Attention Walmart Shoppers

Attention: Wal-Mart Shoppers

“You are making the choice”

Mary Bellerose

Southern New Hampshire University

Attention: Wal-Mart Shoppers

Navigating through the aisles of a local Wal-Mart Supercenter, shoppers are making choices of one of those “Great Values”, could they be sacrificing a hometown business to save some money? Ask yourself: are you contributing to the national medical crisis of obesity, is that great bargain an environmental nightmare, or is buying that pork chop you are potentially eliminating a much needed job in a meat packing plant? Consumers are making or contributing to just these very decisions daily, through what is purchased and whom it is purchased from. The tides are changing in the retail grocery business and the once vilified Wal-Mart is the leader and standard-bearer of these changes. Critics have long accused Wal-Mart of changing our local economies, bringing in lower paying jobs, effecting our health and reducing our property values, yet there is little recognition for any of the innovations that have also accompanied those claims. Consumers have reached a crossroads where the good may outweigh the evil. This is a conundrum that is argued on many levels daily, from Washington D.C to rural America, across socio-economic boundaries, and equally passionate on both sides. There is only fact that is for certain, the outcome will have long lasting effects on us all.

It has long been accepted that when Wal-Mart speaks the world will listen, even more so now after their entrance into the grocery retailing arena. The arrival of a Wal-Mart into a community has far reaching effects on that community, its residents, and the consumers who shop their stores. This arrival into grocery retailing has also changed Wal-Mart itself. Corporate image, capabilities, and responsibilities have all been altered as well as the company’s core business model, which was responsible for its meteoric rise to the top of the retailing world.

Wal-Mart has...