Fagan

1

Shane Fagan

Joseph Cunningham

Engl2089

07-21-2013

Walmart Fully Loaded

When it comes to shopping while saving money, the local Wal-Mart in the area is the golden ticket. The company has spread all over the planet with roughly 8,500 different store locations in 15 different countries (Person 2). As the world’s largest retail store, Wal-Mart has its perks obviously. The stores are scattered across the globe making it conveniently close to its customers. As well as always being in driving distances, the store has online shopping and shipping making it more accessible. Another advantage with the Wal-Mart stores is the various amounts of products sold as they range from electronics all the way to groceries. It allows customers to do all there shopping in one place. The reason that Wal-Mart is so large and successful comes from the most beneficial aspect of the store. Most shoppers head to these retail stores looking for the cheapest prices on items to save money, as Wal-Mart is always advertising new sales, free shipping, and even the lowest prices of any supermarket. It all sounds nice and irresistible for the customers of the almighty store, but over the years it has taken a beating in other areas than success. Wal-Mart’s reputation has been a main media target after decades of harsh criticism and legal troubles (Person 3). Every time the multimillionaire company angers the wrong crowd it causes a boycott throughout the world. It’s the same as when one of the best athletes makes a mistake, everyone is there to point fingers as there is nowhere to hide. When going behind the scenes of the company Wal-Mart, it exposes how well it excels with ethos and logos while completely destroying the store’s pathos.

Dealing with a large company that has been around for years, it is unfair to make any hasty assumptions unless the past to future is fully understood. Learning where, when and how a company came to be is must to grasp the full picture. The epic franchise started its foundation in the year 1950 when Sam Walton and his wife Hellen leased L. Harrison’s variety store in New Port, Arkansas. They transformed it into a Ben Franklin franchised store with the Walton name (History 3). In five short years it became so successful that the man they got it from, Mr. Harrison wanted it back. At this time Sam’s cousin Bud Walton had opened a Franklin Walton mini-mart in Missouri. With the lease of Sam’s store being up the three Waltons came up with a new plan (History 3). In 1959, the three sold their rights to the nine different Franklin Walton stores for a good sum of money. Instead of living of the substantial amount of money, Sam Walton wanted bigger things for his Family. On the date July 2, 1962, Sam and his family members opened a large store called Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas (History 3). In 1967, Sam had extended the amount of Walmarts as he now had 24 different locations that brought him to $12.7 million in profits. Two years later and Sam officially incorporated the company as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (History 3).

The very 1st Wal-Mart that was opened in 1962 in Arkansas

This was the start to the takeover by the Walton family when it came to shopping. Sam Walton adopted a new slogan that caught everybody’s eye, “The Lowest Prices Anytime, Anywhere.” When the 1970’s came around, Sam Walton started taking Wal-Mart nationwide (History 3). One year later and Wal-Mart became a publically traded company with its first stock being sold at $16.50 a share. In 1972, Wal-Mart started to steal the show as it appeared on the New York Stock Exchange with 51 stores while it raked in a total of $78 million. Later that year Sam Walton created the Wal-Mart distribution center creating its foundation (History 3). Mr. Walton decided to adopt a newer logo as well.

New Logo Sam Walton designed

When the 1980’s came the Wal-Mart stores started to take shape of what they are today. They simply were progressing at rates that other companies couldn’t compete with. Every time a new company would appear, Sam Walton was already a mile ahead. Wal-Mart reached $1 billion in annual salaries faster than ever done before (History 4). Once the competitor Sam’s Club came to be, Sam Walton made a huge leap replacing cash registers with computerized point-of-sale systems that made check out faster and more accurate. If that wasn’t enough, he then installed the largest satellite communicational system in the United States that linked the company’s operations through video, voice and data (History 5). Sam revealed the first Supercenter which combined a supermarket with general merchandise but he named a new face as the CEO, David Glass (History 4).

In the beginning of the 90’s Wal-Mart was thought as the “Do no Harm” store thanks to the man that created it. In 1992, Sam Walton received the Medal of Freedom from H.W. Bush and he stated, “I will save the people money so they can live a better life!” The great man with the big heart passed away shortly after at the age of 74 (Person 4).

Sam Walton receiving his Medal of Freedom from the President

Rob Walton then became the chairman of the board with the passing of the legend Sam Walton. With a new man in charge the company started its new beginning with Rob set up for even bigger things. By 1999, Wal-Mart expanded into Canada, China and the United Kingdom giving the company its first $100 billion year (Person 5). Following the early success Rob stated, “Beyond every vision there is a path.” The only question that was left for the people was what Rob’s vision was. By 2002, Wal-Mart entered into Japan while starting up their website that allowed for online shopping. Now to this day the company continues to grow entering Chile, India and South America as its annual profits are exceeding $400 billion with 2.2 million employees (History 2). Since the death of Sam Walton Wal-Mart went through four different owners, keeping pace with his goal of helping the people. If Sam knew what actually has been going on with his company he be devastated at what Wal-Mart had become.

With all the good that Sam Walton brought to the world with Wal-Mart, a company is viewed based of their most recent actions where Sam wasn’t alive to witness. To help understand the situation more in depth, the three corners of the rhetorical triangle can be used. First the strongest one is pathos once the founder passed away. Pathos or the emotional argument during that time period leaves a negative overall view on Wal-Mart to this day. The substantial contributors to this deal with the environment, employees and the law (Carlson 4). Critics have targeted the company saying that Wal-Mart puts profits ahead of the environment and its employees. It has fired up the emotions of past workers, politicians and even the common everyday shopper. Mr. Klein, an investigator started a huge stir when he was quoted saying, “Wal-Martization is taking over the economy, and I never came across an accounting I found sufficient.” For starters a lot of the protestors are blaming Wal-Mart for ruining their town as with each huge complex comes with issues (Klein 3). Their points are that each store kills a large area of land, and in smaller towns they draw in many visitors and traffic. A study showed that after five years of a newly opened store the city has increased crime, pollution and less surrounding life (Carlson 5). Each one of those cause people every day to stand on the sidewalk and express how the store is ruining the town and Wal-Mart makes no effort as they are increasing profits (WalMarts-Rep 1). The second factor that causes the emotions swirling around Wal-Mart doesn’t come from the customers, as the employees feel mistreated in many ways. People are getting to the point where they go on strike to express their feelings to the store. Instead of trying to work with the people that are doing the little things to keep the company going, Wal-Mart is simply just firing them (Carlson 4). This puts them out of work and pay as Wal-Mart just hires new unknowing people that eventually do the same thing down the road. This process has been going on ever since Sam Walton died.

The question of why people are getting so upset is simple; the company’s goal was to help the people. Once Sam passed away the new goal has to become as wealthy as possible. The employees feel that Wal-Mart does not pay fair enough wages or adequate health benefits for being the largest U.S private employer. A pyramid scheme is thought of as unfair and the employees would be happy if that was what Wal-Mart actually was (Carlson 6). Most of the workers feel badly treated by their bosses. Corporate continues to keep making more money when the average employee only makes a dollar more than minimum wage after staying with the company for five years (WalMart-Rep 1). In the work force, having good communication with the higher members is crucial (Klein 3). In a recent study in the U.S it has Wal-Mart with the worst employee to employer productivity rate. At the end of the day, Wal-Mart is able to keep its super low prices by paying most of their workers at minimum wage so the company can continue to profit (Carlson 2).

In the last aspect with emotions drawn to a new high came in 2008 with the Presidential election. At the time, a candidate named Barack Obama cited Wal-Mart as an example of what’s wrong with big businesses. He later touches on the topic of the biggest sex discrimination case in the history of the United States (WalMart-Rep 2). A group of 1.6 million female workers accused Wal-Mart of paying males more than females. The only females that made the same starting out new as men were ones with some sort of a relative college degree. Dealing with pathos and the emotions of the workers, politicians and activists shows how terrible the over thought of the modern day Wal-Mart (Carlson 7).

Luckily for the company Wal-Mart, they have kept strong ethos and logos since they were established to keep the negative pathos from tearing them down. The ethos or being credible and having trust might not be so strong for the employees, but Wal-Mart is not trying to sell anything to their employees. The same goes for the logos or the consistency and logic arguments (Carlson 6). The ethos and logos are extremely capable of bringing their customers back every time even with the company’s new negative publicity. The store has ads of super low prices online, in the paper, or even on billboards (Klein 3). The shoppers come in again and again to only find out that the ads were right and the prices match. The costumers can have trust that when they see a price somewhere other than the store, when they actual go to buy it the price is the same (Person 2). The consistency of Wal-Mart having the lowest prices has been solidified since the first one was opened by Sam Walton himself. Also the logic of going to a store that sells nearly all products for super low prices, and is close by just makes sense.

Early I mentioned that I do have some personal experience as I did work for Wal-Mart for a short three weeks. The work environment was terrible as no one knew each other’s names or even had conversations with one another. The reason I left was because I picked up a second job at a Supercenter type place that paid a little higher. After seeing how all the workers were treated I quit my job at Wal-Mart the next day and picked up more hours at Marcs.

It’s not fair to base my opinion of the company off only three weeks so I found a documentary at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dl0Pwcy3nM The clip is about a little over an hour and a half, but you only need to listen to a small section for the point to get across. It is an interview of employees and their emotions of their work experience. The moral of the video is how the low prices at Wal-Mart come with a high price to pay, and the speakers are formal employees of Wal-Mart. There was an overwhelming amount of emotions being tossed around as one lady states, “The longer I worked there, the faster I died.” The pathos of the Wal-Mart is just straight terrible as the supermarket took the will out of people.

In order for any turn around in the system or a path set to fix the negative publicity there needs to be a change of ownership. If Sam Walton was still alive then these issues would have never existed (Carlson 7). Other than that all there is that can be done is for the protesters and strikers to keep it up. When the corporate decides to take action and fire them, there can’t be any other people willing to take their place unless they receive fair pay. With over 8,500 different store locations that would take forever. It seems like a useless technique but forever is better than never.

Final Logo for the Wal-Mart that’s still used today

When it comes to the point where a company has better relationships with its customers than its employees there needs to be a change in how the company is being ran. Now taking Wal-Mart and fully understanding how it went from a people friendly environment to a place that workers dreaded their life lets shows how management is everything. Wal-Mart was and is one of the most successful companies ever since it was created in the 1962. While the founder Sam Walton turned his family’s life around by making extraordinary profits, he also kept close with his customers and employees (Person 1). Once he passed away at the age of 74 and other members took turns trying to run the multibillion dollar franchise is when all the trouble started. Sam Walton’s once great idea, successful business plan, and life goal was all went with him when he passed away. The company Wal-Mart now possesses incredible ethos and logos while it’s a media target for its misfortunate pathos.

Works Cited

Carlson, Tucker. "Wal-Mart: Good or Bad for America?" Msnbc.com. The Ed Show, 23 Nov. 2005. Web. 25 July 2013.

"History Timeline." Walmart Corporate. N.p., June 2012. Web. 25 July 2013.

Klein, Ezra. "Has Wal-Mart Been Good or Bad." The Washington Post. N.p., 24 Nov. 2012. Web. 30 July 2013.

Person, Carl E. "Pros and Cons of Having Wal-Mart Stores." LawMall. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013.

"Walmart High Cost Of Low Prices (Full Length Documentary)." YouTube. YouTube, 07 May 2012. Web. 25 July 2013.

"Walmart Logo Timeline." Walmart Corporate. N.p., June 2012. Web. 25 July 2013.