Walrmart—A Good Neighbor

I have often heard folks talking about the negative impacts of Walmart business model on local small business. I heard about "small business killer", "High cost of the low price" and "Globalization monster" all the time.

Coming from China—a country where people usually tend to brag about their nation’s business giant more than criticizing it—it was challenging for me to understand the prevailing hates among the Americans about—Walmart. For many years in many countries’ people’s mind, Walmart has been a symbol of American Products and quality life with affordable price.

So, why the Americans hate Walmart? Because the complex social issues they believe was brought up by Walmart’s growth in the communities, which also happen many where in the world? The complex issues of environment sustainability which is a global issues and a result of the globalization? Talking about multinational corporations operations—why Walmart seems to be the only one being picked up all the time?

Is the hate just a "go with the flow" tendency of the public? Is it becoming a fashion to say “I don’t like Walmart”? Or an excuse for the local small business?

Well, most of the blames to Walmart focus on three major issues: Affecting Local Small Business, Employment issues, and the Corporate Social responsibilities. From my speculations, I found these arguments unsupported by the facts I found from various sources.
 A Good Neighbor Boosts Local Small Business Development
A few days ago, I happened to read this article “New Walmart Opens, Small Businesses Close–Common Misconceptions” having critique on the newly released report “The Wal-Mart Effect: Wave of Destruction or Creative Destruction?” from Economic Geography. The author cited three major reasons why Walmart is not the one to blame to for the failure of local small business.
The author argued that “The ostensible mythos negatively effects intimidated local business owners to the point of considering and often calling it quits rather than evaluating all possible circumstances before closing. If local surrounding businesses offer services and products Walmart does not provide, the competition is not as tough in the long haul.”

The Walmart moving into urban areas can actually attract entrepreneurs that diversify the local market. For example, a camera store can provide higher end products and more quality photos printing services that Walmart does not have. A Chinese restaurant can benefit more from the consumers drive by Walmart. The arrival of Walmart can boost the dynamic among local small business, improve the consumers’ shopping experience by providing them with quality products with lower prices, and foster the variety and diversity of the local business environment rather than affecting the local small business.

Ultimately, the Walmart model can cultivate “potential entrepreneurial ventures in a business environment” according to the author.

 A Good Neighbor Provides Affordable Quality Life and Serves the community
I came across this video clip on youtube “ We All Are Praying for this Walmart”. I made a deep breath after watching this video—it was so real and close to my everyday life that made me rethink about the massive protesting videos online.
In the video, Adelaide Randall, resident of Chicago's 9th Ward, talks about how a Walmart in Pullman Park would help revitalize a neighborhood devastated by lack of jobs and lack of access to fresh groceries.
“If the store was here, it was a nice, quiet and clean area. But when the store starts leaving, drugs got busy—they start selling more drugs, and robbering..the crime rate went up, without Walmart”
In the video, even though the walmart is a bit far away from where she lives, she still would like to go to Walmart for shopping—because “ I can find something to bring home here”.
Providing people with affordable quality life—isn’t it something we would truly appraise for?
Not to mention the chain effect that Walmart can bring to a host community—build up the community confidence, reduce the street crimes and create more potentials for the host community by attracting various business entrepreneurs.


 A Good Neighbor Creates Jobs with comparative wages and demonstrate the hiring diversity in workplaces
I was impressed by this video--“The Story of William” –a typical Walmart success story for a young local associate to a potential CFO”
Walmart provides not just a single job, but training and development opportunities along side as well, and to help the employees advance as far as they want to go in their careers. In fact, about three-fourths of management-level associates in our stores started as hourly associates.(http://walmartstores.com/pressroom/FactSheets/) The average, full-time hourly wage for Walmart stores is $11.75 and is even higher in urban areas. Additionally, associates can receive performance-based bonuses.
Besides, employment in Walmart is not just about comparative wages paying the bills, it is also about helping millions of customers living better life with affordable price.

Walmart demonstrates increasing diversity and equal opportunities in workplace with more than 257,000 African-American associates; more than 41,000 Asian and 5,900 Pacific Islander associates; more than 171,000 Hispanic associates; more than 16,000 American Indian and Alaskan Native associates; more than 869,000 women; and more than 430,000 mature associates who are 50 and older. Walmart insures more than 1.2 million associates and family members making us among the nation’s largest providers of private sector health insurance. Unlike the employees of many of our retail competitors, Walmart associates – both full and part-time – can become eligible for health benefits.( http://walmartstores.com/pressroom/FactSheets/)
I’m not related to Walmart—just as an ordinary community member living in D.C., I feel Walmart is indeed a good neighbor of mine.