Walmart Merchant of Doom

Wal-Mart the Main Street Merchant of Doom Case Analysis

Issue/ Problem Identification

Wal-Mart started off as a small discount store in Roger, Arkansas and has evolved into one of the world’s most lucrative companies. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s founder began to target small rural cites with a population of less than ten thousand people. Walton’s goal was to bring convenience, great value, and low prices to these rural cities. However, the issues began when Wal-Mart began targeting these small rural cities. The primary issue that American cities like Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Iowa City, Iowa had with Wal-Mart is that the believe that Wal-Mart would cause their local merchant to go out of business. These cities also argued that that Wal-Mart’s “low-cost reputation would not fit. Another issue is the lost of American jobs due to Wal-Mart’s foreign purchases from vendors overseas. Wal-Mart’s aggressive marketing strategies and purchasing power has caused many small and large American businesses to shut down. Even though there is a lot of resistance Wal-Mart continues to rapidly grow.

Analysis/Evaluation

The primary social stakeholders of Wal-Mart are the people in the community and the consumers. One on the consumers challenges, especially consumers in small rural cities, is that they may too dependent on Wal-Mart because they may be the only retailer that has their basic needs. Owners are also stakeholders at Wal-Mart they own shares and have interest in profits.

Wal-Mart has economic responsibilities, legal responsibilities, ethical responsibilities and philanthropic responsibilities. The economic responsibilities that Wal-Mart fulfills are that they are very profitable. In, 2007 Wal-Mart’s net sales totaled $345 billion. As a result, some of the other corporate social responsibilities were able to be fulfilled. Also, Wal-Mart has fulfilled its economic responsibilities by profit sharing with its employees. Wal-Mart has fulfilled legal responsibility...