Power-Mart
Published on 22 Sep 2005 at 12:23 am |
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Filed under The Cargo Cults of Business, Service With A Smirk, Thanks for Playing, Pathetic Success, Winners and Losers, One Corporation Under God, In Corporations We Trust.
Let’s talk about what power is, and where it resides. The short answer: with your customers.
Wal-Mart is very unpopular in certain circles. There are websites devoted to hating the company, and even Wal-Mart itself is beginning to take notice of its suffering reputation. Lately various sources have pointed to the company’s behavior during Hurricane Katrina with approval.
Unfortunately attitude about Wal-Mart has become some kind social and political identification badge. Free-marketers seem to feel the need to defend everything the company does as long as it makes money, and those of a more socialist bent seem to want to condemn everything it does even if low prices are sometimes beneficial.
But let’s not forget that in business the customer always wins. If you don’t like Wal-Mart, don’t buy things there. Your reasons aren’t really important in this context. If you don’t like the low wages, the effects on small towns, or the atmosphere of the store, it’s all the same. If blue and white color schemes offend your aesthetics, that’s fine. As a customer you can express your displeasure by shopping elsewhere. If enough people agree with you, you will win. In this case, there’s also no need to worry that a few fat cat customers will make more difference than you do, that might work for a seller of private jets or giant estates, but it won’t save Wal-Mart.
It’s not even like you’d have to give up shopping. They do have competitors, and you wouldn’t have to wait long. I’m not an expert financial analyst, purely an amateur, but it looks to me like with a margin just under 5%, and current assets around 13% even if you allow for massive cost cutting and various kinds of shoring up, if its customer base were to desert it completely, mighty Wal-Mart might not last the quarter, and certainly wouldn’t last the year.
Remember, the customer is where the power resides.
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