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Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(NYSE:WMT)has had a huge amount of "black eyes" recently from marketing missteps to earnings misses to customer backlash to possible scandals (one from Marketing last year and one just yesterday over corporate spying). So, it's almost a task of Herculean proportions to get good news out of Wal-Mart's PR doors these days.But, the way in which Wal-Mart is at least attempting to internally become a more "green" corporate citizen is --- at least at this time --- admirable. Add that to the retailer pushing more eco-friendly products on shelves, and this company is at least trying to repair some of that bad reputation with some good moves. It's true that just offering eco-friendly light bulbs to customers (many of whom don't have a clue what that even is) is just a start, but here's hoping the company starts aggressively pushing more ecologically-sound products on its shelves.
Unfortunately, on the "we need to power our stores more efficiently" front, the company is seeing delays in trying to acquire and install large-scale solar power units to help supply eco-friendly power to many of its stores. But I am still encouraged that the world's largest retailer is at least attempting to dent its energy usage footprint. Are you?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-06-2007 @ 1:18PM
Howard Lee Harkness said...
I suspect that Wal-Mart is just twisting the arms of the bidders. Wal-Mart is famous for extracting loss-leader pricing in return for nebulous promises of large follow-on contracts. Trouble is, the follow-on contracts never actually materialize, because Wal-Mart will find some other fool to give it more loss-leader pricing. Smart companies that want to stay in business have learned about this little trick. I know of more than one business that refuses to sell to Wal-Mart after getting burned in this manner (I personally know a guy in the store-fixtures business that got shafted this way). Other vendors cope with these tactics by producing specially-cheapened goods just for Wal-Mart (after my last encounter with "brand-name" shoes from Wal-Mart, I certainly won't be buying shoes there again, ever).
Personally, I wouldn't want Wal-Mart as a customer. I would definitely get more favorable results by encouraging my competition to sell to them. Any company that has Wal-Mart as a customer for more than a tiny fraction of its business is courting disaster.