fact, an investor who bought Wal-Mart shares on the first day of trading in 2001 and held them through April 11 has seen the investment decline by 9.9%. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX)has dropped by 7.95% over the same period.

It gets worse: Over the same period, competitors Costco Wholesale (COST, news, msgs), Target (TGT, news, msgs) and J.C. Penney (JCP, news, msgs) saw their stock prices climb by 12.4%, 49.6% and 367.3%, respectively.

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[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Damn.

I'm gonna have to cry myself to sleep tonight.

[Zynx]

2. Walmart has dropping sales growth and falling margins.

It is a terrible investment. Only Sam Walton knew how to run that company, and he was also non-political unlike his asshole children.

[solinvictus]

3. No, it won't...

Target and Costco are becoming more competitive. Here in Birmingham, Target is cheaper than Wally World on the majority of groceries and general merchandise.
At the same time, smaller "five and dime" chains are taking up the markets Wal Mart won't touch; depressed urban areas and remote rural locations. Dollar General, Fred's Pharmacy, and Family Dollar are all springing up everywhere, especially Dollar General. These stores are small, but they carry a decent variety of general merchandise, groceries, cleaning supplies, small appliances, and some clothing. I can't help but believe these small stores are starting to eat into Wally World's bottom line.

[Cone10]

4. Walmart

Once a company gets a bad reputation it is very hard to shake it. Walmart bullies it's vendor's into giving them rock bottom prices and it ruins small mom and pop stores in many communities. It also treats it's employees badly and has had many labor problems. Walmart is losing it's appeal to many consumers because it is becoming a junk store. You don't have a lot of choice in product and name diversity. For instance if you go into Walmart looking for a vaccuum cleaner you will have a choice of cheap cheaper and you may as well buy a broom. You don't have a choice of brands, it is bissel or low end eureka. If you shop at super walmart for groceries there is less choice and bad produce. There are many more choices of box stores now and walmart is losing ground. It has become this big lumbering giant that can't get out of it's own way. They have gone from bragging about their goods made in the USA to selling merchandise made in sweat shops in third world countries. The old saying is coming true the bigger your are the harder you fall.

[solinvictus]

5. Small appliances...

Wal Mart has their power tools and small appliances made to lower factory specifications so they can sell them cheaper. Their power tools have fewer operating hours than tools sold at other stores, like Lowe's or Home Depot.

[Zorra]

6. WalMart gives more money to republican candidates than any other

company. Many people are boycotting Walmart due to this fact alone. It is the primary reason why I never shop at WalMart, and why I have, for a number of years, been encouraging other concerned Americans not to shop there either.

Couple this with their union busting tactics, lack of respect for their employees, sweatshop affiliations, heavy sales of Chinese and other non-American made products, and responsibility for driving innumerable mom & pop businesses nationwide into bankruptcy, WalMart deserves to lose money. No one with a conscience should or would shop there.

From the Teamsters:

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and owner of Sam's Club warehouse stores, gives more money to Republican candidates than any other company. Its top three managers, including Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott, donated the individual maximum $2,000 to President George W. Bush, and Jay Allen, vice president for corporate affairs, raised at least $100,000 to re-elect the president, earning him the Bush campaign's designation of "Pioneer."

Wal-Mart—two-thirds of whose 3,580 stores are in the "red states" that voted for Bush in 2000—is backing White House policies on everything from trade to limiting overtime pay.

http://www.teamster.org/04news/hn_040721_1.htm

Please boycott WalMart, they have helped finance the destruction of our country by supporting Bush and other republicans.

[napi21]

7. The only way to repair their rep would require WM to do what they

are not willing to do!

1. Allow their employees to unionize if they vote to do so.

2. Dramatically increase the starting slalries of their employees, and the max % merit increase they can earn.

3. Add a substantial Department to each store where "everything in it is Made in America!"


None of those things will ever happen because it is totally against their corporate plan.

If we're lucky, they'll continue down the current road, until it's too late to turn around.

[sandnsea]

9. "Made in America"

We actually need to make sure all of America has the same labor, immigration and environmental standards the states have. Otherwise, Made in America doesn't mean squat.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=667

[napi21]

10. I agree with enforcing immigration and envoronmental laws, but

it WOULD make a difference! I'd dare WM to charge it buyers to source a couple of hundred products that could fill a department like that.

I remember when WM opened it's first store in an area close enough to me that I could shop there. I remember the American flags all over the store, and the words Made in America on almost all their merchandise. That was Sam Walton, and that was the way he wanted to do business.

I bet Sam has done a thoudand sommersaults in his grave over what his heirs havd done to his Company!

[sandnsea]

11. I know

It's a shame. Still, like I said, Made in America doesn't always mean Made IN America. Sometimes it just means a percentage of the parts are made in America, or that the whole thing was made in American Samoa by Chinese sweatshop laborers.

[sandnsea]

8. See, we can make a difference

If we keep the pressure on Wal-mart, they'll have to change. Just like Sinclair, stocks and bad publicity. We should never let up.

[NNN0LHI]

12. After what I have learned at DU I won't go near the place anymore n/t

[w4rma]

13. The Red Chinese superstore. (nt)