^∞Fouroboros

WalMart is Evil - The Fast Company version.

Okay, read it. Pretty much as expected but a very interesting lead theme/anecdote about how Vlassic created a Gallon Jar O' Pickles and Walmart viewed it as a point-of-purchase bombshell of a marketing tool, with a "slight" variant on Vlassic's Strategic Intent: Pallets of them at aisle-fronts....

A year's worth of pickles for under $3 bucks! Vlassic, even! Huge ain't it!?

Only problem was Vlassic wasn't thinking of genericising their Brand as purveyor of mass quantities of Green things floating in Vinegar. Oops.

Still no link, but soon, I'd imagine.

[update] Fast Company | The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

[update] Los Angeles Times | The Wal-Mart Effect

Anybody else hear the bulldozers being fired up?

Stack o mag's in the mail unattended this week...one caught my eye but gave it not much thought till this piece of news: Wal-Mart dumps cold water on U.S. economic bulls

One of the unattended-to magazines? Fast Company What caught my eye: The Walmart you don't know--Why lower prices have a big cost. (It's the December issue, no link yet.)

Hmmm. A company whose balance sheet is weightier than the economies of all but a few of our 1st world allies...

Don't have to read it: predatory business model steeped in Darwin and real estate dice rolls with little downside--build too many stores, kill all competition, sell off the underutilized locations to the next (big box) sucker. Supplier price pressures and to-the-death SKU/slotting wars to make Ghengis Khan seem like, well, a kinder gentler version of Walmart. Categories killed, towns divided, swaths of decades-owned small family business swept away, margin worship driving wholesale and manufacturing jobs offshore or just into non-working family wage McJob territory. Any wonder they chose a "Smiley Face" as their icon?

(Yeah, I know "McJob" hurts Ronald's feelings. If he wanted my sympathy, he'd likewise find a better model, maybe one that doesn't implicitly admit: We can piss off and/or mis-serve 4 out of 10 people who drive-thru, and still make money. And, sleep at night.)

Sorry for the lack of posts for the last week ,er, two weeks. Eating next year requires attention to securing business for next year and beyond.

More on Human Nature has evolved into an animal that begs me to feed it my kids and family. On the upside, it's perfect fodder for the occasional talks my partners and me are asked to give. I know, I said more to come....

It. Is. Coming. Soon.