If the end result is that Wal-Mart's wage and health insurance costs rise to the industry average, the retail giant's sway with suppliers and manufacturers will most definitely keep it pumping out goods with the lowest customer price tags.
Even though the Hollywood Reporter finds it manages to retain a certain goofy appeal, thanks to the stand-up effort of its comically adept cast members, the New York Times thought Employee of the Month was more tired than a Wal-Mart greeter at the end of a Saturday shift.
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People weren't printing out as many photos, and if they did it was generally cheaper and easier to have them done by one of the photo services with higher-end printers, such as Wal-Mart or Shutterfly.
People think times are really, really bad, but it is an amazing thing if you are out there among them: the hotels are full, the airlines are full, the high-end shops are full, the Wal-Mart is really, really, really full, the highways are full, the trains are full.
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But K Street could nevertheless end up hurting Mr Bush with the K-Mart crowd.
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Current Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke came out at the end to give the final speech of the day.
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Earlier experiments with high-end apparel didn't go well for Wal-Mart, which got lambasted by critics for straying from its core customer.
DeRogatis says the partnership makes vastly more sense than one with Best Buy or Wal-Mart, with which many other high-end bands have struck exclusive deals.
With the company's core rural consumers saturated with stores, union-pandering urban politicians making it tough to impossible to open big city locations, and overseas missteps in key markets like Germany and South Korea, there's reason to believe Wal-Mart's growth phase is near its end.
Discounters like Wal-Mart and Target were sapping it from the low end, and class acts like Nordstrom from the high.
U.S. companies such as Wal-Mart, Nike and, at the luxury end, Tiffany have been expanding in the country in recent years.
Wal-Mart (PDF flier) - lots of crappy low end gear and not-so-good deals on HDTVs.
Since Wal-Mart claims to be a value oriented chain, it is interesting that Wal-Mart is not offering a similar plan for Nokia high-end phones.
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To that end, the New York Times reports that in April, Wal-Mart began letting shoppers order merchandise online and pay for it with cash at a store when they picked it up.
Wal-Mart stumbled a few years ago with a push into high-end fashion, instead of sticking with cheaper clothing that suited its blue-collar customers.
Like McDonald's, which attracted more high-end customers with spruced-up restaurants while not abandoning its dollar menu, Wal-Mart's trick will be to build on the early success of some upscale apparel lines while continuing to offer low price points across its products, Shapira indicated.
There could be a downside of 7% to 8% to our stock price estimate for Wal-Mart if capital spending were to stay at around 13% of gross profits through the end of our forecast period.
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