English 112 WAL-MART CHANGING AMERICA Wal-Mart is one of the largest companies in America today, with reported revenue of $486,651 Million in 2015. The operating profit of the company was $27,147 million for the same year. The company employees 2,200 million people and operates more than 11,000 stores around the world (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. SWOT Analysis Market Line). Incredible numbers for a retail company. Wal-Mart is also known as a company that is changing our landscape, our local economy and the way Americans shop, by having a kind of a monopoly over the retail market, by having extremely low prices on products sold in their stores putting a lot pressure on small retail business and suppliers as well. Walmart is a global retail company, they buy products from different countries where the cost of labor is really cheap, a strategy the Wal-Mart uses to increase margins translating in bigger yearly profits. I think larger retailers as Wal-Mart should be social responsible an also by giving employees decent work conditions and wages, not only here in the U.S.A. but anywhere the company runs an operation. What should we do as consumers once we learned about how Wal-Mart conducts their business? Should we just look away and ignore the facts or do something about it? Walmart is a large retailer that profits from resealing merchandise to the public. One strategy Wal-Mart has is buy merchandise at real low cost with large margins which the company then pass some of that to the consumer. Most of the products sold at Wal-Mart comes from their partners factories in China where the employees are paid $100 dollars a month. Because of China’s the inexpensive labor, devalue currency and also the free trade agreement between Unites Estates and China, makes it the perfect place for American companies to set operations, reducing drastically the cost of the final products which will be sold in America and to supply big box retailer as Wal-Mart. This is called, outsourcing (Outsourcing is a practice used by different companies to reduce 1 WAL-MART CHANGING AMERICA costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally.) http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/outsourcing.asp#ixzz4HWmwVOUC When Wal-Mart open a new store, its puts a great amount of pressure on small business. Small grocery shops, convenience stores cannot compete with their prices, because Wal-Mart have a large amount of orders because of the company size, suppliers have a differential pricing for large volume orders, which small companies don’t have high volume orders as Wal-Mart, putting them immediately in disadvantage. Many companies will close down because they can’t afford to keep their doors open. This will cause unemployment and lower living standards. Now this people will have to go to work at WalMart stores, with lower hourly rate, no full time hours or overtime and no benefits, in this way reducing life standards for the community. When citizens in the community have low income jobs, its drives them to get public help. “Forbes reported that Walmart workers cost taxpayers $6.2 billion in public assistance in 2013”. http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2billion-in-public-assistance/#4aa738e17cd8 Recently Wal-Mart announced the plan to slash hundreds of back-office. Wal-Mart is eliminating accounting and invoicing roles at approximately 500 locations. Back in January Wal-Mart announced it will close 154 stores in the U.S. because of the last economic reports. The problem with Wal-Mart is customer satisfaction. The company scored low with customer reported by American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Around the country we can find communities that are not allowing Wal-Mart to open new stores, they are against how Wal-Mart treat its employees, paying lower wages and how Wal-Mart destroy the local business causing more poverty in the area. 2 WAL-MART CHANGING AMERICA Resources: Eastern Economic Journal, 2009, 35, (297–308)r 2009 EEA 0094-5056/09 www.palgrave-journals.com/eej/ http://aese.psu.edu/research/centers/cecd/research/wal-mart-and-county-wide-poverty/ecd-issuesbrief http://chinalaborwatch.org/home.aspx http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2billion-in-public-assistance/#4aa738e17cd8 3 WAL-MART CHANGING AMERICA 4 Irizarry-Review-Patterson ENGL112 Peer Review Worksheet INSTRUCTIONS: Peer Reviews will be conducted in class discussion forums during Week 7. Be sure to review the Lecture and the Discussion area for additional details and guidance. Please complete the following steps below, returning a separate peer review worksheet for each of the two classmates whose papers you review. This assignment is worth 50 points.   You will receive 10 points for submitting your draft by the required Tuesday deadline. You will receive 20 points for each peer review worksheet you submit for your peers by the Friday deadline (20 points x 2 reviews = 40 points total). Step 1: Post your Commentary draft in your assigned peer review group no later than Tuesday night at midnight MT. Hit Respond after the peer review directions and attach your essay as a .docx file. In your post, feel free to include any information you would like to share with your peers, such as areas you are struggling with or specific feedback you would like to receive. Step 2: Find the two classmates who have posted their drafts after you (in terms of time) and download their essays. Step 3: Read each essay and respond to the questions below. Please respond directly on this peer review worksheet, using a separate worksheet for each draft you review. Step 4: Save each worksheet with your last name and the last name of your peer with the word Review separating the names (e.g., JohnsonReviewTurner). Go back to the individual peer’s post that included his or her draft, hit Respond, and attach your completed peer review worksheet. In your post, provide any additional details or information you would like to share that may not have been covered in the worksheet. Complete this step no later than Friday at midnight MT. Step 5: After the Friday deadline, check back to your peer review group to find your peers’ review of your essay. Each student should receive two peer reviews. WORKSHEET: Please reply to each question below, writing in complete sentences and providing justification or explanation for each response. 1. Does the writer catch your attention and clearly convey a clear purpose in the introduction? If so, what strategies did he or she use to accomplish this? If not, what suggestions can you provide to strengthen the introduction and clarify the purpose? 2. What is the writer’s thesis? What unique angle on the topic does the thesis present? What suggestions can you offer for improving the wording of the thesis? 3. What type of support does the writer use? Does this support help to prove the thesis statement? Is research integrated effectively with author tags and effective summaries, paraphrase, or direct quotes? Is the information presented logical and is it explained well? What suggestions can you offer the writer in terms of improving depth of information or presentation of research? 4. Is the paper organized effectively? Does the writer cover one point fully before moving on to the next? Are topic sentences and transitions used to deliver the paper in a coherent manner? What suggestions can you offer to increase organization and structure? 5. How would you describe the style, tone, and word choice used? What strategies does the writer use to connect with the audience? In what ways could the writer better meet the audience’s needs? 6. What is your overall impression of the essay? Does the writer motivate you to act or persuade you to agree with his or her point of view? What is the most important revision the writer could make to improve the essay? What is the writer’s biggest strength in the draft? . 
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