By listing some of Wal-Mart's ever-multiplying faults, you have at least performed two valuable services: reminding those of us with a conscience why we never shop there and reminding your non-American readers that America's growing discontent with Wal-Mart indicates that they are not quite the ravenous consumer zombies of popular belief.
Carrefour, Wal-Mart's global archrival, beat Wal-Mart to South America, opening stores in Brazil in 1975, nearly two decades before Wal-Mart.
The California pension fund's lawsuit says Wal-Mart's alleged "rampant corruption" at its largest foreign subsidiary exposes the company to "potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of liability" for violating the federal law against foreign corruption.
Same-store sales at U.S. Wal-Mart locations have now advanced in four straight quarters, even as shoppers are constrained by tight budgets.
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She estimates that Wal-Mart sells around 22 million gallons of paint a year, split half and half between Sherwin's brand, Dutch Boy (set to be replaced by Azko's Glidden brand) and Wal-Mart's own brand, Color Place.
Part of December's problem could be Wal-Mart's own holiday business strategy.
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.
If Wal-Mart's audits find factories that have structural damage or life-threatening conditions, "we will immediately ask them to cease production, inform the factory buyers and the government, and insist the workers don't go back to facilities, " said Rajan Kamalanathan, Wal-Mart's head of ethical sourcing, in an interview.
The final piece of Wal-Mart's plan is to help part-time Wal-Mart workers transition into full-time employment if they so desire.
While Thursday's figures were discouraging, Wal-Mart's recession-friendly strategy has been paying off for its investors.
Today's business news starts with Wal-Mart's latest move in China.
Indeed, selling more to each customer was the main way in which Target boosted its same-store sales by 5.1% in the first quarter, thumping Wal-Mart's same-store growth of 3.8%.
Oliver Morante, John Forsyth's executive vice president, said Wal-Mart's list of banned factories is "another piece of information" to consider in deciding where to source future products.
Simplicity decided to stop selling to Wal-Mart because they found Wal-Mart's relentless pressure on costs to be at odds with Simplicity's mission to create high-quality products.
Its enterprise ratio is 19, just below the number for the U.S. Wal-Mart Stores.
"It's like Wal-Mart, " Outlaw said, after getting a shot in her upper left arm.
That's how Wal-Mart can break out of the sales doldrums and squeeze more profits out of stores.
Operating margins at U.S. Wal-Mart stores were 7.6% in the nine months ended October 31, but just 4.4% overseas.
Chains like Walgreen's and Wal-Mart expect the clinics to drive up sales at the cash register and pharmacy counter.
Weinswig, who assumes a more cautious outlook for the second half of fiscal 2010, lowered her earnings-per-share estimates for Target, Saks, Lowe's, Macy's, Kohl's, Wal-Mart, Nordstrom, J.
That's because Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) itself is partly responsible for the productivity engine that's helped shape the country's finances over the past two decades.
The latter would be a step too far even for the most reforming firms but several large companies, including McDonald's and Wal-Mart, have said that they will consider some reforms to the way board members are elected.
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The greater a county's distance from Bentonville, the later Wal-Mart's arrival there, regardless of the county's retailing appeal.
"It's a false premise, " says retail expert Britt Beemer of America's Research Group on the notion of Wal-Mart's same-store sales as a valid economic measurement.
But Wright's confidence wilted when she got to Wal-Mart's reception area.
"It's convenient to buy at Cisco--like it's convenient to buy at Wal-Mart, " but the quality sometimes isn't there, he argues.
That result was "toward the low end of its previous forecast, " a phrase that's been used so often with Wal-Mart it's begun to take on cult status in the American economy.
Target's strategy is in many ways the mirror image of Wal-Mart's, since the two companies' product offerings are converging.
You won't find any "Get Shorty" memos coming out of the 56, 000-square-foot trading floor in Houston's old Innova merchandise mart--or any round-trip swaps to inflate revenues.
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