Article

Wal-Mart gets off easy in 'Black Friday' death

WALMART COMES TO INDIA

By Alexandria Sage,
Reuters
November 30th, 2009                           [back to top]  

Online retail sales on "Cyber Monday" are set to reach a new record, with rivals Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Walmart.com set to be the prime beneficiaries, according to industry experts.

Shares of Amazon soared to an all-time high on Monday on optimism over the company's holiday performance and a statement by Amazon reporting record November sales for its Kindle electronic book reader. [ID:nN30447994]

The Web retail leader has been challenged by Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N) smaller online unit on offering the lowest prices on selected books, toys, electronics and other goods this holiday season.

"From a growth perspective, Walmart could potentially be the winner, but from a dollars perspective we still think Amazon will trump it," said Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali, who estimates that Amazon will report about 30 percent sales growth in its holiday fourth quarter.

Walmart does not break out sales for Walmart.com, but Squali estimates it to be a $2 billion to $3 billion business. While Web sales represent a fraction of overall U.S. holiday sales, they are gaining strength as consumers intent on bargains rely more on sites to track and compare deals.

Cyber Monday, a term coined in 2005 by Shop.org, the online division of the National Retail Federation, refers to Web promotions offered by retailers beginning on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Web tracking firm comScore said about $900 million could be spent online on Monday, when retailers offer steep discounts and free shipping on their sites. That follows an 11 percent surge in online sales to $595 million on Black Friday, the traditional start to holiday sales in stores. [ID:nN29421378]

ComScore will report Cyber Monday data on Wednesday. Total sales over the holiday weekend from Thanksgiving Day on Thursday through Sunday rose 0.5 percent to $41.2 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

Walmart.com began touting on Monday CyberWeek specials, such as a 32-inch Sony Bravia (6758.T) television for $398 and the newest model Apple (AAPL.O) iPod Nano for $145.

Amazon offered a Samsung 22-inch flat screen television for just under $250, a discount of 48 percent, and the newest iPod Nano model at $134.99.

EBAY MAY BE CHEAPER

The rivalry between Amazon and Walmart.com is part of an overall migration from the offline world to online, where more consumers have become comfortable making purchases.

"Ultimately, considering that e-commerce accounts for 8 percent at best of all commerce, there is still a long road ahead of them to gain marketshare from the 800 pound gorilla -- which is offline," said Squali.

Squali pointed to eBay, which he predicts still can increase sales on a percentage basis in the low teens year over year. Shares of eBay closed up 5.4 percent at $24.47, fueled by strong results from its online payments unit PayPal over the holiday weekend.

EBay, which is advertising "12 Days of Deals" on its main site, is still cheap compared with other Internet rivals whose valuations are richer, Squali said.

EBay has a forward-looking price-to-earnings ratio of 14, versus 52 at Amazon, 22 at Google Inc (GOOG.O) and 14 at Wal-Mart.

Shares of Amazon rose 3.2 percent to close at $135.91 on the Nasdaq, while shares of Wal-Mart closed on the New York Stock Exchange down 8 cents at $54.55.

GLOVES OFF AT WALMART.COM

Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist with Global Hunter Securities, said Amazon has the "ultimate edge" for its array of third-party sellers and brands that use the Amazon.com site to display their wares.

"Walmart.com, while it is excellent and massive in scale, still doesn't have the multitude of third-party unaffiliated brands," Hastings said. "It still doesn't approach what Amazon is bringing to the show."

Squali gave a nod to the recent accomplishments of Walmart.com, a 10-year-old business that for years lived in the shadows of Walmart stores without effectively competing.

"It looks like in the past six months they've started to give freer range to the online managers to do whatever it takes to go after Amazon, and that's why you're seeing them gain some ground," he said.

Shop.org predicted that some 96.5 million shoppers would shop online on Monday, up 13.5 percent from 85 million last year. The day is characterized by promotions advertised online, through email and social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

AlertSite, a company that monitors the performance of websites, said the major online retailers' sites held up well under the heavy Cyber Monday traffic, but those of Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) and Kohl's Corp (KSS.N) experienced timeouts earlier in the day.

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Wal-Mart To Invest $150 Million In Argentina In 2010

By Taos Turne,
Dow Jones Newswires
November 29th, 2009 -               [back to top]  

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) will invest $150 million in Argentina in 2010 to expand operations, the company said late Wednesday.

Wal-Mart Argentina President Ezequiel Gomez Berard made the announcement in a meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez.

In addition to its local retail operations, it has been exporting goods, Wal-Mart said in a statement.

In 2008 Wal-Mart Argentina exported goods totaling $30 million while so far this year it has exported $36 million worth of products to Brazil, Japan and the U.S.

Wal-Mart employs 9,100 workers in Argentina.

So far this year, the retail giant has invested $120 million to open stores. By the end of 2009, Wal-Mart will have 43 stores in 32 cities around the country.

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Black Friday: Police also called to Wal-Mart in Rancho Cucamonga

By Tiffany Hsu
and Andrea Chang,
Los Angeles Times
November 27th, 2009                       [back to top]  

As happened earlier in Upland, police were called to the Wal-Mart in Rancho Cucamonga after Black Friday customers got a bit too feisty, authorities said.

Wal-Mart management decided to close the store just hours after the Upland location nearby also shut its doors for several hours, said Jodi Miller, public information officer with the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department. A spokesman for Wal-Mart said the store didn't actually close.

Deputies were called at 4:03 a.m. and told that “subjects near the electronics area were fighting,” Miller said.

But “it was all over when we got there,” she said. None of the people allegedly involved were found; neither was the person who had reported the supposed scuffle.

Deputies eventually left without making any arrests, and patrolled the area for a while afterward without any incident. Wal-Mart managers in Rancho Cucamonga declined to comment.

Dave Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the chain had actually received "very positive feedback" about its Black Friday safety measures.

"We had new safety plans in place this year at stores across the country and they were store-specific," he said. "There have been a few scuffles, but overall it's been a very safe event with no major issues."

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Walmart peaceful year after deadly NY stampede

Associated Press
November 27th, 2009               [back to top]  

Crowd control at all Walmart stores in New York appeared to be smooth Friday, a year after a security guard was crushed to death by a stampede of shoppers.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said her office was unaware of any injuries or property damage at Walmart stores in New York on the day after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

The prosecutor's office also said it appears company crowd control measures "improved significantly since last year."

In California, a Walmart store in Upland closed its doors for several hours after shoppers began fighting over merchandise. Lt. Jim Etchason said officers were called about 2:44 a.m. and helped herd customers into the parking lot.

No arrests were made, Etchason said, and groups of customers were allowed back inside by 6 a.m.

San Bernardino County sheriff's spokesman Jodi Miller said another scuffle was reported at a Walmart in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., but deputies did not find any disturbances.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said in a statement earlier Friday that it was getting positive feedback from its customers and associates nationwide.

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Wal-Mart Price Pressure Hurts China Worker

By Ben Blanchard and
Emma Graham-Harrison,
Reuters
November 26th, 2009                   [back to top]  

BEIJING - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's demand for rock-bottom prices from suppliers in China means some of these companies are forcing their employees to work in sweatshop-like conditions, a new report said on Wednesday.

China Labor Watch said Wal-Mart, which also operates more than 250 stores in China, is failing to pick up on such abuses when it carries out audits of certain suppliers, calling into doubt pledges to source ethically.

"As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart leverages its massive product orders to purchase goods at low prices, and workers suffer the financial burden," China Labor Watch, a New York-based rights group, said.

Wal-Mart said it launched an investigation into the five factories referenced in the report after learning of the allegations.

"We take reports like this very seriously, and we will take prompt remedial action if our investigations confirm any of the alleged findings," according to a statement from Wal-Mart spokesman Richard Coyle.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and with more than 60,000 suppliers worldwide, procures billions of dollars worth of goods directly from China every year.

The company said last year that it would enforce stricter quality and environmental standards for its army of Chinese suppliers.

But in some factories run by Wal-Mart suppliers, China Labor Watch found pay was withheld to workers who did not meet production targets, and employees who were given only poor quality food or accommodation.

In two of the factories, workers were banned from wearing gloves, lest it slowed production, the report said.

"Worst of all, two of the factories have rules forcing workers to lie to Wal-Mart auditors, forcing workers into silence as Wal-Mart turns a blind eye to sweatshop conditions," the report said.

While China Labor Watch noted that Wal-Mart had "responded enthusiastically" to help factories which do not meet standards, there had been no overall, systematic improvement.

"Wal-Mart has basic standards which it must implement," China Labor Watch said.

"It has the size and power to be an industry leader, and this will not come from Ethical Standards Program initiatives alone but also from major change to Wal-Mart's corporate practices, including increased investment in the audit system and careful review of purchasing practices," it added.

"The case of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, shows that corporate codes of conduct and factory auditing are not enough by themselves to strengthen workers' rights if corporations are unwilling to pay the real price it costs to produce a product according to the standards in their codes."

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Wal-Mart has not applied for retail stores-India min

By Rajesh Kumar Singh,
Reuters
November 25th, 2009                [back to top]  

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N), the world's largest retailer, has not sought to invest in retail stores in India, the junior trade minister told parliament on Wednesday.

The U.S. firm has also not sought any changes to India's ban on foreign holdings in multi-brand retail, Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a written reply.

India does not permit foreign direct investment in multiple-brand retailers, and caps foreign holdings in single-branded retailers at 51 percent.

Wal-Mart currently runs cash-and-carry operations in India in partnership with Bharti Enterprises.

Trade Minister Anand Sharma told parliament the government had no plans to review foreign ownership rules for the retail sector. [ID:nDEL002368]

The entry of multinational retailers like Wal-Mart into India has been mired in controversy, with moves to open up the sector opposed by leftist parties and small traders fearful of job losses.

India's fragmented and tightly controlled $400-billion retail industry is forecast to nearly double in size by 2015, but less than 5 percent of the market is in the hands of modern retailers.

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Walmart maybe can't sell caskets in Georgia

By Jeffry Scott ,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
November 24th, 2009                          [back to top]  

At the Atlanta Casket Store on Glenwood Road, owner Wyatt Washington surveys the shifting landscape of the funeral industry since Walmart got into the online casket and funeral urn business.

He’s dressed in a funeral director's black-and-white pinstripe suit, sitting in the parlor of his modest store. He nods over his right shoulder at two back rooms where eight gleaming caskets sit on display for drop-in customers.

“Walmart can only sell the caskets they have online,” said Washington. “They can’t customize them like I can. With them, it’s what you see is what you get. In this personal business where one size doesn’t fit all, that’s a big deal.”

Or is it? Will customers forsake the high touch transaction of buying a casket or urn for a dearly departed one from a store or funeral home if they can buy the same box or vessel online for half as much, or less, from the discount giant?

And, if Walmart does indeed shake the foundations of the funeral industry with its decision to sell discount caskets and urns, that may not wind up mattering to Georgians. A state law could prevent the retailer from selling or delivering discount funeral merchandise here.

On Tuesday the Georgia Secretary of State's office sent a letter to Walmart telling the company it is required to be registered with the state to sell funeral merchandise and as of now, it may be in violation of state law if a Georgia consumer buys a casket online from its Website.

"We've asked that the application to be registered with the state be received from Walmart no later than December 31st," said Secretary of State director of media relations Matt Carrothers, who added that if the retailer can provide reason it doesn't need to be registered, that could resolve the matter, too.

Walmart isn’t talking in detail about its venture, which it launched last month without fanfare by simply posting caskets for sale on its Website, walmart.com.

Walmart did not answer questions from an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tuesday seeking to clarify whether the company has a registered agent and is selling caskets and urns in Georgia.

At least one other online casket retailer, Costco, which has been selling caskets online and in some of its stores for five years, said it does not sell or ship caskets to Georgia because of state regulations.

“There’s a regulatory situation that makes it unattractive to us,” company counsel Leigh Fulwood said, declining to elaborate.

Georgia’s funeral industry has long fought free market sale of caskets and urns and for good reason. Casket sales drove profits for funeral homes, which typically marked them up 200 percent to 400 percent, according to the national organization Funeral Consumers Alliance.

In 1984, the Federal Trade Commission passed a law requiring funeral homes to accept caskets from third party suppliers, opening to competition the funeral home and merchandise business, worth an estimated annual $11 billion nationwide.

But in Georgia, it wasn’t until 1998, when a federal judge threw out a 1991 state law, that casket stores such as Washington’s became legal and the bereaved were no longer captives of the funeral home industry.

In the years since, few casket stores have survived across the state. Funeral homes, forced into competitive pricing, cut or matched casket prices (often making up the difference by charging more for services) and used other tactics to thwart competition, said Washington, who opened his store eleven years ago.

“The first thing they did was scare people,” said Washington. “You heard a lot of stories that if you bought a casket from a store, the bottom was going to fall out or the handles fall off. In all my years in the business, I've never heard of a case of that actually happening."

Washington said when the judge's ruling opened up the market, it lured in many operators who didn't know the business.

"They figured they’d jump in quick and get rich" Washington said. "It didn’t work out that way.”

In the last 11 years, about 15 casket stores have come and gone in the state, he estimates. Atlanta has at least one other, Best Buy Casket Company, on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. A company official declined to be interviewed for this story.

Washington said he will meet or better Walmart’s prices -- they range from $999 to $3,199 -- in addition to providing personal service. He also has the ability to deliver a casket in a matter of hours, not days.

Walmart is calling the venture a “limited beta test to understand consumer response,” said company spokesperson Amy Lester.

Funeral home owner and director Ralph Buckner Jr. doesn’t underestimate the clout of the big box retailer if it sets its mind to selling caskets on the same grand scale it sells everything else.

Buckner owns 31 funeral homes in the South, including two in Gainesville, Ga., and he’s been watching the test closely. He said he has yet to lose a customer to Walmart, though it is early.

“They’re smart,” Buckner said. “They’re seeing if they can shake things up without having to put any money into it or using the valuable floor space in their stores or taking a real risk.”

He said if the consumer response is what Walmart hopes, “I don’t doubt they’ll start selling them in stores.”

Either way, says casket store owner Washington, it will be good for his business.

“Right now I spend 75 percent of my time, my advertising, explaining to people they don’t have to buy a casket from a funeral home,” he said. “With Walmart getting in, everybody knows that now.”

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NORTH TONAWANDA: Walmart, NT sued again

By Neale Gulley,
Tonawanda News
November 24th, 2009                 [back to top]  

A second lawsuit was filed against Walmart and the City of North Tonawanda last week by opponents of the project, just as the remnants of the last one were being resolved.

The city is preparing responses to the new three-point suit, filed Nov. 18 in state Supreme Court in Niagara Falls.

The newest suit contends that a storm water pollution prevention plan recently resubmitted by the city to satisfy a court order issued from the last suit, still isn’t up to snuff.

“It’s baseless as far as we’re concerned,” City Attorney Shawn Nickerson said.

Attorney David Seeger, representing the citizens group opposed to Walmart’s bid to build on the site of the former Melody Fair grounds, said much of the argument centers on a water management plan reviewed by City Engineer Dale Marshall. Seeger said it may address flooding, but not water quality.

“How this difference of opinion surfaces is, for years civil engineers have focused more on flood control,” Seeger said, adding the plan doesn’t require Walmart to include ponds and other devices to meet state water quality objectives.

Also, the new lawsuit claims a city right of way on the outskirts of the planned development site that must be sold to make way for the retailer is actually park land, meaning the sale must be approved by the state legislature before it can be turned into a roadway.

The city will likely claim that’s flat out wrong, however, Seeger said the use of the land over the years has been park-like in nature.

The arguments were filed just as the city met in Niagara Falls Supreme Court before Judge Ralph Boniello to resolve the one successful point of 11 others included in the last suit. At that time, Seeger on behalf of NT First, successfully appealed to have the storm water plan resubmitted before the final site plan approval. Originally, city planners OK’d the plans without a water management proposal in hand.

That meant city officials had to go back and again approve the overall plan several weeks ago, but this time after also resubmitting and approving the original storm water management scheme.

A hearing on the new lawsuit is scheduled for Dec. 16 again before Judge Boniello.

“We’re working on putting our answer together,” Nickerson said. “Without getting too technical it deals with the (storm water) approval and there are other arguments he’s making. It’s out position that they’re baseless.”

Though he didn’t wish to tip the city’s legal hand heading into the next hearing, Nickerson indicated the timeliness of Seeger’s second suit may be grounds for consideration of dismissal.

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Applications for help up, but Wal-Mart pulls out of Salvation Army program

By Michelle Brooks,
News Tribune
November 24th, 2009                            [back to top]  

Networking during last Christmas season resulted in the local Salvation Army concentrating its Angel Tree efforts in its two designated counties, Miller and Cole.

Civic organizations and social service agencies will help collect and distribute toys for needy children in Moniteau, Osage and Callaway counties, as well as in the Lake of the Ozarks area.

“We expected to see a decrease,” said Capt. Terry Selvage. But so many new families have signed up for the Angel Tree program that the 700 tags this year is close to the 750 tags from the five-county area last year, he said.

With the number of children hoping for toys, goodies and clothing provided by the community, Salvation Army officials said they were disappointed to learn Wal-Mart stores this season will not set-up Angel Trees, where community members may take a child's tag listing his wishes.

“That was a major blow, especially this late in the season,” Selvage said. “(That store) accounted for 250-300 Angel Tree tags.”

So not only is the Army hoping the community's generosity will continue as in past years it hopes that some new businesses or locations will be a host location for a tree.

The Salvation Army Angel Trees were set up last week at Big K-Mart, Lincoln University and the Capitol.

The hosting organization only needs to supply a tree, The Salvation Army will supply the tags.

“If we don't get these tags out somewhere else, the kids will still get gifts,” Selvage said.

However, the United Way of Central Missouri member agency will cover the costs out of its operating budget.

“When the community purchases gifts, the more money we raise for kettles,” which goes to the local shelter and social services programs, Selvage said.

When someone takes the tag, they should return the items by Dec. 15 to Big K-Mart, Lincoln University or The Salvation Army, 927 Jefferson St.

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Information scarce on crib recall

By Petti Fong,
The Star
November 24th, 2009              [back to top]  

All drop-side cribs by any manufacturer are unsafe and parents should stop using them, the head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Tuesday morning in the wake of a recall of 2.1 million of cribs from a Vancouver-area manufacturer.

Inez Tenenbaum told NBC's Today show that she recommends that parents replace their drop-side crib if they are using one.

More than 2.1 million cribs drop-side cribs distributed by a Vancouver-area manufacturer were recalled Monday after they were linked to the suffocation of at least four children in the United States.

Up to 5 million drop-side cribs by various manufacturers have been recalled in the last few years and ASTM International, a voluntary industry standards organization in the U.S., recently announced it would no longer certify any drop-side crib in North America.

Cribs get passed down through generations but "it's not worth it" if the crib is drop-sided, Tenenbaum said. "They are shown to not be reliable. In the future, you will not see cribs with drop-sides. These drop-sides will be banned."

Monday's recall involves cribs dating back to 1993.

Concerned parents had little luck first thing Tuesday morning trying to get more information about the recall.

Calling the toll-free number (1-877-274-0277) given out by safety authorities in both countries for parents to order a free repair kit resulted in a constant busy signal.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission toll-free information line, meanwhile, produced a litany of automated recall information but nothing substantive on the crib recall. The Health Canada website directed parents to the toll-free number or the manufacturer's website.

The manufacturer's website, storkcraft.com, appeared to not be working.

In announcing the voluntary recall Monday of 1.2 million Stork Craft drop-side cribs in the U.S. and 968,000 in Canada, government safety authorities in both countries urged parents to stop using the cribs immediately and contact the Vancouver-area manufacturer.

The U.S. safety commission warned the plastic hardware on the cribs can break or go missing. The drop side, which allows consumers to lower one part of the crib, can also be installed upside down, leading to broken parts, it said in a statement.

The defects or installation problems can cause the drop side to detach in one or more corners and create space between the drop side and the mattress, making it possible for infants or toddlers to get trapped and suffocate. When the drop side detaches completely, children can fall from the crib.

The U.S. and Canadian governments are aware of 110 incidents of the drop side breaking off, including 67 in the U.S. and 43 in Canada.

Of 12 infants who got trapped in the cribs in the U.S., four died of suffocation, including two aged 7 months, a 9-month-old and a 6-month-old. Three babies became trapped in Canada, but all survived. There were 20 cases of babies falling from the cribs, including eight in Canada, with injuries ranging from concussion to bumps and bruises.

It is the second time this year the company has recalled cribs. In January, Health Canada recalled Stork Craft cribs with a manufacturing date between May 2000 and May 2008 and bearing the firm's insignia "storkcraft baby" after it found a problem with the metal support brackets for the mattress frame.

The massive recall includes cribs sold in Canada through Sears and Wal-Mart. Two models of Stork Craft cribs with drop sides and plastic brackets, the Holly and the Lily, were on sale at Sears at the Toronto Eaton Centre and Sherway Gardens Monday night.

The recall includes Stork Craft cribs with manufacturing and distribution dates between January 1993 and October 2009. Nearly 150,000 of the cribs carry a Fisher-Price logo. It also includes Stork Craft cribs with the Fisher-Price logo manufactured between October 1997 and December 2004.

Stork Craft has an 85,000 square-foot plant in Richmond, near Vancouver. According to a company profile, 10 per cent of its 50 products are made in Canada. The rest are built in China and Indonesia.

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Sister of worker Jdimytai Damour who died in Wal-Mart Black Friday stampede blasts 'new rules''

By MATT LYSIAK AND
CHRISTINA BOYLE ,
New York Daily News
November 24th, 2009                          [back to top]  

The sister of the Long Island Wal-Mart worker trampled to death in last year's Black Friday sale says the store's attempts to improve safety around are too little, too late.

Danielle Damour, 42, believes the retailer's new crowd control measures are more about preserving its image than looking after its staff.

"Where was all this concern for safety when my brother was being trampled?" Damour said from her home in Hollis, Queens.

"These new rules are for the newspapers. It's all for show."

Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old temporary maintenance worker, died of asphyxiation when a stampede of bargain-hungry shoppers stormed through the doors of the Valley Stream outlet at 5 a.m. on Black Friday 2008.

This year, to avoid another senseless tragedy, most stores will remain open 24 hours starting Thanksgiving Day so early-bird customers can line up at individual sections of the store, instead of rushing the doors at opening time.

Damour's family has filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, and lawyers said "positive discussions" were taking place between the two sides.

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Retailers look to stretch out Cyber Monday push

Associated Press
November 23rd, 2009                       [back to top]  

Retailers are looking to extend their annual Cyber Monday holiday marketing pushes, pitching them as Cyber Weekends or even Cyber Weeks. Target, Walmart, Toys R Us and others on Monday unveiled online sales throughout the holiday weekend, with additional sales on Nov. 30, or Cyber Monday. That's the Monday after Thanksgiving when many look online for deals while at work. J.C. Penney will offer online sales for items such as clothes and electronics next Monday and Tuesday. Walmart.com plans to push the deals starting Monday through Dec. 4. Target will offer daily online deals for two weeks beginning Nov. 29 on some housewares, electronics and other categories.

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Cops release details of deadly Black Friday stampede

By MATTHEW CHAYES,
Newsday
November 23rd, 2009                          [back to top]  

For years, a Walmart worker told police, he stood at the front of its Valley Stream store ready to pick up shoppers who fell during the Black Friday frenzy to get inside.

The employee was interviewed by a detective investigating the death last year of Jdimytai Damour, a seasonal co-worker who was trampled as shoppers rushed in for bargains on the day after Thanksgiving.

"I was there, like in past years, to help people up as they fall coming in the doors," the worker, Dennis Smokes, said in a sworn statement that is in newly released Nassau County police files on the case.

Smokes, who still works for the retailer, declined to comment when contacted at his apartment in Jamaica, Queens.

According to the Nassau district attorney's office, a year before Damour's death, on the same store's Black Friday, a crowd pushed the entrance doors off the hinges, and there was "largescale pushing and shoving and customers falling to the ground and being trampled."

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has said last year's melee was unforeseeable and that it occurred despite the company's precautions. Spokeswoman Daphne Moore declined to comment on information contained in the police files but referred to the company's prior statements.

The death of Damour led to a safety settlement between the company and the Nassau district attorney, a finding of fault against the company by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the nation's workplace safety agency, that the retailer is contesting, and lawsuits alleging Walmart failed to prevent a foreseeable stampede. Local lawmakers also began crafting legislation to regulate safety and crowd control at mega-sales events.

This week, most Walmart stores will be open for 24 hours for post-Thanksgiving Day shopping, and new crowd-control measures are in place as part of the settlement.

New Black Friday details

Among the new information in the police files, which were obtained earlier this month under state open-records laws and which give a detailed picture of that morning:

A Dec. 11 grand jury subpoena served on Walmart sought surveillance footage, as well as sales receipts from that morning, and the names and numbers "of all customers making credit card purchases." County authorities said in the weeks after Damour's death of positional asphyxia that they were deciding whether to prosecute anyone in the stampede. Ultimately no one was charged in his death.

Three Wal-Mart Stores Inc. corporate executives; Tony Restuccia, northeast division's senior director; Steve Dozier, corporate services vice president; and Brian Broadus, regional asset protection director, met with the homicide squad "for the purpose of information exchange." They gave no formal sworn statements at the meeting.

Deadly sequence of events

Last year, the first shoppers began to arrive at the Green Acres Mall store in Valley Stream before midnight, queuing near a handwritten sign: "Blitz Line Starts Here."

The store had positioned orange barricades. The line stretched the length of the building, along the fence and deep into the parking lot - hours before the scheduled 5 a.m. opening. Waiting sale items included a Polaroid 42-inch LCD HDTV for $598.

As the crowd of hundreds grew to thousands, officers from the Fifth Precinct in Elmont were called to restore order. The crowd later became enraged when an employee let his family cut the line, workers told police.

The store devised a plan: An assistant manager would unlock the front doors - sliding glass panels that led to the vestibule. Next, eight to 10 "big-bodied employees," as one worker told police, would be there as the doors were pulled open by employees.

Police said the store used the chosen big bodies, Damour among them, as security. He had no security training and had worked there for four days, having been sent by Hempstead's Labor Ready employment agency. Then about 4:55 a.m., "We did a countdown," worker Alton Calhoun told police.

The doors had been open barely a foot and a half when workers saw a pregnant woman "in distress," being pressed up against the glass. Trying to keep her safe, they pulled her inside.

Just then, pushes and shoves thrust the door off its hinges.

From worker Jaime Thompson's vantage point atop a soda vending machine on which he had jumped to refuge, he saw the door fall onto Damour, and then shoppers "walking over him," his statement said.

Said Calhoun: "I saw Damour under one of the doors face down."

As shoppers stomped over the 34-year-old to reach limited-time-only sales, his panicked co-workers tried to encircle him in a protective cocoon.

"The big guy was down," one worker would tell another, according to the police files.

Amid the chaos, Damour didn't react to the attempts to rouse him. His eyes had rolled in the back of his head. His tongue was out. Damour died as the crowd went shopping.

Store manager Steve Sooknanan told cops he didn't know anyone had been hurt until he heard about it over the walkie-talkie.

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Plea Deal Reached In Wal-Mart Linecutting Case

Associated Press
November 22nd, 2009           [back to top]  

A black school teacher who claimed white police officers abused and assaulted her agreed Friday to a plea deal.

The deal allows Heather Ellis, 24, to avoid a felony conviction for her part in a January 2007 scuffle that began over cutting in line at a Wal-Mart.

The case drew national attention because of its racial overtones: Ellis is black and the customer she argued with, the assistant store manager and police officers are white.

Race was not prominently discussed in Ellis’ trial. However, prosecutor Morley Swingle said in his closing statement that Ellis and other defense witnesses were trying to portray Kennett, a southeast Missouri town that is about 13 percent black, as “some racist Hooterville.”

The case prompted rallies from both sides of the racial divide. About 100 Ellis supporters rallied Monday, and some of about three dozen counter-protesters showed swastikas or Confederate flags.

Ellis, a Kennett native who now teaches in Louisiana, pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and disturbing the peace. Swingle dropped two felony counts of assault on a law officer. Ellis will be placed on unsupervised probation for a year, but must serve four days in jail. If she completes probation, her record will be wiped clean.

Ellis said it had been worth going to trial this week even though a similar deal had been offered earlier.

“I still think it’s important my story got out,” she said.

Jurors see video in Wal-Mart scuffle trial

UPI
November 20th, 2009                  [back to top]  

Jurors looked at a Wal-Mart store video of a scuffle that led to the arrest of a black woman in Missouri on charges including assaulting police officers.

In one of the tapes, taken from a camera above a cash register and played in court Thursday, the woman, Heather Ellis, 24, appears to shove merchandise to the side of a conveyor belt at a cash register several times, CNN reported.

Another tape shows police leading her from the store as she holds her arm in the air. A third, taken from the parking lot, shows officers handcuffing her and her kicking backward at police, the reported said.

Ellis' attorney said she did so after police assaulted her.

Ellis is charged with assaulting police officers, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace in connection with the January 2007 incident in Kennett, Mo. She could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

She said white patrons shoved her and uttered racial slurs when she switched checkout lanes. When store employees refused to give her change, she called police, she said. One police officer said, "Go back to the ghetto," and another handled her roughly, she said.

Witnesses and police, however, say Ellis butted in line, moved another customer's purchases to make room for hers, kicked one officer and split another's lip.

Al Fischer, one of the officers who responded, testified Thursday Ellis shouted, threatened him and kicked and swung when he tried to handcuff her.

Ellis, a schoolteacher who is engaged to a state trooper, refused an offer from prosecutors two years ago in which she would have received probation in exchange for dropping her complaint against police, said her father, the Rev. Nathaniel Ellis.

"She decided not to sign it, because she was taught to never admit guilt when you're innocent," he said, adding his daughter was a victim of "blatant, overt racism."

Officials with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the American Civil Liberties Union say the case reflects racial bias in the town, where blacks comprise 13 percent of the population.

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Walmart workers testify in Ellis trial in Kennett

By Joshua Payne,
Daily Dunklin Democrat
November 20th, 2009                          [back to top]

The Heather Ellis trial resumed Thursday, with the jury hearing testimonies from 12 different individuals.

Ellis, a 24-year-old Louisiana schoolteacher, is accused of four charges, two of assault to an officer of the law, one resisting arrest, and one peace disturbance, in connection with an incident that occurred at Walmart on Jan. 6, 2007.

Betsy Walls, the store cashier involved with the incident, was first to testify on behalf of the state, represented by Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle. Walls noted in her testimony that Ellis arrived on the scene pushing another customer's items back on the conveyer belt to make room for her own items ahead of the customer's.

Walls also noted that she attempted to continue doing her job of running the cashier while waiting for management and security to handle Ellis, who reportedly became "belligerent," and "out of control."

In response to Walls' statement, defense attorney Scott Rosenblum asked if at any point the cashier tried to resolve the issue by asking others what had occurred, to which Walls replied, "No."

The second testimony of the day came from another Walmart employee, assistant manager Kay McDaniel.

McDaniel explained in her testimony that when she arrived on the scene Ellis was upset. She noted that she asked Ellis to move to the back of the line, or to exit the store. The defense asked McDaniel if she at any time tried to correct the problems or listen to Ellis' side of the story, to which McDaniel replied, "No."

Others providing testimonies during the day included Walmart employees Loretta Cunningham, Linda Maddox, Robin Flood, former Kennett police officer Al Fisher, Sgt. Joe Stewart of the Kennett Police Department, officer Phillip Caldwell of the Kennett Police Department, officer Alan Campbell of the Kennett Police Department, Cpl. Craig Moody of the Kennett Police Department, witness Brandon Elliott and witness Ashley Elliott.

The defense worked to disprove credibility of the witnesses by asking each witness to inform the jury that they had met as a group several times with Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Sokoloff.

Also during the trial, the jury was able to review a surveillance tape provided by Walmart that the prosecution noted clearly shows Ellis pushing another customer's merchandise back.

Look for more on this story later.

The trial was set to resume at 9 a.m. today at the Dunklin County Courthouse.

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Once Again, Walmart Stops People From Printing Family Photos Due To Copyright Law Claims

TechDirt
November 20th, 2009                 [back to top] 

It's been many years since we first wrote about how stores like Walmart were dealing with ridiculous copyright laws by telling employees to simply not allow the printing of "professional-looking" photos, just in case they were covered by someone else's copyright. Last year, a story popped up about a Walmart employee not letting a family print their own old family photos for this reason. It looks like we've got yet another such story. greenbird was the first of a few of you to send in this story about Walmart (yet again) not allowing the printing of family photos (this time for a funeral, which makes it that much more tragic), with copyright used as the reason. Once again, the employee made some dumb statements, such as saying "copyright is forever."

But, just like last time, I have to say that we shouldn't blame the Walmart employee, who is just trying to protect her job, and lives in a world where copyright maximalists constantly push this sort of message. It's not her fault, it's the fault of current copyright law, which makes such things seems reasonable, and the ongoing effort by lobbyists and politicians to only push copyright law further in that direction.

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When Walmart Comes to Town, Other Retailers Self Destruct

By Mike Duff,
BNET
November 20th, 2009                       [back to top]

Walmart really didn’t need a study coming out that says it hurts local businesses when it enters a market but what the retailer might not have needed is something it might be able to use.

Walmart (WMT) scrutiny has been raised a notch because of last year’s Black Friday incident when one of its stores on New York’s Long Island suffered a death among its staff when customers anxious to take advantage of doorbuster specials literally burst through the entrance and trampled a worker. The incident was widely covered and widely commented on in the media as evidence of all sorts of Walmart- and holiday-related ills. Walmart later settled a lawsuit with relatives of the man who died.

Now, a study emerging from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business concludes that Walmart significantly impacts sales at other local stores when it enters a market, driving down sales at established mass merchandisers by 40 percent and at area supermarkets by 17 percent.

Yet, Kusum Ailawadi, a professor of marketing who led the study, noted that how other retailers react to a Walmart market entrance has a big impact on their prospects thereafter. Most often, the competing retailers cut prices, which is the least effective thing they can do. They simply won’t beat Walmart on price, so the move is essentially ineffective. For some consumers, price cutting is likely to reinforce Walmart’s price superiority. If a store that they’ve patronized slashes prices and comes up short anyway, the move is an argument to shift spending to Walmart.

Competing retailers also reduced the number of brands that they carried, which Ailawadi again found was a mistaken strategy. What they should do is change their product mix to establish clear differences in selection from Walmart.

In fact, small businesses – the ones Walmart critics like to weep over when trying to generate antipathy for the company – have an advantage in making effective adjustments in selection because they can fine tune inventory to avoid competing with Walmart. They can do that without generating a negative reaction from consumers who are used to shopping them for a wide variety of items, as can be the case with larger retailers.

By the way, while the new study provides more evidence, the conclusions aren’t new. For years, analysis has demonstrated that retailers can readily survive Walmart’s market entrance if they adopt a mix of products that is different and if they are among the more financially sound in the marketplace. A professor from the University of Iowa even taught a seminar on the subject. Research by David Rogers indicates that retailers can withstand Walmart’s entrance into the market if they have deeper pockets than their traditional competitors. The access to cash permits retailers to withstand the self-defeating discounting that those long-term rivals are likely to unleash when Walmart comes to town. Resulting business failures, by that reasoning, can’t be entirely blamed on Walmart.

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OSHA urges Black Friday precautions

Bloomberg News
November 19th, 2009                    [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other retailers are being told by the government to take greater precautions with their Black Friday shopping events to avoid a repeat of last year’s problems, when a worker was trampled by customers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration urged merchants to consider things like using a bullhorn to manage crowds, setting up barricades or rope lines, and clearing the entrances of shopping carts and other potentially dangerous obstacles.

The guidelines also call for using an Internet lottery for “hot’’ sales items, staffing entrances with uniformed guards, and providing public toilets.

Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has said it will extend store hours to help manage crowds.

OSHA’s guidelines are “similar, though less comprehensive’’ than the steps the National Retail Federation recommended to its members, said Joseph LaRocca, a senior adviser on security issues for the association.

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Walmart stores to host H1N1 clinics

By Danielle Camilli,
Burlington County Times
November 19th, 2009                 [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Mollen Immunization Clinics, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., are providing H1N1 flu shots at select stores today and Friday. The shots will cost $15 but may be fully covered by health insurance. All clinics are in the stores from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Today, vaccinations are available at stores on Route 70 in Evesham and Route 541 in Burlington Township. They also are available at South Jersey stores in Audubon and Vineland.

Vaccinations will be available Friday at the Cinnaminson store on Route 130 as well as in Deptford, West Berlin and Hammonton.

For the full listing and more information, visit flushotsusa.walmart.com.

Priority groups that should be vaccinated, as identified by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are pregnant women; people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months; health care and emergency medical services personnel; children and adults between the ages of 6 months and 24 years old; and people ages 25 through 64 who are at higher risk because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.

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Wal-Mart chief of Latin America leaves company

Associated Press
November 18th, 2009                [back to top]

The leader of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Latin American division, Vicente Trius, is leaving the company after having served less than five months in the position. The world's largest retailer said Wednesday that Trius was departing but did not give a reason. Company spokesman Kevin Gardner said he couldn't elaborate on the development, however he said Wal-Mart hopes to quickly hire a replacement. Trius spent 11 years running Wal-Mart's Brazil operation before being tapped to lead the company's Asia stores for a year before taking the Latin America post. The move was announced to staff on Tuesday by company international division chief Doug McMillon. Trius assumed the Latin America job on July 6.

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7 toys and other products exceed lead limits, California says

By Melissa Rohlin,
Los Angeles Times
November 18th, 2009                      [back to top]

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown issued a safety warning Tuesday, alleging that seven toys and other products tested by the Center for Environmental Health this month contained illegal levels of lead.

According to the center's report, Disney Fairies Silvermist's Water Lily Necklace sold by Walgreens contains 22,000 parts per million of lead, more than the limit of 300 per million allowed under federal law.

Disney's vice president of corporate communications, Gary Foster, said the product, which is licensed by Disney and manufactured by Playmates Toys, was tested by Walgreens and Playmates Toys and complies with "all applicable state and federal consumer safety regulations."

He added that the discrepancy between the two tests is being investigated.

The Barbie Bike Flair Accessory Kit sold by Tuesday Morning, which is licensed by Mattel and manufactured by Bell Sports, contains 6,196 parts per million of lead, the report said.

Thom Parks, vice president of corporate affairs at Bell Sports, said he's not sure when the product was made, "but we do know that it passed federal standards at the time."

"I'm not sure how the product got on the shelves at Tuesday Morning," he added.

Mattel's vice president of corporate affairs, Lisa Marie Bongiovanni, said that while the company "doesn't come into contact with the product, control the product, or manufacture the product," it requires that licensees comply with all applicable standards and provide test reports and data.

Even though those products contain relatively small amounts of lead, Center for Environmental Health spokesman Charles Margulis said that they are dangerous because lead poisoning is cumulative.

"That much lead might not hurt a kid, but kids don't live in isolation. If everyone gets a pass, kids end up lead-poisoned," Margulis said.

The center is offering free toy testing over the holidays in its Oakland office. He warns parents to avoid cheap metal jewelry, vinyl and brightly painted products from overseas and other items that tend to contain high levels of lead.

In 2008 the attorney general's office reached a $1.8-million settlement with several toy companies that were found to have excessive lead in their products, according to a statement it released Tuesday. The settlement allocated $550,000 to a fund to test toys for lead. The Center for Environmental Health used a grant from the fund to test the toys.

Other products that the center says have abnormal amounts of lead are the Kids Poncho and MSY Faded Glory Rebecca Shoes, both sold by Wal-Mart; Reversible Croco Belt sold by Target; Dora the Explorer Activity Tote sold by TJ Maxx; and Paula Fuschia Open-Toed Shoes sold by Sears.

The attorney general's office sent a letter last week to the affected retailers warning them that the products contain illegal levels of lead and asking that they pull them from shelves immediately.

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Wal-Mart confirms some Black Friday deals

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO,
Associated Press
November 17th, 2009                 [back to top]

The official kickoff for the holiday shopping season is more than a week away. But the nation's retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., are already starting to let shoppers know about their fat discounts in hopes of attracting big crowds. Wal-Mart Stores confirmed on Tuesday some of the deals it will be pushing to draw crowds for the day after Thanksgiving. It also announced weekly savings starting this Saturday on popular toys and video games that it's pitching as comparable to the Black Friday sales blitz. Walmart's Black Friday specials include 50-inch Sanyo plasma HDTVs for $598, Magnavox Blu-Ray disc players for $78, TomTom GPS systems for $59, $7 reversible fleece jackets and $3 children's sleepwear, according to Melissa O'Brien,a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. Some of the toys at Walmart stores that will be discounted starting this Saturday through Nov. 27 are EZ Bake Oven, Disney Princess Scooter and Nerf N-Strike Vulcan. The discounts are up to 60 percent. Starting this Saturday, customers purchasing certain gaming packages such as "Band Hero" and "DJ Hero" will receive a $40 Walmart gift card while supplies last. Wal-Mart and other retailers including Sears and Toys R Us have started to hawk deep sales usually reserved for the big sales day known as "Black Friday" in hopes of attracting more shoppers early. While Black Friday has faded a bit in importance, it's considered a key barometer of shoppers' willingness to spend for the holiday period. The traditional shopping spree is dubbed Black Friday because it traditionally was considered the day when a surge of shoppers helped stores break into profitability for the full year. Office supply chain Staples Inc. said that it will be selling HP laptops with an Intel Celeron processor for $299.98, slashed from $599.98; and Garmin Nuvi GPS systems for $119.99, reduced from $219.99. For the first time, Staples will be offering the same Black Friday deals online from 6-10 a.m. that shoppers can buy at the store. Disney Store North America, which will be opening more than 125 stores nationwide at midnight on Black Friday, will be slashing prices with many gifts at $5, $10, and $15. Even these items will be 20 percent off during the early morning hours, the company said.

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Wal-Mart gets off easy in 'Black Friday' death

By Marlene Lang,
Southtown Star
November 17th, 2009                     [back to top]

Only 10 days remain until Black Friday.-- All year, Wal- Mart has been busy, busy - occupied with damage control, lawsuits and district attorneys, making sure the bordering-on-poor American consumer will not let last season's incident in which a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death stop her from living better by spending the little she has at the world's largest retailer.-- Jdimytai Damour, 34, died Nov. 28 after a mindless herd pressed heavily on the glass door of the Valley Stream, N.Y., store, breaking it off its hinges moments before the 5 a.m. opening, with the crush of shoppers stampeding over Damour and injuring other workers. Damour, a 6-foot-5-inch, 270-pound temporary employee, was hired for the holidays. The bargain-hungry mob knocked him to the floor amid broken glass and trampled him. He died not long after of asphyxiation. Video of the incident shows emergency workers attempting to save his life with CPR as shoppers continue to stream hurriedly past in pursuit of bargains. A pregnant employee also was injured along with several others.-- I'm writing to ask all Wal-Mart addicts to behave this year. And to recap what's happened since the Black Friday tragedy.-- Let's see: No criminal charges were filed against any of the approximately 2,000 people in the crowd even though the culprits are on video. Manslaughter might be messy in court when committed by a frenzied mob. But don't think Wal-Mart got off easy because it's the biggest retailer in the world. No, no. The U.S. Department of Labor really cracked down. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted an inspection and found that the New York store "fail(ed) to implement reasonable and effective crowd management principles," including training that was "inadequate" to accommodate the advertised "Blitz Friday" that offered cheap-o electronics for all. OSHA slapped Wal-Mart with a "serious citation" and the maximum fine of $7,000. Uh, no, I'm not missing any zeros. That's seven thousand dollars. Wal-Mart Stores promised to implement a crowd management plan for its New York stores and went to work consulting with big-event security firms.-- Meanwhile, the deceased employee's family sued for wrongful death, and Wal-Mart put out statements saying Damour had been part of the Wal-Mart family. Touching.-- The retail supergiant then cut a no-prosecution deal with the district attorney, promising beefed-up Black Friday crowd control along with generous contributions to the community - $1.5 million worth of local generosity and $400,000 in compensation to the victims of the incident.-- Next week, things will be different. While the special sales will commence at 5 a.m. Nov. 27, as in the past, the stores will have been open since 5 p.m. Thanksgiving night. This is intended to create a flow of customers rather than a ravenous pack.-- I hope the plan succeeds and that no one gets hurt.-- As Wal-Mart shoppers again seek cheap goods and to contribute to their future unemployment risk, let's remember that it's people who trample linebacker-sized door guys - not the global corporations that work all year to offer awesome, 32-inch flat-screen TVs for less than $400.

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Should McDonald’s And Wal-Mart Shelter The Mentally Ill And The Homeless?

By Douglas A. McIntyre,
24/7 Wall St.
November 17th, 2009                      [back to top]

It could be the economy or the fact that spending time in McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD), Target (NYSE:TGT), Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) is more pleasant than it used to be. All of these retailers certainly have clean and well-heated stores.

There appears to be a rise in the number of homeless people and people who are mentally ill in the aisles and at the tables of America’s largest retailers, fast food coffee chains and restaurants. These establishments are often crowded enough or are in buildings that cover enough square feet so that a person could be lost, or to some extent hide in plain sight.

It is impossible to find how many people are homeless. Indigents move around and spend a great deal of their time trying not to be counted, noticed, arrested, or taken to shelters. The Urban Institute says 3.5 million Americans don’t have homes. That number would put the total at 1% of the US population. Some of these people are homeless for financial reasons. Some are mentally ill. Some left their homes because of domestic abuse. The list of reasons that people live on the streets or in shelters is long.

The National Institutes of Health reports that nearly 1% of people over 18 year of age are schizophrenic. That means about two million Americans suffer from this disorder. It is estimated that 6% of these people are homeless or live in shelters.

The average Wal-Mart is 100,000 square feet and some superstores are more than double that size. A McDonald’s is not nearly that large, but some patrons come to have coffee or a meal and stay for hours. Other “patrons” may be at the restaurant without having ordered anything at all. Some large discount retail outlets probably patrol their stores carefully for vagrants. Others either don’t have the personnel or don’t care. Either way, there are homeless and mentally ill people who come to stores and fast food outlets and linger for hours and sometimes the better part of a day.

Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, and other companies that have businesses based on the patronage of tens of millions of customers visiting their locations each year must have policies for screening people who come through their doors, but these policies are likely to be enforced unevenly. It is impossible to tell immediately if some potential shoppers are homeless or mentally ill. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Wal-Mart has no moral obligation to allow people who are cold to come into their stores for a few hours especially if they are unlikely to be customers. But, allowing those people to stay in the stores demonstrates a moral decision, or at least a level of casual compassion not usually associated with huge multinational corporations

It may be cynical but true that many large companies with locations which are frequented by the homeless or mentally ill have decided to avoid the issue of who can enter their stores because of the Americans with Disabilities Act. No company wants to be challenged in public by the American Civil Liberties Union for failing to offer reasonable treatment for all customers, even if those customers may not be customers at all. It is possible that retailers and fast food restaurants have decided to avoid screening people who enter their establishments.

All ethics are local, at least as far as companies with thousands of retail locations are concerned. A store manager at Starbucks may live within a few miles of the store he or she manages, and may know the neighborhood and patrons well. The person who runs a Target store may keep a very careful and discrete eye on who comes to shop. The decision about who is allowed to stay in a store or coffee shop is almost certainly ad hoc in the great majority of the cases. There is no way to know how many homeless people are allowed to stay for a long period in one shop or another. The staff may not want to create a scene or a may choose to let someone be warm when it is freezing outside.

Large chains cannot reasonably ask their employees to be social workers or psychiatrists. The difference between someone who is mentally ill and an eccentric customer may be too subtle for most people to discern. A store manager faced with the decision to ask someone to leave may actually have no idea whether that person has an illness or not. These managers are certainly not trained to recognize if someone is likely to become violent, and, a small number of the mentally ill are dangerous to themselves and others. That is at the root of the temptation, usually, for retail employees to worry about letting the homeless stay in their stores; that and the appearance of someone who is shabby among customers who are appropriately dressed which is, in other words, a concern about perception and branding. But, the question of whether a homeless or mentally ill person could be dangerous has to be a concern for every store manager and employee.

The largest retailers and restaurant chains almost certainly have policies about who can come into their stores and who can stay. They may never be widely circulated because of concerns about the appearance of discrimination. These guidelines may simply be quietly disseminated.

“Any unruly customer should be asked to leave and if they will not, it is your responsibility to call local law enforcement”. And, by the way “Use your own judgment.” But, someone very senior in management has made a decision about who should stay and who should go at the retail outlets of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. Nearly no one knows who makes the decision, but the policy says as much as any other the company has about how it operates at the intersection of ethics, customer care, concern about legal liabilities, and compassion for people in the broader society.

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Walmart Expansion Denied by Chico City Council

By Britt Carlson ,
KHSL TV
November 17th, 2009            [back to top]

After years of debate, environmental impact report disputes, rejections and appeals, the proposed project to expand Chico's Walmart into a super-center is officially dead. Tuesday night the city council voted to reject the project in a heated meeting that led to angry exchanges between some council members.

It's a complex situation that nearly everyone has an opinion about: Walmart, but there may be a census on one thing.

It’s a real mess.

Tuesday night Walmart came to the table with new ideas to reduce the environmental impacts of the project, although they say its already environmentally friendly.

Walmart spokesperson Angie Stoner says, “We’re also proposing an associate ride share program if the project is approved. Walmart’s ride share program will help improve air quality and reduce traffic congestion by reducing commuter trips to work.”

But Walmart's efforts were quickly shot down by opponents.

Tamera Yates opposes the expansion and asks, “Is it right for Chico, does it follow our general plan? I don’t believe it is.”

The concerns surrounding the economic and environmental impacts were matched with demands to approve the project.

One supporter says, “You're not walking the talk your policy basically said you were going to do what you could to support economic development in Chico.”

The hot-button issue even sparked conflict between council members Tom Nickell and Larry Wahl.

Wahl spoke out earlier and feels it's not fair for the council to impose the strict restrictions, like requiring Walmart to incorporate solar panels in the design.

Wahl says, “These are things we haven't asked any other retailers to provide, so I don’t know if it’s fair to require them to do it.”

So after years of debate on the issue it came down to Tuesday's final vote, the council rejected the expansion 4 to 3.

A hot issue in Chico, cooled Tuesday night by the council.

Walmart can choose to submit a new application for it's Chico expansion project and start the process all over again.

But under city rules, it must wait at least one year before reapplying.

No word yet from Walmart officials if the company plans to do that.

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Buffett's Berkshire ups Wal-Mart stake

By Hibah Yousuf,
CNN Money
November 16th, 2009                       [back to top]

Investor guru Warren Buffett almost doubled his stake in Wal-Mart, adding 18 million shares in the discount retailer in the third quarter of 2009.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) held 19.9 million shares of Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) at the end of the second quarter, and now holds 37.8 million shares.

The company also lifted its position in Well Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) adding 10.7 million shares to the 286.6 million it already held at the end of the second quarter.

Buffett's investing company picked up 3.6 million shares of waste collection company Republic Services Inc. (RSG), 3.4 million shares of Nestle (NSRG.Y), 1.3 million shares of Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), and 27,336 shares of insurer Travelers Co (TRV, Fortune 500). Berkshire Hathaway did not hold any shares of the companies in the second quarter.

The Omaha, Neb.-based investor unloaded all 2 million shares of industrial manufacturer Eaton Corp. (ETN, Fortune 500) and 2.7 million shares of Wabco Holdings (WBC) he held in the previous quarter.

Buffett also sold off 8.8 million shares of investors services company Moody's (MCO) and 7.1 million shares of energy producer ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500). But he still holds 39.2 million and 57.4 million shares of the companies, respectively.

He also unloaded 1.2 million shares, or 16.7%, of NRG Energy (NRG, Fortune 500). The influential investor still holds 6 million shares.

Buffett made modest sell-offs of health insurance company Wellpoint (WLP, Fortune 500) and SunTrust Banks (STI, Fortune 500).

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Arrest at Walmart leads to charges of racism

By BETSY TAYLOR,
Associated Press
November 16th, 2009                     [back to top]

Nearly three years after Heather Ellis switched checkout lines at a southeast Missouri store and touched off what she calls a racially charged dispute with white customers and authorities, the young black schoolteacher faces a trial that could send her to prison for 15 years.

Witnesses have told authorities that Ellis cut in front of waiting customers at the Walmart in Kennett on Jan. 6, 2007, shoved merchandise already placed on a conveyor belt out of the way, and became belligerent when confronted, according to court filings.

Ellis maintains she was merely joining her cousin, whose checkout line was moving more quickly. She claimed in a written complaint to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that she was then pushed by a white customer, hassled by store employees, called racial slurs and physically mistreated by Kennett police officers.

Police say in court documents that Ellis refused requests to calm down and leave the property, allegedly kicking one's shin and splitting another's lip while resisting arrest. Her trial on charges of assaulting police officers, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace begins Wednesday in Dunklin County Circuit Court. Syracuse, N.Y.-based Your Black World Coalition is organizing a Monday rally in Kennett.

A college student in New Orleans at the time of her arrest, the 24-year-old Ellis now teaches in Louisiana, where she is engaged to a state trooper. She has said she feels trapped by "small-town politics" in Kennett, where her family lives. "What a shame the system can destroy a young person's future like this because of bad cops," Ellis wrote to the NAACP in April.

The group subsequently held a rally in Kennett. Before the June 13 event began, police officers found threatening letters the size of business cards scattered along the route that said the Ku Klux Klan had paid a visit and "the next visit will not be social."

Dunklin County Prosecutor Stephen Sokoloff said the cards were removed and the source investigated but never discovered. He said he doubts the cards actually were from the KKK; he knows of no KKK presence in the area. A call to the KKK headquarters was not answered.

As for Ellis' allegations of mistreatment by law enforcement, Sokoloff said he's "seen absolutely no evidence of any kind, apart from her statements, that those things occurred." Kennett Police Chief Barry Tate did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Kennett is a town of roughly 11,000 residents, about 1,500 of them black. The police department also is predominantly white, but has actively worked to recruit more women and minorities, said longtime resident Charles B. Brown, who served as mayor from 1991 to 2003.

"We're a small country town with greater problems than racism. Our problems are economic," he said, explaining that Kennett needs more jobs.

Some community leaders fear the "big paint roller" being used by observers of Ellis' case has resulted in unfair portrayals of the town as prejudiced.

"They're searching their hearts and minds, and that's just not us," he said. Sokoloff said he would have filed the same charges regardless of the races of those involved. Last week, he took himself off the case, telling the Southeast Missourian newspaper he hoped it would refocus attention on the facts. A special prosecutor from Cape Girardeau County was appointed.

Ellis and her lawyers, Scott Rosenblum and T.J. Hunsaker in St. Louis, declined to comment on the specifics of the case. She has previously rejected plea deals.

"Why would you plea bargain if you're innocent?" said Ellis' father, the Rev. Nathaniel Ellis of Kennett. "This is not a matter of justice," he said. "It's a vendetta."

Ellis' written account to the NAACP describes she and her cousin getting into separate checkout lanes before Ellis switched into the faster-moving line. The woman behind them had placed items on the conveyor belt, and Ellis alleged the woman pushed her when she tried to put her own items down.

Witnesses instead told police that Ellis shoved the woman's merchandise back, according to court filings. Ellis wrote that a security officer and manager were called over and that although Ellis said she wanted to pay, the manager yelled at her to leave the store. Police were called and arrived. Officers eventually followed her to the parking lot, she said, using racial slurs and telling her to go back to the ghetto. As her aunt and uncle drove into the parking lot, Ellis said, the officers "jumped" on her even though she said she was not resisting.

Officer A.W. Fisher wrote in a probable cause statement that Ellis was given "every opportunity" to comply with officers and leave the property. He said she used an expletive in telling him she would beat him if he put his hands on her.

Fisher said he then told Ellis she was under arrest, but she would not stop fighting while being handcuffed. Following her arrest, Ellis alleged, she was thrown against doors on the way into jail and an officer later twisted her shirt with his knuckle to choke her while she was in custody.

"Incidents involving our customers are unfortunate and we take them seriously," Walmart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said in a statement earlier this month. "In this matter, there was a disturbance and law enforcement was contacted, in accordance with our normal procedures. The police then determined how to proceed."

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Walmart turns to Wallkill police officers for in-store security

By Keith Goldberg,
Times Herald-Record
November 16th, 2009                 [back to top]

Plan on braving the crowds and hunting for Black Friday bargains at the Walmart on Route 211? You’ll be doing so under the watchful eyes of town police officers.

The Town Board voted last week to allow its officers to patrol Walmart throughout Thanksgiving Day weekend. Not just traffic control in the parking lots – in-store patrols, too.

Wallkill isn’t the only local municipality providing Thanksgiving police coverage for the nation’s largest retailer. Town of Ulster Police Chief Paul Watzka says his department will allow several officers to patrol Walmart on Route 199.

The moves are at the retailer’s request, which also asked state police to provide coverage for its store in the Town of Monroe. State police declined the request.

“For us, it’s a dangerous precedent to set,” said state police spokesman Sgt. Kern Swoboda.

A Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokesperson would not elaborate on the company’s policy. But the move comes after scrutiny Walmart received last year when a temporary employee was trampled to death at a store on Long Island during Black Friday.

Wallkill’s police department will be an independent contractor for Walmart, according to a tentative contract. The officers would be off-duty and initially paid overtime wages by the town. Walmart would then reimburse the town for all salaries and benefit, and the shifts are voluntary.

The contract also includes language that absolves Walmart of any liability over negligence caused by the police, and vice versa.

That’s a major concern for Wallkill Councilman John King, the only Town Board member to vote against the deal; Councilwoman Nina Neighmond was absent and did not vote.

“I don’t think we should be doing private security service for any business,” King said. “I’m concerned for the safety of our officers and the possible liability.”

King also wonders if the department can spare the manpower. Walmart has requested that 10 Wallkill officers – nearly a third of the department – be available 8 p.m. to midnight on Thanksgiving Day, as well as six officers for all 24 hours of Black Friday, and five officers on both Saturday and Sunday.

Walmart “should have their own security system doing that,” King said.

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Black Friday 2009 Wal-Mart ad: Some people know what’s in it

By Laurent Belsie,
Christian Science Monitor
November 16th, 2009                     [back to top]

The Black Friday 2009 Wal-Mart ad is the big daddy of the Christmas sales season.

Everyone from shoppers to competitors wants to find out what hot deals are in it. Some people even know. But they can’t tell you.

When they do, Wal-Mart quickly cracks down. Just ask DVDTalk.com. Last week, after it posted details of the Wal-Mart Black Friday ad, Wal-Mart lawyers sent a “Notice of Violation of Intellectual Property Rights and Demand for Immediate Take-Down.” The company removed the offending post. (But details of the post got picked up by Blu-ray.com.)

“The Wal-Mart ad is out there, but we can’t post it,” says Michael Brim, founder of BFAds.net. Unlike a dwindling number of retailers that might send a cease-and-desist letter after the fact, Wal-Mart issues preemptive ones to warn Black Friday ad sites and deal sites like FatWallet.com and Slickdeals.net not to break the reign of silence.

Such sites might ignore the efforts of smaller retailers to keep their Black Friday ads secret. But “Wal-Mart’s a big fish,” Mr. Brim says. “You have to abide by their rules.”

The preemptive letter says websites can’t publish the Wal-Mart sale until Monday, Nov. 23. But last year, BFAds.net got to publish the deals on the preceding Friday.

So if you’re anxious to see what the world’s biggest retailer has in store for the day after Thanksgiving, keep your eyes peeled. It could be out as soon as Friday.

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Wal-Mart offers clothing vendors a way to get paid faster amid retail financing anxiety

By VINNEE TONG ,
Associated Press
November 13th, 2009                           [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, is offering its clothing vendors a faster way to get paid that could change how struggling retailers and vendors do business together.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., told its more than 1,000 clothing suppliers this month that they can be paid within 10 to 15 days of delivering goods instead of the customary 60 to 90 days, but a Wal-Mart spokesman declined to say how much the suppliers must give up for the quicker payout.

Vendors are likely glad for a faster payday as demand from struggling retailers falls. The move comes after a major retail lender, CIT Group Inc., collapsed into bankruptcy protection in an effort to cut its own debt, leaving retailers worried about whether their suppliers would be able to get financing to fill orders. CIT is one of the nation's biggest lenders to an array of small and midsize businesses, including retailers, energy companies, a small movie studio and operators of Dunkin' Donuts stores.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said the new option lets vendors present their bill to a bank, which pays the vendor, then gets paid by Wal-Mart. Simley said it is the first time Wal-Mart has offered the payment option, and so far it is available only to clothing suppliers.

"It has been very well received," Simley said. "It works out very well because it provides us with greater surety in our supply chain — that the products we order, we will get."

"It provides an extension of our financial strength to our suppliers," he added. Wal-Mart's clothing vendors are a small chunk of its more than 60,000 suppliers. Simley said that so far there had been no announcements about extending the program to other vendors.

Wal-Mart's shares fell 4 cents to $53.20 on Friday.

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Wal-Mart profit rises, but holiday view light

By Nicole Maestri,
Reuters
November 12th, 2009                    [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc reported a higher quarterly profit as the world's biggest retailer clamped down on inventory and controlled expenses, but forecast earnings over the key holiday quarter that could miss Wall Street estimates.

Wal-Mart executives said its customers have yet to benefit from signs the U.S. economy is growing again. The company's shares slipped 1 percent in premarket trading.

"While the economy remains challenging for our customers and therefore for Wal-Mart sales, I continue to be encouraged by both our traffic and our market share gains," Chief Executive Mike Duke said in a recorded statement.

Wal-Mart said it had gained market share in the United States, UK and Mexico. The company has embarked on a campaign to be the leader in low prices ahead of the holidays, repeatedly sparring with rivals from Amazon.com to Target Corp in slashing prices for everything from toys to books.

Wal-Mart forecast fourth-quarter earnings per share from continuing operations of $1.08 to $1.12 and said U.S. comparable-store sales during the 13 weeks from Oct. 31 to Jan. 29 would be flat. Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $1.12 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Colin McGranahan, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said the forecast was probably conservative and that Wal-Mart could yet deliver results that exceeded those numbers.

"They are kind of in the driver's seat and they've made it very clear they will be aggressive," he said. "They will be driving down prices ... we may see a little less gross margin expansion going forward."

Profit for the third quarter ended Oct. 31 rose to $3.23 billion, or 84 cents per share, from $3.14 billion, or 80 cents per share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average were expecting 81 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Wal-Mart had forecast earnings from continuing operations of 78 cents to 82 cents per share.

Sales rose 1.1 percent to $98.67 billion, while analysts were expecting $99.88 billion. Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 0.4 percent.

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The World's Most Powerful People

By Michael Noer
and Nicole Perlroth,
Forbes
November 11th, 2009                   [back to top]

Power has been called many things. The ultimate aphrodisiac. An absolute corrupter. A mistress. A violin. But its true nature remains elusive. After all, a head of state wields a very different sort of power than a religious figure. Can one really compare the influence of a journalist to that of a terrorist? And is power unexercised power at all?

In compiling our first ranking of the World's Most Powerful People we wrestled with these questions--and many more--before deciding to define power in four dimensions. First, we asked, does the person have influence over lots of other people? Pope Benedict XVI, ranked 11th on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion souls, or about one-sixth of the world's population, while Wal-Mart ( WMT - news - people ) CEO Mike Duke (No. 8) is the largest private-sector employer in the United States.

Then we assessed the financial resources controlled by these individuals. Are they relatively large compared with their peers? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at a composite ranking of market capitalization, profits, assets and revenues as reflected on our annual ranking of the World's 2000 Largest Companies. In certain instances, like New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (No. 51), we judged the resources at his disposal compared with others in the industry. For billionaires, like Bill Gates (No. 10), net worth was also a factor.

Next we determined if they are powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 67 slots on our list--one for every 100 million people on the planet--so being powerful in just one area is not enough to guarantee a spot. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways. Take Italy's colorful prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi (No. 12) who is a politician, a media monopolist and owner of soccer powerhouse A.C. Milan, or Oprah Winfrey (No. 45) who can manufacture a best-seller and an American President.

Lastly, we insisted that our choices actively use their power. Ingvar Kamprad, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind Ikea and the richest man in Europe, was an early candidate for this list, but was excluded because he doesn't exercise his power. On the other hand, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (No. 3) scored points because he likes to throw his weight around by jailing oligarchs, invading neighboring countries and periodically cutting off Western Europe's supply of natural gas.

To calculate the final rankings, five Forbes senior editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power. Those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score, which determined who placed above (or below) whom.

U.S. President Barack Obama emerged, unanimously, as the world's most powerful person, and by a wide margin. But there were a number of surprises. Former President George W. Bush didn't come close to making the final cut, while his predecessor in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, ranks 31st, ahead of a number of sitting heads of government. Apple's ( AAPL - news - people ) Steve Jobs easily made the list, while Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star governor of California (alone, the world's fifth largest economy) did not.

This ranking is intended to be the beginning of a conversation, not the final word. Is the Dalai Lama (No. 39) really more powerful than the president of France (No. 56)? Do despicable criminals like billionaire Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán (No. 41) belong on this list at all? Who did we overlook? What did we get wrong? Join the conversation by commenting now.

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LI Black Friday death spurs 24-hour Wal-Marts

By KEIKO MORRIS,
Newsday
November 11th, 2009                          [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores said Wednesday its locations will stay open for more than 24 hours starting Thanksgiving Day and will incorporate crowd-control measures on the holiday weekend to prevent the frenzied rush that led to a trampling death last year at a Black Friday sale in Valley Stream.

The retailer said most of its stores in the United States will remain open from Thanksgiving Day into Friday - the traditional launch of the holiday season known as Black Friday - and will allow customers to begin to line up at different locations within the stores to wait for specific items to go on sale at 5 a.m. Friday.

Wal-Mart also said it has incorporated into its nationwide planning for Black Friday some of the crowd management strategies negotiated with the Nassau County district attorney's office last May after last year's trampling death of Jdimytai Damour.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said Wednesday he is anticipating calm and order at the retailer's post-Thanksgiving sales event.

"We reviewed the plans and are quite satisfied that they [Wal-Mart] have taken the necessary steps to prepare for holiday shopping," said Mulvey. "I think they are taking some of the best-practice ideas we came up with last year after the tragedy."

Wal-Mart said in a statement it consulted with safety experts in the sports and entertainment industries to develop store-specific plans for all U.S. locations. Each plan looked at how customers approach and enter the store, how they check out and leave, as well as how customers move around the store and near the biggest bargains, Wal-Mart said.

"We took elements from New York and applied them to other states," said Dave Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman. "We looked at each store on a store-by-store basis and developed specific plans for all of our locations."

Many of the retailer's crowd-control strategies were the result of its settlement with the Nassau DA's office in May, when it negotiated an agreement to avoid criminal charges, according to Meg Reiss of the investigations division. At the center of that deal was the creation of Wal-Mart's crowd management plans for its New York State stores, she added.

Besides explaining the sales process to customers, the steps include a crowd-management staff to maintain orderly entry into the store and placement of promotional or hot items throughout the store to ensure manageable customer traffic.

Mulvey noted that many retailers have ratcheted up their Black Friday safety plans in light of last year's tragedy. For the first time, the National Retail Federation issued crowd management guidelines for special sales events. But many retailers like Best Buy and Target have been using such crowd control strategies for years.

Best Buy, for example, hands out tickets for limited sale items, limits the number of customers entering the store and sends staff to talk to people waiting on line, said Peter Conway, general manager of the Westbury Best Buy.

"Reducing anxiety is really a big piece," Conway said, "getting there early in the night and just talking to people and putting them at ease."

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Wal-Mart Walking on Sunshine

By Al Norman,
Huffington Post
November 11th, 2009                   [back to top]

As many as 70 elderly and disabled residents of Palm Springs, Florida, may soon be evicted to make way for another Wal-Mart superstore.

The hapless residents of Sunshine Village are watching as the sun goes down on their mobile home park. This homestead of predominately low-income older people has been around for decades on 10th Avenue North. But this week, the Palm Springs Land Development Board voted unanimously to rezone 17 acres of land from residential to commercial, to pave the way for the 11th Wal-Mart within ten miles of Palm Springs.

A developer called Cornerstone Palm Springs LLC, which owns Sunshine Village, warned residents about a year ago that the property was up for sale. The site is reportedly slated for a 175,000 square foot Wal-Mart supercenter. There's already a Wal-Mart supercenter only 4 miles away in West Palm Beach, and two more supercenters roughly 7 miles from the site.

The developer can't just toss these old folks out on the street, however. Florida law requires that the residents of Sunshine Village receive at least six months notice of eviction, and be given some relocation costs. Cornerstone Palm Springs told the Palm Beach Post that it's going to cover all the relocation costs for the families being evicted.

But the Sunshine Village Neighborhood Association is not going to sink slowly in the west. The group has approached the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach for help, and an attorney for the Society told the Post, "We don't think it will be possible to move them. There's not a lot of places for these folks to rent."

Cornerstone apparently has informed the mobile home owners that Wal-Mart wants to move in when they move out. In fact, the developer will have a site plan ready to submit in December. The Village Council voted last winter to amend its comprehensive land use plan to accommodate a shopping center---so the project has been in the works for almost a year. Within months, Wal-Mart could literally be walking on Sunshine.

Wal-Mart targets mobile home parks, because local officials are often anxious to level these 'eyesores', and move the residents out of the area. The homeowners, who are stigmatized as "trailer trash," are marginalized politically, and have no clout in town. One reader of the Palm Beach Post submitted the following comment on Sunshine Village:

We need to get rid of all these low rent trailer parks. They bring in the worst kind of people. A lot of illegals will be living in these rusted out old trailer parks. Palm Beach county should take a vote on closing all trailer parks...Keep the migrants where they belong. Out in the fields picking my tomatoes. Last August, Wal-Mart displaced 40 families from a mobile home park in Marion, North Carolina. In February of 2009, 15 homeowners lost out to a Wal-Mart supercenter in North Vernon, Indiana. Around Christmas of 2006, 80 residents in a mobile home park in Berlin, Wisconsin saw their homes rezoned from residential to commercial. In January of 2006, 54 families in the Monticello Mobile Home Park in West Asheville, North Carolina, were forced to relocate to make room for a 180,000 square foot Wal-Mart superstore. In 2003, 122 residents in a mobile home park in St. Petersburg, Florida were displaced by Wal-Mart. The world's largest retailer swallows up trailer parks whole, and spits out the people who live there.

Not all of these attempts by big box stores to push mobile homeowners off the map have been successful. Residents in Santa Rosa, California, and Hood River, Oregon, for example, beat the big boxes and kept their homes. But more often than not, mobile home property owners like Cornerstone sell out the families that have depended on them for decades. It's hard for landowners to resist the lure of Wal-Mart's top dollar. The owners of Sunshine Village will surely "live better" when Wal-Mart pays them millions for their little corner of this village.

The village of Palm Springs, population around 14,000, only covers a two and a half square mile area. It won't be easy for these elderly and disabled residents to move their mobile homes. Many of the homes might not structurally survive any relocation at all.

The Village Council in Palm Springs will take its first vote on rezoning on November 13th. If they vote down the rezoning, the elderly and disabled residents of Sunshine Village won't have to move.

Ironically, Palm Springs likes to call itself "A Great Place to Call Home." Readers are urged to email Karl Umberger, the Palm Springs Village Manager at kumberger@villageofpalmsprings.org with the following message:

Please let the Village Council know that I am appalled that any community would toss out dozens of elderly and disabled residents from their homes just to make way for another Wal-Mart like the 11 you already have within 10 miles of your Village. How can the Village---which says it's 'A Great Place To Call Home'---evict these low-income people to make way for a Wal-Mart? Where are these folks supposed to live? Urge the Council to 'Save Sunshine Village,' and tell Wal-Mart to find land that isn't already somebody else's home.

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Retailers Are Making 'Black Friday' A Month-Long Effort

By Karen Talley,
Dow Jones Newswires
November 11th, 2009                      [back to top]

Black Friday has gone from a one-day event to a month-long parade of promotions this year, as retailers are making a dash for early holiday cash.

Strategies include high profile discounting efforts by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) that have stirred online price wars for books and DVD's. More subdued efforts include Kohl's Corp. (KSS) this year having more items with deeper discounts in the flyer for its annual pre-Christmas sale that began Wednesday, along with displaying prices much more prominently in stores than it has in the past.

The tactics stem from consumers being on tight budgets and retailers wanting to capture those dollars as quickly as possible. Retailers want to avoid a repeat of last Christmas when many were compelled to slice prices very aggressively just ahead of the holidays and continue deep and margin-crushing discounts into the new year because they had misjudged how deeply the recession was goring consumers.

"The promotions will come earlier this year and from more retailers," said Al Ferrara, director of the retail service at BDO Seidman, which recently surveyed more than 100 retail chief marketing officers about their holiday plans.

Average holiday spending this year will be around $682.74, off 3% from $705.01 last year, the National Retail Federation predicts.

"We see a lot of retailers looking at what happened last year and they are starting to roll out their Black Friday promotions earlier," said John Squire, chief strategy officer for Coremetics, which gathers information about consumers' online behaviour for retailers including Macy's Inc. (M), J.C. Penney Co. (JCP), Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF).

"There is a certain amount of cash and retailers want to strike early while it is still there," Squire said.

Because consumers have come to take big discounting for granted, retailers will have to be generous. "There has to be a sale sign; there has to be a markdown," Ferrara said.

Retailers are also, for the second straight year, up against a relatively later Thanksgiving in 2009, with the holiday falling on Nov. 26, just one day earlier than last year and several days later than in past years.

The calendar gives less time for buying between Black Friday -- the day after Thanksgiving -- and Christmas, so the race is on. The same holds true for the Monday after Thanksgiving, known as Cyber Monday, when online buying usually starts its holiday spurt.

Not all retailers, however, feel compelled to change their practices in effort to capture consumers earlier. "We are not doing any 'Black Friday' promotions before Black Friday," said J.C. Penney spokeswoman Kate Coultas.

Whether consumers respond to retailers early promotions remains to be seen, since Black Friday is still two-and-a-half weeks away.

And Black Friday itself will still be as promotional as usual, with retailers bringing in so-called door-busters, like limited numbers of very low-priced TVs or highly discounted apparel, to get customers excited.

But moves taken now could help mitigate last minute panic -- not by shoppers, but by retailers who could, even with their slimmed down inventories, end up overstocked once the holidays end if customers don't turn out.

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Most Wal-Mart stores to stay open overnight on Thanksgiving

By Andrea Chang,
The Los Angeles Times
November 11th, 2009                        [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will keep most of its U.S. locations open overnight on Thanksgiving to ease the crowding that led to the trampling death of a store employee on Black Friday a year earlier.

The retail giant said it was hoping the extended hours would prevent long lines from forming because shoppers would be able to wait inside the stores before the chain's day-after-Thanksgiving specials go on sale at 5 a.m.

Black Friday, so named because retailers used to view it as the day they went into the black financially, is notoriously one of the most hectic shopping days of the holiday season, with shoppers pushing and jostling for deals on electronics, apparel and toys. Last year, a mob of bargain-hungry shoppers stormed a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., trampling temporary worker Jdimytai Damour.

Some industry watchers are worried that crowds could be even more aggressive this year, as frugal shoppers have indicated they will rely heavily on discounts and specials.

In addition to keeping stores open throughout Thanksgiving night, Wal-Mart said it had store-specific safety plans in place for the Nov. 27 sales.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based chain is also planning to spread out its deals around its stores to better control crowds, company spokeswoman Daphne Moore said.

"Customer and associate safety is a top priority for us, and this year is no different," she said.

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Best Buy Beats Walmart's Laptop Price, Computer War Looms

By Mike Duff,
BNET
November 10th, 2009                       [back to top]

Oh, we spoke too soon! Sort of. We didn’t think that Best Buy was going to take Walmart’s bait this time, but the electronics retailer has announced that tomorrow it will launch its lowest-advertised-price laptop computer ever and beat the cost to consumer of Walmart’s Thanksgiving special notebook – a price that matches that retailer’s lowest ever computer price – by almost $50.

Best Buy (BBY) will offer, both online and in store, a $250 Acer laptop, with the stated reason being to draw consumer attention to the entirety of its computing line and the 30 laptops, six netbooks, 17 desktops and four all-in-ones if offers, not to mention the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7. The chance to steal a march on Walmart (WMT) isn’t mentioned, but, come on! We’re clearly looking at that long-predicted computer war, only this one is being fought with press releases and online advertising instead of nuclear missiles and laser satellites.

Selling in-store and online for $249.99, the Acer (ACER) laptop will offer a two-gigabyte memory and a 160-gig hard drive compared with the $298 Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) notebook offered by Walmart, with specs there being three gigabytes of memory and a 250-gig hard drive. This summer, Walmart’s $298 computer deal also had more robust hardware than Best Buy’s, but then it was a buck cheaper.

At press time, by the way, the three gig HP couldn’t be found on Walmart’s web site, although the site did offer a one-gig memory, 160-gig hard drive “Mini Notebook” for $297.95. The three gig may have sold out. Walmart was contacted but didn’t return an inquiry on that by post time.

Still, as we noted in an earlier post about Walmart’s recent promotions, Eduardo Castro-Wright, the company’s vice chairman, promised that the company would not be undersold this holiday season. Could a $248 Walmart computer be on the way? Stay tuned.

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Wal-Mart plans for crowd control

By Chris Burritt,
Bloomberg News
November 10th, 2009                     [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has developed plans to manage holiday crowds shopping at its 3,500 US stores after an employee died in a “Black Friday’’ trampling a year ago.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, consulted with sports and entertainment safety specialists to handle shoppers waiting to enter its stores, David Tovar, a company spokesman, said yesterday. The plans, specific to each store, also help direct the flow of shoppers when they are in the stores, check out, and leave, he said.

The Nov. 28, 2008, death of Jdimytai Damour, a temporary worker trampled as he manned the front doors of a Wal-Mart store in Valley Stream, N.Y., was one of several incidents in the past year leading some retailers to increase safety precautions, National Retail Federation executives said.

Jockeying for discounted merchandise may intensify during the holidays as rising unemployment makes consumers more desperate for bargains and retailers deepen markdowns to spur sales, they said.

The holiday season traditionally starts on the day after Thanksgiving, so-called Black Friday, which falls on Nov. 27 this year.

In May, Wal-Mart agreed to a crowd control plan for Black Friday events at its New York stores to avoid prosecution in Damour’s death.

The agreement with Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice didn’t include an admission of guilt or wrongdoing by the retailer.

Some retailers are holding dress rehearsals to test their safety plans before the holidays, said Rhett Asher, the National Retail Federation’s vice president of loss prevention.

The federation recommended that merchants and shopping malls coordinate crowd control with local police, assign employees to interact with shoppers waiting in line, and spread discounted merchandise throughout their stores to avoid herding.

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Walk-in health clinic at Wal-Mart opens

By Meg Haskell,
Bangor Daily News
November 10th, 2009                     [back to top]

BANGOR, Maine — Coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you: walk-in health care. In Bangor, Monday marked the first day of business at The Clinic at Wal-Mart in the recently opened Stillwater Avenue Supercenter. Additional clinics will open in coming months at stores in Brewer, Palmyra and Presque Isle.

Although Arkansas-based Wal-Mart has in-store clinics in many other states, the four northern Maine clinics announced Monday are the first in Maine.

In Bangor and Brewer, the 680-square-foot clinics will be run by Eastern Maine Medical Center through its Norumbega medical practice affiliate. In Palmyra and Presque Isle, they will be operated by Brewer-based Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, through local affiliates Sebasticook Valley Hospital and The Aroostook Medical Center, respectively.

Acute-care services available at Wal-Mart clinics are limited to the treatment of relatively simple problems such as colds, earaches, sore throats, and minor burns and injuries.

“If you have multiple health problems or chronic conditions, you don’t belong at a Wal-Mart clinic,” said Bob Peterson, director of physician practices at EMMC. Individuals who seek treatment for complex conditions or serious illness or injury will be assessed and stabilized as needed, then referred to other EMMC practices in the area, he said, including affiliated primary care offices or the hospital emergency room. Children younger than 18 months also will be referred to a local family practice or pediatric practice.

Clinicians at the Wal-Mart clinics — nurse practitioners and physician assistants — can perform physical exams for participation in sports, administer tetanus shots and flu vaccines, and test for high blood sugar, strep throat, urinary tract infections and pregnancy. They will prescribe some medications, but not narcotics or psychoactive drugs.

No appointments are accepted. Patients who have to wait to be seen and are well enough to shop will be issued an electronic pager to alert them when one of the two exam rooms is available. The clinics will be open seven days a week, including some evening hours.

“Patients need to have access to care when they feel they need it,” said Dr. James Raczek, chief medical officer at EMMC. “Clinics like this, being set up in very convenient places where people are out shopping, have been successful in giving patients the access they may not get or seek elsewhere.”

At the Bangor clinic, 21-year-old Megan O’Clair of Bangor was the third patient of the day.

“My throat has been hurting and I’ve been losing my voice,” she said. A strep test proved inconclusive. “They said it’s too soon to tell if it’s strep, and if it continues I should come back in a couple of days,” she said.

O’Clair, who works at the Dunkin’ Donuts also housed in the Wal-Mart store, said she has no other doctor locally. Her visit on Monday was covered by MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid program for low-income residents.

The Clinic at Wal-Mart accepts all insurance coverage as well as MaineCare and Medicare. Those paying cash will be charged $50 for a standard office visit, and more for any testing or vaccines. Those unable to pay will be treated, Peterson said, and referred to EMMC’s charity care office to arrange discounts or installment billing.

Raczek acknowledged that seeking episodic care at a walk-in clinic runs counter to the current trend in primary care, which seeks to assign every patient to a “medical home” — a primary care site that provides comprehensive care, maintains patient records and aggressively manages chronic conditions such as lung disease, heart disease and diabetes.

Patients who come to The Clinic at Wal-Mart will be encouraged to establish a medical home with an area practice, Raczek said, and the clinic will provide medical records and other information to those medical providers.

At Supercenters in Brewer and Palmyra, clinics are on schedule to open in January. The Presque Isle Wal-Mart clinic is expected to open in December.

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Wal-Mart's Scott Joins Equity Firm

By Ann Zimmerman,
Wall Street Journal
November 10th, 2009                         [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s former Chief Executive Lee Scott has become an operating partner at Solamere, a private equity and venture capital firm with ties to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts govenor and Republican Party presidential hopeful.

Mr. Scott, 60, retired as CEO of the Bentonville, Ark.,-based retailer last January, after serving in the top job for nine years. During that time, the retailer's revenues more than tripled to $400 billion and the company expanded into Japan, Chile and Central America through acquisitions.

Mr. Scott remains on the Wal-Mart board of directors, where he is chairman of its executive committee.

Headquartered in Lexington, Mass., Solamere was founded in June 2008 by Taggart Romney, the eldest son of Mitt Romney, and Spencer Zwick, who served as campaign finance manager for Mr. Romney's 2008 presidential bid.

The firm's third founding partner is Eric Scheuermann, a partner at New York-based private equity firm Jupiter Partners LLC. Former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, also a Republican, joined the firm in December as a senior advisor.

"Lee's leadership experience and his ability to identify growth opportunities will greatly benefit our investors, partner funds and future portfolio companies," the firm's partners said in a joint statement.

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Nuclear agency cites Walmart

By RUSTY DENNEN,
Free Lance Star
November 9th, 2009                      [back to top]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited Walmart for improper disposal and transfer of exit signs containing tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope.

But the agency decided against a hefty fine, saying the company was quick to take action when notified that there was a problem at its stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, including the Central Park store in Fredericksburg.

The four violations issued Oct. 28 stemmed from the improper transfer or disposal of 2,462 signs between 2000 and 2008, and the transfer of another 517 signs between various Walmart sites.

Missing signs are not usually much of a concern, but in the post-9/11 world they have become an issue for Walmart and others as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission keeps stricter tabs on all types of radioactive substances.

Tritium is used to illuminate signs without the need for electricity.

The NRC emphasized that the minimally radioactive signs pose little or no threat to public health and safety, and are not a security risk.

But the NRC requires proper record keeping and disposal of the signs because a damaged or broken one could cause minor radioactive contamination of the immediate vicinity, requiring environmental cleanup.

The improper transfer and disposal of the signs, and Walmart's failure to appoint someone to be responsible for them, was deemed to be a Severity Level III problem under the NRC's enforcement policy.

Walmart's failure to report damaged signs is a Level IV violation, the lowest on the NRC's enforcement scale.

The Level III finding could have resulted in a $369,300 fine, but the penalty was waived based on Walmart's corrective action.

The NRC said the company inventoried the signs nationwide, cleaned up contamination from damaged signs at several stores and replaced all tritium signs with non-radioactive models.

The NRC's special inspection of Walmart began in December 2008 and concluded in August.

Between 2000 and 2007, Walmart purchased about 70,000 tritium signs. A 2006 audit found that some were missing.

Along with the Fredericksburg store, Walmarts in Harrisonburg, Williamsburg, Norfolk and Norton reported lost or missing signs.

Walmart is not the only one with the problem.

The NRC in January asked more than 60 companies and organizations to account for their signs, and now says additional violations could be forthcoming.

"Our inspection and the extensive actions Walmart had to undertake to resolve our concerns should stand as a warning to other organizations and corporations not to be lax in their handling of devices containing radioactive material," Cynthia Carpenter, NRC's director of enforcement, said in a press release.

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Wal-Mart sells Asda to subsidiary Corinth for £7bn in UK shake-up

Daily Mail
November 9th, 2009                                     [back to top]

Wal-Mart has sold Asda to its own subsidiary company for £6.9billion.

Wal-Mart Stores (UK) sold 3.1billion ordinary shares in the chain for a £5.7billion payment from Wal-Mart's own Corinth, with an additional £1.24billion in shares as part of the deal too.

It is thought to be part of a restructuring move, but Wal-Mart would not comment on the move.

A statement said: 'Corinth is the new parent company of Asda Group, having previously been a subsidiary. 'As part of good financial management of our business we will, from time to time, alter that structure as appropriate.' It said the valuation was a historic one for Asda.

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Inventory Upsets Shoppers

By Lana Flowers,
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
November 8th, 2009                               [back to top]

SPRINGDALE — Consumers aren’t finding the variety of products they used to on Walmart shelves, as the retailer o◊ers fewer fl avors, sizes and forms of some products.

Columbus, Ohio-based Retail Forward in its October Wal-Mart World reports some indication of consumers shopping less at Walmart because they can’t fi nd what they want.

About 24 percent of shoppers reported going to Walmart less this year compared with a year ago, while 14 percent of shoppers reported going to Walmart more often, according to the Wal-Mart World report by Jennifer Halterman, Retail Forward senior consultant.

Those numbers are from Retail Forward’s Shopper-Scape surveys from December 2007 to August 2009. The ShopperScape survey asks 4,000 people each month about their shopping habits.

“Wal-Mart’s SKU (stock keeping unit) rationalization and reduction efforts as part of Win, Play, Show may actually be a point of contention with shoppers; some report reduced inventory as a reason for shopping Walmart Supercenter less often,” the Wal-Mart World report stated.

Shoppers filled in explanations for some reasons they go to Walmart less, including “too crowded, reduced inventory, no longer carries items I previously purchased” and “they’ve cut out a lot of items they used to carry,” according to Retail Forward’s Wal-Mart World.

Wal-Mart’s win, play, show strategy means it wants to be well-stocked in major brands and categories that sell well; and will play inother brands that shoppers want, but won’t o◊er as great a selection.

Wal-Mart will devote even less shelf space to the “show” products, items it carries because some shoppers buy those items but they aren’t the biggest sellers or perhaps aren’t national or dominate private label brands.

The inventory reduction doesn’t only a◊ect customers who may have to shop elsewhere to fi nd what they want. It also affects Wal-Mart suppliers, said Patricia Edwards, financial analyst with Storehouse Partners in Bellevue, Wash.

“I’m hearing that the SKU and inventory reductions have made life difficult for all of them, but especially the mid-sized suppliers,” Edwards said. “One particular supplier in the health and wellness area was hoping as of a couple of months ago for flat numbers this year and to ‘just get to the next year.’ ”

In addition, Edwards said she’s read and heard reports the inventory reduction can hurt Wal-Mart sales.

“Consumers get cranky if they’re used to buying a certain item which gets discontinued. Sometimes, they will try another brand in its place, but if it’s important enough some will shop elsewhere to get what they want,” Edwards said.

Wal-Mart is not the only retailer reducing its inventory selection, said retail consultant Carol Spieckerman, president of newmarketbuilders in Bentonville.

“Walgreen’s customer centric retailing initiative,for example, has similar goals to Wal-Mart’s Project Impact, with less clutter, clear sight lines and elimination of duplicative stock keeping units,” Spieckerman said.

Wal-Mart is farther along in the process, Spieckerman said. She thinks inventory units can be reduced by as much as 15 percent to 18 percent without a◊ecting a retailer’s profi tability.

Spieckerman agrees with Edwards that those who supply products to retailers get pinched when product o◊erings are streamlined.

Customers, though, may get some benefi t as categories, from health and beauty aids to meat and canned goods, are easier to shop, Spieckerman said.

Wal-Mart representatives did not return a call placed to the media hot line during business hours Thursday regarding the inventory reductions.

Wal-Mart will report its fiscal 2010 third quarter earnings Thursday.

Walmart Plans to Open 40 More Indian Wholesale Stores

By Kartik Goyal,
Bloomberg
November 8th, 2009                      [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer that has a wholesaling venture with India’s Bharti Group, plans to open 40 more “cash & carry” stores in the South Asian country, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said.

Bharti Wal-Mart Pvt., in which the two companies are equal partners, opened its first Indian wholesale store in the northern city of Amritsar on May 30, with initial plans to start 10 or 15 more outlets and hire 5,000 people during the next three years.

“I was informed by the Walmart CEO that they are looking at opening more stores,” Sharma said today at the India Economic Summit organized by the World Economic Forum in New Delhi. “He gave me a figure of 40 more stores across the country in the immediate future.”

India bars Walmart and other overseas companies from opening retail stores or buying stakes in supermarket chains in the world’s second-most populous country. Local laws, aimed at protecting small shops, allow foreign chains to operate only wholesalers that sell groceries and other goods to businesses such as supermarkets, department stores and restaurants.

Chairman S. Robson Walton visited India earlier this month and met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Walmart said in a statement on Nov. 6, without providing details of what they discussed. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company sought the easing of foreign investment rules in the local retail industry at the meeting held on Nov. 4, the Economic Times reported on Nov. 6, citing people familiar with the matter.

Walmart’s international business has expanded an average of 13 percent annually in the past five years, more than twice as fast as the 5.9 percent growth in the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Walmart slams lid on customers' creepy online reviews of its caskets

By Aimee Picchi,
Daily Finance
November 7th, 2009                   [back to top]

The howling-wolf T-shirt phenomenon it is not. Walmart Stores (WMT) has closed the lid on customer reviews of its caskets. As DailyFinance reported this week, the retailer is selling 15 caskets, and more than 130 urns and cremains containers, through its website.

As debatable as that business proposition might be, it proved a sure thing with at least one type of consumer: not the bereaved, but the wags who lurk behind high-speed Internet connections, waiting for an opportunity to heckle retailers with tongue-in-cheek reviews.

Razzing online retailers with facetious comments has evolved into something approaching an art form. Take the howling-wolf T-shirt sold on Amazon.com (AMZN) this year: the comments for the black shirt, which sports a graphic of three wolves howling at a moon, has collected more than 1500 reviews -- providing hours of fun reading for anyone with hours to spare.

For would-be comics trying out their material in the comments sections, the social-media function of voting on which reviews are the most "helpful" may be irresistible. Amazon's reviews of the T-shirt include a "review" that more than 16,000 customers have endorsed: "After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Walmart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!)"

But far from silly, the comments posted on Walmart's casket selection were creepy -- and creepiness, presumably, is not a trait Walmart wants its customers to see when they're choosing a burial option for a loved one. Before Walmart shut down the caskets' review section, Advertising Age documented a few of the reviews, like this one: "I picked one up to bury my cat in. Other than having room for about 100 cats, it worked well. Oh, had to dig a really big hole too, and that was rough on my back. But at least when my dog dies I can just open 'er up again and stick him in too."

For the howling-wolf T-shirt makers, the phenomenon of facetious online reviews proved a goldmine: whether ironic or not, the shirts' sales skyrocketed. So maybe there's a chance that tongue-in-cheek comments might have boosted casket sales. After all, 525 people voted that "bury my cat" review as "helpful." Walmart didn't immediately return a request for comment.

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Wal-Mart De Mexico October Same-Store Sales Up 5.1% On Year

By Anthony Harrup,
Dow Jones Newswires
November 6th, 2009                     [back to top]

Retailer Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB (WMMVY, WALMEX.MX) said Friday that its same-stores sales grew 5.1% in October from the year-ago month as more people visited its stores and spent slightly more on average.

Walmex, as the country's biggest retailer is known, said total sales last month rose 12.8% from October 2008 to 21.72 billion pesos ($1.62 billion), helped by the opening of 30 new stores during the month.

The 5.1% rise in same-store sales, excluding stores opened in the past year, was the result of a 4.9% increase in the number of customers and a 0.2% increase in the average receipt per customer, Walmex said.

With the opening of five supermarkets so far this month, Walmex has 1,363, supermarkets, clothing stores and restaurants in operation.

Walmex V shares trading on the Mexican stock exchange closed up 0.3% Friday at MXN48.41.

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Online Price War Moves to DVDs As Discounters Compete for Sales

By MIGUEL BUSTILLO
And ANN ZIMMERMAN,
Wall Street Journal
November 6th, 2009                           [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. extended its holiday price war into new territory Thursday by slashing online prices on 10 hotly anticipated DVDs, including the new Star Trek and Harry Potter releases, to $10.

Within hours, Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. matched some of Wal-Mart's online prices on pre-orders of the DVDs, and Wal-Mart lowered its price by a penny to $9.99, reprising the scuffle that broke out last month when Wal-Mart launched an aggressive $10 book promotion.

Walmart.com Chief Executive Raul Vazquez has declared Walmart.com will roll out a series of similar price promotions heading into the holidays to underscore its claim to be a low-price leader online.

"We remain committed to offering our customers the lowest prices online at Walmart.com, and will continue to adjust our pricing accordingly on these movie titles," said Walmart.com spokesman Ravi Jariwala.

Like the book war, which led the retailers to offer titles such as Stephen King's "Under the Dome" and Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" at prices below wholesale cost, the DVD battle resulted in prices that guaranteed the retailers would lose money on the movies. However, promotions to sell new movie releases close to or below cost in order to drive customer traffic are already common in retailing. Just this week, Wal-Mart was advertising "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" at less than $14, which is less than analysts believe retailers pay for such titles.

Target spokeswoman Kelly Basgen said the retailer, which had lowered its price on "Star Trek" by early Thursday evening, would counter on all 10 movie discs by Friday morning.

"We are planning to match," she said, adding that Target would resume standard pricing once the DVDs begin arriving in stores.

An Amazon spokesman did not immediately return requests for comment. Company executives previously have downplayed competition with other retailers, even as they quickly adjusted their prices.

Though Wal-Mart, Amazon and Target always compete feverishly with aggressively priced promotions, the latest skirmishes, heading into a holiday season in which recession-scarred consumers are searching for bargains, have been especially cutthroat.

Despite involving just a handful of titles, the book war aroused strong passions in the publishing industry. Some worried that it would set troublesome new customer expectations on bestseller prices and even affect the amount of future advances publishers could afford to pay writers.

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WALMART COMES TO INDIA

By Malini Goyal,
Indrajit Gupta and
Neelima Mahajan-Bansal,
Forbes
November 6th, 2009                           [back to top]

Wal-Mart is the world's second-largest company after ExxonMobil. With sales exceeding $400 billion it is six times larger than Procter & Gamble, the largest consumer products company. Its revenues are more than the GDP of at least 144 nations.

When a company is this big, the people running it are difficult to please and equally difficult to impress. But one July morning this year the CEO of Wal-Mart's international operation, Doug McMillon, was mighty pleased. He was visiting his newest baby--a large, month-old store on the fabled Grand Trunk Road just outside Amritsar in Punjab.

Set up in a joint venture with Sunil Mittal's Bharti Group and called Best Price Modern Wholesale, they had signed on close to 35,000 members in the first couple of weeks (a number that has since ballooned to 70,000), bean counters at the store told him. They included small shop owners, hotels, restaurants, schools, colleges, the police force and even the Indian Army. Sales, they told him, exceeded expectations by almost 70%. Their only concern was whether stocks could cope with demand.

After 18 years at Wal-Mart McMillon knew the company is the best when it comes to retailing. But it had never attempted a pure wholesale format anywhere in the world, including in the U.S. If anything, it has only played with hybrid models like Sam's Club, which caters to both bulk buyers and retail shoppers. The closest it had come to making a format like this work was something called Maxi in Mexico. But that wasn't a pure business-to-business model. Even homemakers could shop there.

Shortly after he concluded his visit to the store, an effusive McMillon told CNBC-TV18, "Our investments in India are really not constrained from a financial perspective. The constraint is more about how many cash-and-carry units can you get to open from a real estate perspective."

What he really meant was that Wal-Mart is ready with a $5 billion-plus war chest for its international business. And that if the Indian team, headed by Raj Jain, can find enough land to set up more stores of the kind operating in Amritsar, he can double the stakes. "We will roll it out rapidly," says Jain. The plan is to set up at least 15 such stores across the country in the next two years.

Serendipity

Some would say that Wal-Mart is late to latch on to the great Indian dream. Homegrown businesses like the Future Group have more than a decade's head start. Others like Reliance and A.V. Birla have learned from their mistakes and are now looking to regroup their strategies.

But that is missing the trees for the forest. All of them cater to a $20 billion organized retail opportunity. The cash-and-carry opportunity is much larger--$400 billion, now dominated by the unorganized wholesalers who supply to local stores (known as kiranas). The only one that tried was Germany's Metro--the world's largest wholesale operation. But it never quite figured out India.

It isn't that Wal-Mart was clueless of the India opportunity. After China, this is the only country where it sees enough potential to plant at least 1,000 stores. But there are regulatory issues. Indian law prevents foreign retailers from selling directly to consumers. If they intend to take the wholesale route, though, they're welcome to open shop. But Wal-Mart had a lot of thinking to do before it took the plunge.

Two decades after stepping out of the U.S., it remains a quintessential U.S. company. It understands American consumers well but is ill at ease in most emerging markets. Professor Anil Gupta, who has tracked Wal-Mart's progress around the world and teaches strategy at the University of Michigan, says, "I spoke with senior executives from Wal-Mart a couple of years ago, wanting to find out how global the company's mind-set is. I had an instrument to do this. They said, 'Don't give it to us. Our global mind-set is below zero--we are a U.S. company doing business abroad, not a global company.'"

But under its current CEO Mike Duke, Wal-Mart has made big strides: In 2007 more than 50% of Wal-Mart's assets were abroad. "Wal-Mart's future is clearly outside the U.S.," says Gupta.

Its experience in other parts of the world has been patchy. In Mexico, when it started out in 1991, it set up a huge American-style parking lot outside its discount store. Unfortunately customers came in buses, not cars. Management also realized that there are no takers for golf balls in a low-income country. In time, though, they recovered and are now very successful there.

There were hiccups in Brazil as well, where they had to deal with tough competitors like Ahold and Carrefour. Eventually Wal-Mart bought out Ahold. In Argentina, it operates on the fringes with barely 4% of market share. Its push into Central America--Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua--came through an acquisition in 2007. But these markets are too small to matter. In Germany Wal-Mart couldn't match up to entrenched players like Metro and Aldi. It finally took a billion-dollar hit, sold to Metro and got out.

Its first foray into Asia was in Hong Kong. But it was unlucky with its partner. Eventually Wal-Mart pulled out. Next stop: Indonesia, during Suharto's time. To do business there, there was no way other than to tap into his network. A little later riots broke out, Suharto was deposed and Wal-Mart's stores burned down. The foray into South Korea was doomed from the beginning. Seven years after trying to gain scale, it sold its businesses there and abandoned the hunt.

Wal-Mart cut its teeth in China in 1997. Several mistakes later--like attempting to sell frozen foods to a nation obsessed with fresh vegetables, meat and fish--it has managed to hang on there. More than ten years down the line it lags French retail chain Carrefour, which, unlike Wal-Mart, gives greater autonomy to local store managers.

To be fair to Wal-Mart, it's learned its lessons well. "Our model revolves around scale ... and offering good quality products at prices lower than others," says Raj Jain. "If we can't have that scale for whatever reasons--legal, financial or anything else--by and large we don't succeed in those markets. So let's be clear about this: If we enter India, we have a vision to be big."

Which is why, when faced with two options--wait for the law of the land to change before setting up shop or gamble on the wholesale opportunity--it chose the latter. In spite of having the option to come in on its own, Wal-Mart chose to partner with Bharti Enterprises for the cash-and-carry wholesale business. It wasn't willing to repeat mistakes it had made in other parts of the world because it couldn't figure out local nuances early enough.

It helped. As Sunil Mittal told FORBES INDIA a few weeks ago, "I went to Amritsar and they showed me some stores. I thought there was too much breakfast cereal stacked there. I told them, it's the wrong thing in the wrong place. These are things you learn when you're in a country. It isn't a fight."

Bharti gained as well from the relationship. The technology to build Bharti's network of retail stores, Easyday, is licensed from Wal-Mart. The back-end logistics of the operation are also managed by the Wal-Mart.

Incredible India

Among the first things Wal-Mart did was to pick seasoned managers who understood India well. Leading the pack was Raj Jain, who had been a senior executive at Unilever in India before he moved to Whirlpool, where he eventually rose to head its Asia operations.

The company also brought in expats who knew the Wal-Mart system well. Craig Wimsatt was designated chief operating officer (he is now relocating back to headquarters on a new assignment). With him was Arvind Mediratta, a veteran Procter & Gamble executive who knew the Indian market. Mediratta was the business head for the wholesale cash-and-carry business.

Wimsatt and Mediratta tried to understand why their German rival Metro didn't do well. It didn't take them long to figure it out. Their store design, for instance. Metro spent a huge sum of money on buildings with roofs that can withstand 6 inches of snow--in Bangalore, a city that hasn't seen snow ever. Store sizes for Metro were too big, more in line with the German wholesale club format it was based on. Its expat managers refused to stock products like that uniquely Indian creation, a jharoo (broom), because it didn't fit into how the company defined products back home. They've mended their ways since, but the damage was done.

The pros next focused their attention on small kirana stores: Where do they buy from? What do they buy and how? They repeated this exercise across all the segments they intended to target. "Best prices, reliability in terms of availability and quality was one thing all of them demanded," says Mediratta.

When it comes to fast-moving branded products, quality was not an issue. That is what traditional wholesalers in India have focused on, working with very thin operating margins in the region of 1% to 1.5%.

But when it comes to groceries, rice, pulses and meat--it was a huge problem. Restaurant owners, for instance, told them their customers are used to a certain kind of paneer (cottage cheese) or fish. So they stuck to the same supplier to ensure consistency. Mediratta recalls a caterer telling him of the time he attempted to change his fish supplier. The next day customers complained the taste wasn't quite the same. That's when they figured there is a supply chain at work here. Not the most efficient perhaps, but it works, somehow. The people Wal-Mart intended to target were dealing with as many as 100 suppliers each. Not just that, the market was hopelessly price sensitive.

Fundamentally a one-stop shop could make life easier for these folks. But delivering on the proposition of lower prices and better quality was the tough part. Most suppliers had to agree to new terms of trade.

The team did their homework well. They figured, for instance, that the arbitrage available from the time a farmer grows something to the time the retailer sells it is two rupees per kilogram. Conventional wisdom claims organized retail usually works when the supply chain is owned by the retailer. "If you want to make everything work at two rupees per kilo, it would suicidal to invest in a megasupply chain," says Raj Jain.

To get around the problem, Wal-Mart focused on sourcing from farmers, small mandis (farmers' wholesale markets) that others hadn't looked at yet, and larger ones as well for the retail stores. Produce is sent to an aggregation center, sorted out, graded and supplied to the store twice a day. However, to keep costs even lower for the cash-and-carry model Wal-Mart chose not to route supplies through distribution centers but to take delivery directly at the store. "It is an interim solution but a practical one," explains Jain. "I think people failed in India because they went from almost nothing to very sophisticated systems. The cost of infrastructure they developed is so huge that it is not possible to sustain it on a margin of two rupees."

The team went on an aggressive customer acquisition program, signing up 35,000 members (including add on members), even before the store was opened. The key accounts were getting parts of the Indian Army.

Simultaneously the store planning was progressing well. A tight assortment of 5,500 stock-keeping units (skus) was identified. Discipline was critical to the wholesale business. In most Indian stores the ability to quickly replenish items was below par. This is referred to in industry parlance as fill rate. In Wal-Mart's book, a lot of the time stores lost sales because they were unable to quickly restock items that had been sold. Fill rates were traditionally in the region of 60% to 65% in most organized retail stores in the country. Wal-Mart aimed for 90%.

Wal-Mart improved the replenishment rate by creating an Internet-based system, which allowed suppliers to log in and track the purchase orders on a regular basis and supply as per the requirements.

Most important, Wal-Mart pared costs down to the bone. For instance, finding large enough parcels of land is tough. But the India team made a call not to open stores unless rentals were pegged to a certain percentage of their total costs. That also meant settling for locations on the outskirts of the city they operate in. "We have skylights at the store so we don't need to switch on lights during the day. Racking is simple. It is self-service, so you don't have to deploy too many people to help members," says Mediratta.

That perhaps explains why large institutional customers like MK Hotels, a leading hotel in Amritsar, which used to source supplies from the wholesale markets of Delhi, have shifted loyalties to Best Price. Jasdev Singh, an assistant manager at the hotel, says the prices are about 5% to 10% cheaper.The best thing, says Mediratta, is that Wal-Mart never forced a model on the local team. Best Price is perhaps the best evidence that Wal-Mart is quickly learning the rules of globalization.

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Walmart’s Walton Meets India’s Premier Singh, E. Times Reports

By Saikat Chatterjee,
Bloomberg
November 6th, 2009                       [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Chairman S. Robson Walton sought lifting of a ban on foreign investment in India’s retail industry in a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Economic Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Walton met Singh on Nov. 4, the newspaper said.

Overseas investment in India’s retail industry is limited to single-brand merchants, preventing Walmart from buying stakes in local retail companies or setting up its own stores.

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Wal-Mart Eliminating 60 Positions In International Division

By Mark Friedman,
Arkansas Business
November 4th, 2009                    [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville confirmed Wednesday that it will eliminate 60 positions from its international division.

The retailer, though, expects to add about 40 positions to the division, spokesman Kevin Gardner said. And the employees whose jobs are being cut can apply for the new positions or other positions within Wal-Mart through Feb. 2, he said.

Eligible employees who don't have other jobs within Wal-Mart by Feb. 2 will receive a severance package, Gardner said. The conflict-of-interest policy will be waived so they can apply for jobs with suppliers.

The 40 new positions will be in its international division.

"We think we have an opportunity to take the best processes for operating merchandising stores and deploy those processes around the world where it's appropriate," Gardner said.

A focus on purchasing will be to "work on a greater level of collaboration with our suppliers" to lower costs and increase variety to its customers, he said.

CEO Mike Duke said the international division will be the target for Wal-Mart's growth.

"This is consistent with the strategy that we've been working on this year," Gardner said.

Davie delays decision on Wal-Mart lawsuit settlement

By Susannah Bryan,
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
November 4th, 2009                                [back to top]

DAVIE - Town leaders were hoping to decide Wednesday whether to settle a lawsuit filed by Wal-Mart.

But after an attorney for the retail giant presented a new draft of the settlement, council members said they needed another month to review the changes.

A settlement would pave the way for a Walmart store along busy University Drive. The Council plans to discuss the possible settlement on Dec. 2.

"I'm not going to be in favor of this," Councilman Michael Crowley said, drawing applause from an overflow crowd. "This agreement is lethal for the town. It's one-sided."

Wal-Mart sued the town in August 2006 after the Town Council rejected its plans to build a 24-hour superstore at Orange and University drives.

The retail giant now plans to build a smaller 165,000-square-foot store that would be open daily from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

On Wednesday night, several residents said they worried a Walmart would bring more traffic, noise and crime to the neighborhood. Some want the town to fight the discount chain in federal court.

But Town Attorney John Rayson said the chain already had the right to build a 366,000-square-foot store in that location.

He said the town "can always go to court," but would be taking a huge risk.

In March 2007, a Broward circuit court judge ruled Davie had the right to reject Wal-Mart's plan for a superstore. The chain appealed in federal court in Miami. A federal judge ordered mediation last year.

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Push to bring Walmart to South Side

By Karen Jordan,
WLS-TV
November 4th, 2009                        [back to top]

Some residents of Chicago's Englewood community say they would welcome a Walmart store in their neighborhood.

They have organized a petition drive to try and persuade Walmart and the city to make it happen. But there is some opposition.

This is the first public push for a Walmart in Englewood. This is in addition to the ongoing effort to bring the chain to Chatham. Supporters say the store can boost blighted communities. Critics want Walmart to agree to their terms to make that happen.

A group of Englewood residents and community activists stood on the site where they say a Walmart would greatly benefit the neighborhood. They rallied at 63rd and Halsted, holding 5,000 signatures of people who signed petitions in support of the big-box store.

"There's nowhere to shop here. There's nowhere to get fresh produce. There's nowhere to get school supplies. You have a multi-million dollar college right across the street," said Darryl Smith, Englewood Political Task Force.

Smith plans to present the signatures to Mayor Daley Thursday in hopes of getting City Hall behind the plan.

But that's been an ongoing struggle for Alderman Howard Brookins, who has been trying for years to bring Walmart to the Chatham community. He is pushing for a hearing that will help pave the way for a supercenter that sells groceries to build on a former industrial site.

"You can point to people not having shopping choices within their communities as being one of the reasons Chicago is in such financial straits that we're in today," said Brookins, 21st Ward.

Some community activists are hesitant to increase Walmart's presence in Chicago. Reverend Booker Vance says he would like to see the big-box chain commit to what's called a "community benefit agreement" first.

"If they're not going to pay people living wages, if they're not gonna offer folk health benefits that are adequate, and if they're not gonna allow folks the chance to organize ... not of any benefit to us," said Rev. Booker Vance, Good Jobs Chicago.

The first Walmart in Chicago opened three years ago on the West Side in Alderman Emma Mitt's ward. She says the store has been a good community partner offering much needed jobs.

"There are people who shop at Walmart every day. And you can't go wrong when you're bringing a service to your community," said Mitts.

Walmart said in a written statement that, "The store has been meeting with local Chicago community organizations for the last five years to learn how we can better serve our customers...particularly those who live in food deserts and underserved areas. We will continue to do so as we are presented with new opportunities."

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Granite Development sues Wal-Mart

By James Gallagher,
Triangle Business Journal
November 2nd, 2009                             [back to top]

Granite Development has filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, saying the retailer failed to live up to an agreement to build a store in southeast Raleigh.

Granite purchased property at the intersection of Rock Quarry and Sunnybrook roads in 2006. The Raleigh-based developer then sold the bulk of that property in 2007 to Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). As part of the sale, the two companies signed a Joint Development Agreement specifying that Wal-Mart would construct a store while Granite would develop surrounding parcels.

Granite says Wal-Mart abandoned the project in violation of the agreement. The company has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina for breach of contract, among other claims, and is seeking actual damages that exceed $75,000 and unspecified punitive damages.

“We have made a good faith effort to uphold our end of our joint development agreement with Wal-Mart,” said Grady Matthews of Granite. “While we had hoped to resolve this matter amicably, Wal-Mart’s continued refusal to adhere to the terms of our agreement has left us with no choice but to file this complaint. Wal-Mart’s actions have resulted in significant damages to our company. This lawsuit is an unfortunate but necessary step to protect not only our interests, but the good people of Raleigh who supported this project for southeast Raleigh.”

Daphne Moore, director of corporate communications for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., said that officials at her company had not yet seen the lawsuit but that they knew the contract was in place when they made the decision to withdraw the plans for the southeast Raleigh project.

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Walmart drive to move into US cities

By Jonathan Birchall ,
Financial Times
November 2nd, 2009                       [back to top]

Walmart has stepped up efforts to mobilise local political support for new store openings in US cities and urban areas that were this month identified as a growth priority for the retailer by Mike Duke, its chief executive.

In addition to a renewed drive to open a second Supercenter store in Chicago, the retailer is also raising its political profile in Philadelphia and continuing to cultivate the ground for a potential move into New York City.

Walmart has long faced political resistance to its plans in the largest US cities, largely orchestrated by the UFCW grocery workers' union and its political allies. Walmart, the largest US private employer, is strongly anti-union.

Eduardo Castro Wright, chief executive of Walmart's US stores, has estimated that urban markets where the retailer is underrepresented could yield billions of dollars of new sales. "We already have in our real estate programme a robust plan to go after those," he told analysts in October.

The retailer has only one store inside Chicago's city limits and none in New York or Boston. While it has discount stores - which do not sell fresh food - around Philadelphia, Washington DC and Los Angeles, it has only a handful of its more profitable Supercenters near those cities.

The focus on urban markets comes at a time when Walmart's national reputation has improved, partly as a result of its strong performance during the recession.

Leslie Dach, head of corporate communications, said last month that Walmart's role in serving low-income customers during the recession had won the retailer "new respect from politicians, from economists and from the media".

The retailer's embrace of environmental sustainability over the past four years has also improved its ethical reputation, moving up Covalence's ethical rating of 27 global retailers from bottom in 2004 to second currently, behind Marks and Spencer.

Saint Consulting, a firm that specialises in local land-use politics, also reported in January this year a drop in the number of people saying that they would oppose the opening of a new Walmart store - at 56 per cent, down from 68 per cent two years ago.

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Clinic at Wal-Mart opens in Branson

News-Leader
November 2nd, 2009                     [back to top]

The Clinic at Wal-Mart operated by CoxHealth in partnership with Skaggs Regional Medical Center, located inside the Wal-Mart supercenter at 1101 Branson Hills Parkway in Branson, opened today.

The clinic offers access to basic health care services such as check-ups, immunizations, screenings and treatment of minor injuries for patients at least 18 months old, according to a news release.

Extended and weekend hours — 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday — offer area residents an alternative to emergency departments and urgent care clinics when only routine care is needed.

No appointment is necessary.

CoxHealth network affiliated insurances, Medicare, Medicaid, cash, check and credit or debit cards are accepted.

The clinic is the fifth location of The Clinic at Wal-Mart operated by CoxHealth, the first location CoxHealth and Skaggs have partnered on, and the first location in Banson.

For a full list of clinics, visit www.coxhealth.com.

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Walmart, Just My Size Team Up for Affordable Plus Size Fashion

Fox News
November 2nd, 2009                         [back to top]

JMS Just My Size recently launched a new plus size clothing line for retail giant Walmart at a fashion show in New York today.

The line features a full collection of clothing and runs in sizes 16-28. Even more appealing to shoppers: nothing in the line costs more than $22.

In an interview with Business Wire, JMS Marketing Director Maria Teza said, "The JMS woman embraces her curves … So often plus-size women see stylish clothes in the Missy department that they can`t find in the plus-size department. Now she can find those same styles in just her size."Included in the line’s winter and holiday collections are dress pants, jeans, sweaters, skirts, leggings, blouses and sweater vests, Business Wire reports.

In business for 25 years, JMS has become known for it’s intimate apparel and hosiery, although the company has also designed jeans and sportswear in recent years.

JMS is available exclusively at Walmart and online at www.justmysize.com.

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VIDEOS

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Fighting Wal-Martization 25min. (2005)

A new video by The Labor Video Project 25 min. (2005)

Wal-Mart is now the largest private employer in the United States and has the same impact that General Motors had nearly 50 years ago. This 26-minute video shows why working people and trade unionists are fighting back and what Wal-Mart has in store for the communities it is seeking to build stores in. "Fighting Wal-Martization" is a hard hitting documentary that looks at how the constant price cutting not only drives local small businesses out of the community but how this ends up driving down the living conditions of the very people who shop at Wal-Mart. The video also looks at the healthcare crisis and how Wal-Mart increases its profits by sending it¹s employees to public hospitals to get treatment thereby shifting costs back onto the taxpayer. This video can be used at union meetings, community meetings and on cable TV to get the message out about the Wal-Martization of America and what it means to every working person.

Please mail your check of $20.00 and order form to

Labor Video Project
P. O. Box 720027,
San Francisco, CA 94172

For more info: lvpsf@labornet.org, (415) 282-1908

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices (www.walmartmovie.com)

Independent America: The Two Lane Search for Mom & Pop (www.independentamerica.net)

Big Box Mart (www.jibjab.com)

Garth Brooks Parody (www.walmartworkersrights.org)

"Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" Frontline, PBS Video, (www.pbs.org)
 

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BOOKS

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NON-FICTION

The Case Against Wal-Mart By Al Norman Raphel Marketing ruth@raphael.com

Wal-Mart: The Face Of Twenty-First Century Capitalism Edited By Nelson Lichtenstein The New Press www.thenewpress.com

The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care and Retirement By Jacob S. Hacker Oxford University Press www.oup.com

War On The Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back By Lou Dobbs Viking, a member of Penguin Group www.penguin.com

Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age By Allison H. Fine Jossey-Bass www.joseybass.com

Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses, By Stacy Mitchell, www.beacon.org www.newrules.org

Wal-Mart: The Face Of the Twenty-First-Century Capitalism, Edited by Nelson Lichtenstein, Published by The New Press www.thenewpress.com

 The Bully Of Bentonville - How the high cost of Wal-Mart's Everyday Low Prices is Hurting America, By Anthony Bianco, Published by Doubleday
Email: specialmarkets@randomhouse.com

 How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (and the world), By Bill Quinn, Published By Ten Speed Press, Box 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707, www.tenspeed.com (pp. 163)

Slam Dunking Wal-Mart, By Al Norman, Published By Raphel Marketing, 12 S. Virginia Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey 08410, www.sprawl-busters.com (pp. 237)

The Great American JobsScam, By Greg LeRoy, Published By Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94104-2916, www.bkconnection.com (pp. 257)

Nickel and Dimed, By Barbara Ehrenreich, Published By Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 115 West 18^th Street, New York, NY 10011, www.henryholt.com (pp.221)

United States of Wal-Mart, By John Dicker, Published By Jeremy P. Tarcher (Penguin Group usa), www.us.penguingroup.com (pp.257)

The Wal-Mart Effect, By Charles Fishman www.penguin.com

Megamall On The Hudson, By David Porter and Chester L. Mirsky www.trafford.com

FICTION

Death By Discount, By Mary Vermillion, Published By Alyson Publications, P.O. Box 4371, Los Angeles, CA 90078-4371, www.maryvermillion.com (pp. 275)