[klaatumail] Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Fw: How Big is Walmart?
- From: Edward Martin III <edwardmartiniii@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: klaatumail@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 09:43:01 -0700
Jamie writes "Wal*Mart paid for a $30 million reconstruction of the
highway on and off-ramps to accommodate a bridge that would deliver
cars directly off the highway and INTO their parking lot....thereby
destroying traffic flow into the stores and plazas that occupied the
area now located UNDER the bridge."
Yep.
This is a very reasonable tactic to compete that is impossible to
perform unless you have sufficient capital. When your net income is
on the order of 4 BILLION dollars, then dropping thirty million
dollars as a bribe^H^H^H^H^H incentive to local government for a
project that greases the wheels for you is pretty trivial.
If I had an income of, say, $40,000, that would be like me buying
dinner one night for the local town Selectmen (to the tune of $300).
And hey, if that throws other folks out of business -- bonus!
Likewise a very common trick is to way-way undercut local business by
temporarily running at a loss. When you have a big pile of
cash-padding, then you can do this.
But really, you don't NEED to run at a loss when you can get your
music CDs cheaper than, say, Joe's Record Shop.
As you mentioned earlier, Jamie, they can sell v-e-r-y cheaply because
they can offer the ZOMG Market Penetration plan in exchange for their
v-e-r-y low offer to the supplier. If the supplier can afford to
mass-produce their product enough to afford Wal-Mart's deal, great,
but if they can't, then they can TRY negotiating, but I doubt it'll do
them any good.
There's plenty of tin-hattery to go around these days, and I'd warrant
that a significant portion of that list was just that, but there's no
denying Wal-Mart has created and profits from a retail situation that
is NOT a part of a typical competitive atmosphere.
Cheers,
Edward
Other related posts:
