An Impressive Coup D'état

Sam Walton believed that, “If some community, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us in there, we aren’t interested in going in and creating a fuss.” With countless communities standing up to the store and WAL-MART attempting to bullying its way in regardless, obviously times have changed. In his place Lee Scott asks rhetorically, “When you have a group of people, a small group of people, who don’t want you in a community, does that mean you aren’t going to go there?” Indeed, the changing of the guard after Walton’s death also ushered in a new era of political sophistication for WAL-MART. The head office in Bentonville now fully understands the importance of their image in a community, and desperately wants to avoid being branded an outsider (which is, of course, exactly what they are.) WAL-MART now engages in a year round political campaign to define themselves to the public, hiring hundreds of lobbyists and media consultants to work on the national and local level. This campaign takes place not only in communities with potential stores, but well-established markets such as the one I work in.

The chief tool for getting this message across was through charity work. One slow morning on the desk the head of community involvement gave me a crash course in how our store raised $143,000 for charity in the past year. All requests for donations are received in writing and then “everything goes on a gift card.” She said $25-50 certificates work better for the company since it is simpler and you know that the whole amount will be spent in the store (not to mention that the store ends up giving less actual money since a sizable percentage is the markup/profit…) In addition to this matching funds are given for on-site fundraisers, like hot dog sales, and grants are given for such things as the Teacher of the Year Award. Doing some generous math in my head I didn’t even get up to half the total on the board; where does the rest of the money come from? Well, there are the employee fundraisers she offered, but (and this was what I was looking for) a far bigger chunk comes from claims. In order to inflate the total WAL-MART tacks on more than $60,000 in annual grocery claims since some, but not all, of this is donated to local food banks. Ah ha, this was the slight of hand I was looking for!

Like anything else, this public image campaign took place on the backs of its workers. The head of community involvement had mentioned the employee fundraisers, but I knew how small scale these projects were. I have never been solicited for donations more in my life than the past three months while working at WAL-MART. There were raffle tickets, potluck dinners, and flat out monetary donations, going to Barbara Bush’s Children’s Miracle Network, Law Enforcement’s Torch Run for the Special Olympics, and the Sunshine Fund. The last of these is the most interesting since the Sunshine Fund goes to associates-in-need in our store. Generally the associate-in-need would be nameless, but one of the recipients I did know had gotten really sick and was left with unaffordable bills for what the health plan would not cover. Obviously these fundraisers that targeted already destitute employees weren’t huge money makers, but I was surprised to find that employees pieced together $200 out-of-pocket and the Sunshine Fund chipped in another $100 for my friend. It was touching to see how readily my co-workers would give for one of their own, perhaps thinking of how close they were to being in the same position. I couldn’t help but become intensely angry at the irony of the whole situation. Associates who were paid so little were asked to give on WAL-MART’s behalf, to enhance the store’s image and pick up the slack for its employees living in poverty.

But the campaign seemed to be working. Our Supercenter was the most profitable in the state and was constantly receiving favorable press. The pinnacle came when our store manager was named Business Person of the Year by the county’s Chamber of Commerce. Recognized for the stores donations to charity and his personal community involvement, he was rewarded with a banquet in his honor. It was an impressive coup d'état, even by WAL-MART standards.

The Customer is Number... 2?

By the time I witnessed my first cashier meeting I had already figured out that it would be a pointless exercise. There are supposed to be regularly scheduled meetings for every position in the store, but in reality they occur far less frequently. I think this just fine by most associates since the meetings are mandatory and require many of them to make a special trip into the store on their day off or after their shift for 30 minutes of lecturing. The meeting was run by the CSM’s and was really just a laundry list of pet peeves they had about cashiers. Most interesting though were their instructions for dealing with customers. We were to have a “sense of urgency” when taking our break, being sure to take off our vest on the way to the break room. What this really meant was that we were supposed to duck the customers in an attempt to avoid wasting time by answering their questions (of which there were many since only a few sales associates would be working on the floor.) Even more surprising was their command to “try to kill the conversation as quickly as possible” with customers in our lines who were checking out. Of course don’t be rude or say “I’m not allowed to talk with you,” but just stick to “hello” and “thank you for shopping at WAL-MART.” Apparently the customer didn’t really want to talk to us at all and would rather get out of the store a few seconds quicker. I couldn’t help but wonder how I as an associate could still make the difference if my first priority was efficiency and not serving the customer.

Obviously this is another case of the WAL-MART Disconnect, a seemingly universal divorce between the company’s words and deeds. The company cloaks absolutely everything in their concern for their beloved customers. There are the signs in several of the aisles that say that they videotape customers “in order to bring you low prices.” And whenever lines are long the page for all register-trained associates to come and help inevitably ends with “in order to help out our customers.” Often the evidence is subtle, like the renovations to the store that summer. Aisles were narrowed. More of the unpopular self-check outs were added. There still were not enough cart-holders or any security in the parking lot. And most interestingly, turn-tables of bags were added to the end of every register. This contraption cleverly put the customer to work at loading their bags back into the cart, leaving me to scan and fill the bags much more quickly. Another consequences of the turn-table was the possibility of leaving behind bags (it was very easy to forget to pick up a few on the other side.) While this frequent occurrence was a pain for customers, WAL-MART made out quite well since it would restock the merchandise and resell it again. Whether this was intentional or not, I can’t say, but the simple fact of the matter is that if the customer doesn’t return (which was usually the case) the store made 100% profit on selling the item again.

An even more naked grab at a customer’s money is by over-charging customers. In November the Chicago Tribune published the results of a study conducted in the Midwest and California that concluded, “A majority of Wal-Mart stores tested in this evaluation of price accuracy demonstrated errors in pricing that exceeded federally accepted standards for large retail establishments.” This is an understatement since random purchases at 60 stores in California yielded a wrong price 8.3% of the time, quadruple the 2% required by the National Institute for Standards and Technology! I see this play out every day at my own store. The best example though was after Halloween when the store repeatedly cut the prices of its costumes (it doesn’t have the room necessary to store seasonal items.) Despite announced savings of 90% off, I cannot recall any of them wringing up properly all week long. No more than four or five customers caught the mistake and I missed dozens before realizing, never having been warned by any of my supervisors. I tried to correct the most grievous overcharges (the full priced $17 Star Wars outfit that should have cost $1.70…) but I couldn’t keep up with them all, a crime seemingly all my fellow cashiers were guilty of as well. Again, I can’t say for sure that this is a purposeful effort since it is probably partially a product of the stores chronic understaffing. Ultimately, what makes me think that the company is concertedly trying to rip off customers with this systemic practice is the striking number of times the mistake is made not in favor of the customer, but WAL-MART.

There is no doubt in my mind that profit ranks well ahead of customers as WAL-MART’s top priority since nearly every action taken by my store underscores this point. I think that discrediting the theory that WAL-MART’s singular purpose is caring for its customers is essential in order to prevent customers from shopping at the store. While some people will boycott the store for treating workers poorly and killing small businesses, at least an equal number would stop going to the store if they realized the company only wanted their money. After all, is such an unpleasant shopping experience worth saving a couple of bucks?