Is Walmart good for America?

As the biggest seller in history, it's not a surprise that Walmart is the target of both vicious attacks and gushing appreciation. According to its own site, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. runs more than 8,000 stores, uses more than 2.1 million individuals, and sells more than $400 billion worth of goods in every year. Though this bulk frightens those who fear for the practicality of "mother and pop" sellers, Walmart's great strength is that it dedicates its significant power to American consumers. Its size enables it to provide services that other sellers can not, and it has deservedly end up being an integral part of the modern American economy.

Criticisms of Walmart's impact on small retailers fall flat since of Americans' function because effect. Usage is the only democratic element of the corporate world: small merchants stop working due to the fact that Americans choose Walmart. Walmart provides less expensive, better, more available services than its competition. While competing shops' closings produce touching hard-luck stories, the shift to Walmart is useful for society, since Walmart is much more effective at every stage of its service.

Get quality help now

Doctor Jennifer

Verified writer

Proficient in: America

5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

The benefits of this effectiveness are less personal and more broadly spread than the costs to smaller rivals, but such dissemination of worth shows among the best qualities of Walmart-- its egalitarianism. Walmart supplies a good that is accessible to practically all Americans. The 2006 book The Walmart Impact estimates that 97% of Americans live within twenty-five miles of a Walmart, and Walmart's low prices guarantee that the shop is also financially available.

As long as customers continue to select Walmart (for easy to understand factors), the onus is on little sellers to find much better methods to compete.

The second primary argument versus Walmart deals with its effect on providers. Because Walmart has such tremendous purchasing power, it carries fantastic influence with producers. Luckily, Walmart utilizes its significant bargaining power in the interests of American consumers by requiring ever-decreasing costs. Though makers frequently grumble about this pressure, it forces consistent development, which ultimately benefits consumers.

Walmart has much to teach American businesses. Despite its size, Walmart is a paragon of corporate efficiency. It has compiled the largest sales data-set of any American retailer and analyzes this data using the second largest supercomputer in the world (trailing only the Pentagon). Aided by this number-crunching, Walmart excels at knowing what its consumers want. Walmart’s purchasing decisions thus reflect American preferences. In short, Walmart is a driving force in the American economy leading to smarter, more streamlined production, and (as always) lower prices for consumers.

The benefits of Walmart’s efficiency are not only economic, as illustrated by the company’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Walmart’s response to the hurricane was lauded even by its critics: it donated more than $20 million worth of merchandise, including food for 100,000 meals, and it promised jobs for all of its displaced workers. But what I wish to extol is not Walmart’s largesse, which bore immediate public relations benefits, but rather the utility of their efficient distribution system.

The first supply truck to arrive at the Superdome after the hurricane came from Walmart, not from FEMA. The administrative particulars of Walmart’s response to the hurricane, detailed in a study by Steven Horwitz, are both fascinating and inspiring. Walmart’s existing distribution chain was – and is – able to deliver needed goods faster and more efficiently than a government agency, which (besides being inept) had no existing infrastructure to respond to the disaster.

The Coast Guard, another organization praised for its post-Katrina efforts, was great for rescuing people from flooded houses, but it was incapable of providing them with sufficient supplies afterwards. Without the aid of Walmart, the aftermath of the hurricane would have been even more catastrophic.

Regardless of its reputation or its value to society, Walmart is here to stay. Consumption drives our daily lives and accounts for some 70% of America’s GDP. As long as Walmart continues to increase the accessibility and quality of consumption, it will remain America’s top retailer and continue to grow. Whether or not you choose to shop at Walmart, everyone
should appreciate it as an outstanding American institution.