4/04/2005

Walmart on the top again

Walmart is on the top of the fortune 500 again. This will make Walmarts forth year as No 1. Sales for Walmart went up 11% in 2004. The company that came in second on the Forbes list was Exxon Mobil. Walmart is still holding ground. I'm sure that this will even maintain through this year. I'm actually very interested, with gas price going up, and people being more concerned about every dollar they spend, do you think that this will only cause more people to shop at Walmart? In addition, if Walmart does have to raise its prices due to these factors, will people be disappointed that Walmart didn't stick with their motto, everyday low prices? I think people will still shop there, because even if they raise their prices they will still be even or lower than competitors, but because of a little incline may effect the feelings people have about shopping there. I'm curious about what you think. If Walmart was the same as everywhere else would you still drive accross town, or shop around.

4 comments:

Eric said...

Now way that’s one thing I love about Wal-Mart! You save time because you don’t have to shop around. Not only do you know that you’re getting a low price but you can find your product fast because if you know one Wal-Mart you know them all!

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Marie's post and Eric's comment for grammatical errors.

Is Wal-Mart shopping an inferior good? Probably so. That would imply that their business will improve as oil prices rise.

There's some good game theory in this post. If oil price increases force up wholesale prices, should Wal-Mart pass those costs on to retail shoppers (to try and preserve per-unit profits) or maintain low prices (to gain market share). Further, would the payoffs for those strategies depend on the choices of (say) Target?

Anonymous said...

Yes ofcourse............It's the great site....!!

Anonymous said...

I bet Walmart is on top again in 2008.