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The biggest oil company in the world and the biggest retailer in the world are loving life as the economy sinks.

Wal-Mart stock has risen 20% since the start of the fiscal year. Exxon Mobile just posted the largest quarterly earnings in American history- to the tune of 14.83 billion dollars.  The recession has done wonders for both companies; the volatile price of oil, puts Exxon Mobile in the position to capitalize on futures from supply-wary market analysts, while Wal-Mart continues to post double-digit profits because of the high number of price-conscious consumers who are forced to trade down - even if it’s against their will.

Many more-upscale retailers, such as Target, are not doing quite as well during the recession.  BusinessWeek reports that looking at the most recent quarter over the past year, Wal-Mart’s same store sales are up 5% while Target’s are down 0.4% and K-Mart’s are down 5.6%.

But these days are numbered. Wal-Mart knows that the recession won’t last forever. This week, they unveiled plans to focus more on renovating existing stores next year than opening new stores. Wal-Mart realizes that when the economy turns up again, many of its new customers will want to shop elsewhere - and they’re trying to stop it. The question is: will it work?

Wal-Mart Wins Big During Downturn [BusinessWeek]

These are heady times for Wal-Mart (WMT). The Bentonville (Ark.) retailer has been enjoying double-digit profit growth and strong sales as bargain hunters crowd its aisles. Its stock is up about 20% since the start of the year. And shoppers like Sal Garcia of Downey, Calif., are joining the growing ranks of loyal customers. “Look,” says Garcia, 52, putting the last of 10 shopping bags into the trunk of his Lexus, “all that for $54!”

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Wal-Mart is the Madonna of retailers - constantly re-inventing itself. 

At this week’s Analysts’ meeting, Wal-Mart announced that it was going to focus its investments on improving current stores and expanding internationally in 2009.  Apparently they got the party started early.  In a story from the Northwest Arkansas Daily News, Fayetteville, Arkansas residents got a taste of Wal-Mart’s new look.  Having already updated their logo, they are taking it several steps forward by using “light and color” to tie the different departments of the store together, in an attempt to create a more efficient, cohesive, and pleasant shopping experience.

Wal-Mart has historically focused less on store appearance, and more on driving-down prices.  In years past, Wal-Mart stores were characterized by large, industrial steel shelving with products stacked into the stratosphere, lighting like a coroner’s office, narrow yet crowded isles, and an all-around depressing and stressful shopping experience.  Wal-Mart’s Vice President for Store Appearance (must be a new position), Joe Tapper, addresses some of these problems in a story from BusinessWeek:

“We’re trying to make it more experiential, rather than just stuff we’re selling...We’ve placed emphasis on making it more enjoyable. Having shelves filled with cardboard boxes worked for a time, but has seen its day, Tapper said.”

This move could, in part, be due to the fact that Target stores tend to have a reputation of being cleaner, more stylish and more organized than Wal-Mart.  Some people recognize this and it can have an effect on where they shop.  Wal-Mart has studied the shopping habits of it’s customers and it’s customers, themselves.  This store platform will eventually see the debut of Wal-Mart’s ”Smart Network” which monitors customer activity and displays advertisements based on time of day or who is in the store.  They have certainly have come up with some interesting information.  This quote from BusinessWeek made my all-time top 15 favorite quotes from Wal-Mart Execs:

“Our signs are more female-friendly,” Tapper said. “The signs are all curved. Those things have been looked at and we’re trying to make those more friendly.”

As a man, I have always preferred the signs at my grocery store to be straight, not curved.  Everyone knows curved signs are for women - even Wal-Mart.  What a zinger.

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Apparently, the highly-publicized annual Wal-Mart analyst’s meeting served a purpose other than announcing that Wal-Mart plans to: scale-down domestic expansion, improve existing stores, and embark on foreign conquest.  They also announced a new venture from Sam’s Club, slated to debut in Houston next year. It is a new club-format store, geared toward Hispanics, creatively titled: Más Club ("More Club” in Spanish. They could name every Sam’s this, no?).

The clubs will feature an expanded selection of Hispanic foods and products produced in Mexico and Latin America.  The Houston Chronicle reports that the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, has estimated that the Hispanic population will account for 1.2 trillion dollars of spending power by 2012 - and Sam’s Club wants a piece of the action. 

The store looks to drape itself Hispanic culture, featuring a cafe that sells ‘fresh’ tortillas (sounds delicious) and branding itself in the red, green and white of Mexican flag. Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Sam’s Club is quoted in Reuters:

“Our objective is to create an additional shopping choice that provides currently unavailable value for families, restaurant owners, convenience stores and more...”

McMillon chose not to discuss Mas Club’s suppliers. Given that it will be carrying mostly Hispanic products, “Mas Club” might actually break a new Wal-Mart record for percentage of products not made in the U.S.  But Latin American suppliers beware. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is notorious for bullying down their suppliers to sell products at a price they can barely afford (Vlasic, Levis). 

While the first store is to serve as a prototype, The Northwest Arkansas Morning News said McMillon is ”pumped” about the new chain, which will also feature gas stations…

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Lee Scott and Eduardo Castro-Wright have spent the past two days in New York City, detailing Wal-Mart’s business plan to financial analysts. There’s a lot to run down here, but the big (and good) news: less new Wal-Marts. The company is continuing to cut down on capital expenditures and build less stores, focusing instead on remodeling and driving up sales at its current stores.

AP:

As a result, capital expenditures will come in at $5.8 billion to $6.4 billion for fiscal 2009 and $6.3 billion to $6.8 billion in fiscal 2010. That’s down from the $9.1 billion the company had in capital expenditures in its last fiscal year.

The Wall Street Journal tells us what that means in terms of store numbers.

Mr. Castro-Wright also said the discount retailer plans to open 142 to 157 new U.S. stores in the fiscal year ending January 2010, down from an earlier projection of 165.

150 stores is still a heck of a lot, but any decrease is a good thing. Remember that growth in 2008 had dropped from 2007, and that only several years ago Wal-Mart was opening 300+ new stores a year.

Some other tidbits from the analyst meeting below the jump-

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A story out today from Advertising Age has an in-depth break down of Wal-Mart’s current business and marketing strategy. Most retailers are scrambling to stay afloat as the economy declines, but in the last month Wal-Mart has seen rises in both its stock price and profits.

Shoppers are trading down, and Wal-Mart is as low as they can go. A bad economy has always been good for Wal-Mart, and today’s recession-like atmosphere is no different. Wal-Mart’s execs claim the recent boost in sales is due to a “strategic three-year plan,” but most analysts agree: when the going gets tough, the tough go to Wal-Mart.

“But,” says one analyst quoted in the article, “there is a chink in the armor of Wal-Mart, which is these customers are not saying they necessarily feel loyalty.” Though more people are shopping at the low-price retailer, they’re not likely to stay. Wal-Mart’s only advantage is its prices: customer service, product quality and company ethics are all secondary objectives, and shoppers know that. Brand loyalty might not be a problem for Wal-Mart now, but once the economy improves the company could face the consequences for putting low prices above all else.

Wal-Mart Grinning Big Through the Tough Times [Advertising Age]

Looking for a silver lining in the economy? It’s shining brightly from Bentonville, Ark.

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A new study out today from the Reputation Institute ranks the world’s largest corporations based on the overall trust, esteem, admiration and good feelings consumers have toward them. Unsurprisingly, Wal-Mart didn’t do so well. Despite being the world’s largest corporation, Wal-Mart didn’t even make the top 200 for most-admired global companies. Among the 150 U.S. companies included in the study, Wal-Mart came in at an embarassingly low 136, down from last year’s rank of 57. To put that in perspective, Halliburton came in last at 150.

Rankings like these expose a major weakness of Wal-Mart’s business model: treating people badly makes shoppers dislike you. R.I. explains why “good feelings” are important to a company’s bottom line:

Research shows that people act based on their feelings. They are more likely to buy the products of companies they trust, to work for the organizations they respect, and to recommend companies they like.

Which means Wal-Mart’s efforts to save money no matter what the cost are actually costing the company dearly. Wal-Mart’s business model involves skimping on wages and benefits but sinking millions of dollars in to marketing and PR, a method which is wearing thin. Studies such as this one reveal Wal-Mart’s strategy isn’t a long-term solution to the company’s environmental and labor problems. It’s not too late for Wal-Mart to improve its practices, but the company will have to start making comprehensive changes - not cosmetic ones.

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Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world for the second year in a row, announced a 5.8% rise in same-store sales for the month of June. Pinched by rising costs, more and more consumers are resorting to desperate measures...like shopping at Wal-Mart.

These sales numbers mean big profits for Wal-Mart executives and the Walton family, who collectively own the majority of Wal-Mart’s stock. Wal-Mart is doing so well, in fact, it’s bringing in more revenue than any other company on earth. Even the oil companies can’t keep up! Exxon-Mobile, Royal Dutch Shell and BP all trail Wal-Mart in the top five on Forbes’ list of the world’s largest companies. And Wal-Mart is light years ahead of its direct competitors - the Bentonville giant is the only retailer in the top 100 on Forbes’ list.

Despite these record earnings, Wal-Mart’s store employees and communities across America continue to lose out. Wal-Mart’s low wages, government subsidies and tax avoidance means little of these massive profits will find their way to working Americans.Change to Win put the situation in perspective:

Who’s losing out in this sputtering economy? Not corporate CEOs. Too many of them have made sure to secure a golden parachute for themselves—while their workers face soaring healthcare costs, foreclosures, and an uncertain future...America’s workers are putting in more hours than ever and still struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, corporate CEOs enjoy salaries 180 times higher than their average employees.

Paying workers better wages and providing better health care isn’t just generous - it’s good business. Wal-Mart might lose many of its current customers once the economy improves: the retailer has already seen the dangers of being seen as a “rock bottom retailer.” The company might retain these new customers when the economy improves, but ONLY if it makes real changes to its business practices. Wal-Mart and its employees can both win if the company plays its cards right. But marketing changes - like its new feel-good logo - are not the answer.

Wal-Mart June sales up; raises earnings forecast [Reuters]
Wal-Mart, Costco Sales Climbed in June on Tax Rebates [Bloomberg News]
Shoppers stimulate discount stores [CNN Money]
Some Retailers Get Sales Boost As Rebate Checks Reach Taxpayers [Wall Street Journal]

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In the week that Wal-Mart announced a 5.8% rise in sales, was coronated largest company in the world AND inducted in to the Corporate Hall of Shame, it only seemed fitting to unveil our collectible card of the man who made it all happen made a really nice pie chart about it: Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart’s Chief Financial Officer.

Schoewe graduated from Loyola University of Chicago with a bachelor’s of business administration degree in finance. In the early 90’s, Schoewe worked for Black & Decker, initially serving as VP of finance. Schoewe became Black & Decker’s CFO in 1993, the same year the tool company won Wal-Mart’s “Vendor of the Year” award. Schoewe joined Wal-Mart in 2000. According to Wal-Mart’s website, Schoewe “is responsible for treasury, tax, accounting and control, business planning and analysis, internal auditing, and several other key areas of the company. In addition, during June 2005, the lead financial executive in each of the operating segments (Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and International) began reporting directly to him.”

Thomas Schoewe is on the Board of Directors of Balfour Beatty Construction Group, Inc. and Centex Corporation.

Notable Stats:
Courtesy of BusinessWeek

2008 Salary: $740,000
Restricted Stock Awards: $4,039,849
Total Value of Options:$ 610,097
Misc. Compensation: $2,782,588
Total Compensation: $8,517,888

Be sure to collect all the Wal-Mart All-Star Trading Cards: check out the Susan Chambers card and Mike Duke card to complete your collection!

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You gotta hand it to Wal-Mart: when that company does something, it does it all the way. While most companies couldn’t break the law two million times if they tried, Wal-Mart has managed to do just that - and that’s in Minnesota alone. A recent case found that Wal-Mart has violated Minnesota state labor law two million times by forcing employees to work without breaks and without full pay.

The judge in the case called Wal-Mart’s labor policies “dehumanizing and reprehensible,” reinforcing what labor activists have long maintained about working conditions in the company’s stores. As details of the case come to light, Wal-Mart’s mechanized stinginess leaves little room for sympathy and instead reveal just how coldly calculating the retailer can be. Reporters, labor activists and bloggers weigh in.

Always Low Motives. Always. [Condé Nast Portfolio]

A million violations here, a million violations there: Pretty soon they being to add up. What they’ve added up to for Wal-Mart is at least $6.5 million in damages—and potentially much, much more…

Even worse for Wal-Mart: This is only one of 70 similar cases pending in courts across the country.

King, for one, sounded unsympathetic. “Wal-Mart’s failure to compensate plaintiffs was willful,” he wrote in a 150-page decision. “Wal-Mart was on notice from numerous sources of the wage and hour violations at issue and failed to correct the problem.”

More after the jump.

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Rolling out a new logo can be a delicate time for brands - it’s a time of self-questioning and transition all-too-reminiscent of middle school. Sometimes companies (and their PR teams) say one thing, but really have a lot more on their mind. Portfolio.com’s Business Spin blog provides this helpful, insightful analysis of Wal-Mart’s new logo roll-out. The bottom line? “Don’t worry, we’re not abandoning our roots. We’ll still squeeze our suppliers like soggy dishrags.”

Parsing Walmart: This Is Not a Reaction [Portfolio.com’s Business Spin Blog]

After the news leaked over the weekend, Walmart confirmed that it will roll out a new de-hyphenated logo.

While most companies flog their make-overs, Walmart’s overly restrained release seems intended to tamp down any speculation that the company is struggling to find a new sweet spot, as competitors get increasingly efficient and Target’s model continues to pick up steam. Here’s the parse.

Walmart: Walmart U.S. Refreshes Stores’ Logo
Translation: We’re not changing our logo. We’re refreshing it.

Walmart: For the past two years, a customer focused transformation has been taking place in Walmart’s U.S. business.
Translation: We’ve pushed the price-as-the-only-differentiator model as far as it can go.

Walmart: Walmart’s U.S. locations will update store logos as part of an ongoing evolution of its overall brand…
Translation: It’s an evolution. The revolution didn’t turn out too well. And it’s definitely not a reaction to Target.

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Over the last year, Wal-Mart has slowed new store construction, part of a larger company plan to slow growth.

The news comes at a time when Wal-Mart is spending more than ever on lobbying, advertising and public relations. The company spent $2.2 million on lobbying in 2008’s first quarter alone, more than doubling its spending rate from 2007. The company has also invests heavily in public relations, and the ads we see during reruns of “Grey’s Anatomy” must be costing the company millions. Are all these combined a sign of shifting priorities within the company?

Wal-Mart Cuts Projected Capital Spending; Shares Fall [Bloomberg News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, reduced its forecast for full-year capital spending as construction of U.S. supercenter locations slows.

Spending on new stores will decline for a second straight year to $13 billion to $14 billion for the 12 months through January, down from an October projection of $13.5 billion to $15.2 billion, Wal-Mart said today. The company spent $14.9 billion in the previous fiscal year.

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Almost two dozen news sources have covered Wal-Mart’s annual shareholders meeting that took place in Arkansas on Friday. The fact that so many news sources - and they’re mostly even REPUTABLE news sources - have covered the meeting is noteworthy itself. No other company receives so much media coverage just for holding a meeting. No other company’s meeting is hosted by Queen Latifah, either, but that’s another story.

Wal-Mart Meeting Features Musical Star Power [NW Arkansas Morning News]

There was a common topic among attendees of the Wal-Mart shareholders meeting as they filed out of Bud Walton Arena Friday morning - and it sure wasn’t about the purple tie Lee Scott was sporting.

What would Sam say? [Benton County Daily Record (Ark.)]

As Rob Walton, chairman of the Wal-Mart Board and son of the late Sam Walton, looked out at the audience gathered at Bud Walton Arena on Friday morning, he answered that question with confidence.

Wal-Mart employees whoop, holler at annual meeting [Reuters]

This year’s four-hour sound-and-light presentation, held on Friday, featured Wal-Mart’s top brass as well as performers like Master of Ceremonies Queen Latifah and country star Tim McGraw.

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In recognition of Wal-Mart’s 2008 Annual General Meeting, Wal-Mart Watch today re-released “A Handshake with Sam.” The document was originally announced in 2006 as a proposed agreement of shared principles concerning Wal-Mart’s moral responsibilities based on the highly regarded ideals of its founder Sam Walton.

Each of the seven common sense Handshake principles - such as respecting human dignity, providing employees with quality affordable health care, using market power to improve rather than depress wages and buying local first - are based on business and ethical principles supported by Sam Walton’s writings in his autobiography, “Made in America.”

“Two years later, despite a massive public relations effort to convince people otherwise, Wal-Mart’s current business practices still do not reflect Sam Walton’s principles,” said Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director David Nassar.  “Wal-Mart still fails to pay all of its employees a family-sustaining wage; fails to ensure that all employees and their children have quality, affordable health insurance; fails to use its market power to improve supplier conditions and wages; fails to buy a significant amount of products locally; fails to pay its fair share to communities by continuing to rely on tax-payer funded programs, tax dodges and tax subsidies to inflate its bottom line, and it still faces the nation’s largest workplace gender discrimination lawsuit,” he added.

The 2008 Wal-Mart Shareholders’ Meeting offers an opportunity for the company to address these issues. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart will opt instead for an elaborate display of celebrity performances to entertain and effectively distract its shareholders and employees.  The meeting occurs just weeks after Wal-Mart was essentially shut out of America’s third largest city - Chicago - because it refused to pay a higher wage.

To offset Wal-Mart’s lack of substantive discussion of its business practices at the upcoming meeting, Wal-Mart Watch asked its supporters for input regarding topics they would want Wal-Mart to consider. To date, hundreds of responses have been submitted and posted on the organization’s blog from concerned citizens - the majority of which requested first and foremost an honest discussion on Wal-Mart’s wages, benefits, and increasing trend of overseas sourcing. 

“We still believe Wal-Mart can be a positive market force if the company returns to Sam Walton’s principles,” said Nassar. 

Click here for a full downloadable version of “A Handshake With Sam”

Click here for Wal-Mart Watch’s complete coverage of Wal-Mart’s 2008 Annual General Meeting

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This article from the Associated Press highlights two things that are too frequently overlooked by analysts. 1.) Despite the company’s efforts to persuade shoppers otherwise, Wal-Mart is bad for the environment:

“Another issue is that Wal-Mart supercenters, which have fueled the company’s growth, are generally inconveniently located on the edge of towns, which Davidowitz said could hurt the retailer as shoppers look to shop locally to cut down on gas.”

Environmentalism has been one of Wal-Mart’s single largest marketing campaigns over the last year, and unless the company changes its fundamental business practices, that’s going to be a lot of wasted money. Also on the list of marketing angles gone wrong: the notion that Wal-Mart’s low prices help the poorest Americans. 2.) Wal-Mart is bad for the economy:

Wal-Mart has “taken small steps, but the bottom line is they have a long way to go,” said Stacie Lock Temple, a spokeswoman at Wal-Mart Watch, a union-backed group. She noted that the economic downturn has helped its business, but added that “Wal-Mart is contributing to a poor economy by the low wages it pays its workers.”

Wal-Mart benefits even as economy sours [Associated Press via Forbes]

Investors have found plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Wal-Mart of late, as the company found the right mix of merchandise and marketing to complement its refocus on low prices at a time when Americans are seeking less expensive options.

Wal-Mart’s shares have soared more than 30 percent since early September, while the stocks of many major retailers, including discount rival Target Corp., have fallen during the same period and the Dow Jones industrial average has slipped 6 percent.

“The economy got bad at exactly the perfect time” for Wal-Mart, said Patricia Edwards of investment manager Wentworth Hauser and Violich, which resumed buying Wal-Mart shares in November. “As Wal-Mart got their act together, the consumer needed to be able to trade down. Wal-Mart is providing a better shopping experience and is allowing people to save money.”

Still, the world’s largest retailer faces some challenges as shareholders gather for its annual meeting Friday in Arkansas. Those include soaring transportation costs that are squeezing profit margins and increasingly frugal customers. Last month, Wal-Mart gave a cautious outlook for the current quarter as it reported better-than-expected first-quarter profits.

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Wal-Mart’s shareholder resolutions have received a lot of attention this year, with the article below just one example. Wal-Mart’s tradition of avoiding discussion of the shareholder resolutions only highlights the company’s lack of commitment to issues of corporate responsibility. Will the company pay similarly little mind to this year’s resolutions too?

Wal-Mart Shareholders Meeting [NW Arkansas Morning News]

At each annual meeting, Wal-Mart and its shareholders propose changes they’d like to see the company make to its policies and procedures. A majority of the outstanding shares must support a proposal for it to be approved.

Company proposals
1. Election of directors - The board recommends the approval of two candidates to the board of directors to replace outgoing members Roland Hernandez and Jack Shewmaker.

Gregory Penner, 38, is a general partner at investment firm Madrone Capital Partners and the former chief financial officer for Wal-Mart’s Japan operations and Rob Walton’s son-in-law.

Arne Sorenson, 49, is the chief financial officer at Marriott International.

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Shareholders rap Wal-Mart on labour policy [Guardian (U.K.)]

Wal-mart, the US supermarket giant, faces a battle with angry shareholders next week, including UK pensions management company F&C, over a continued ban by US cities on new stores, as well as the company’s failure to comply with international labour standards.

F&C has joined forces with other European pension investors to file the resolution at Wal-Mart’s 6 June AGM in Arkansas. They say Wal-Mart’s poor business reputation is driving away customers and putting their investments at risk. A 2006 study by the US consulting firm McKinsey found that at least 2-8 per cent of customers had stopped shopping at Wal-Mart as a result of the controversy surrounding the company.

US cities including San Diego have introduced laws banning new stores of more than 90,000 square feet: on average, Wal-Mart’s giant Supercenter stores measure 185,000 square feet.

Investors want Wal-Mart to produce a report on the negative social and reputation impacts of its non-compliance with International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions. Wal-Mart has faced allegations of using child labour in overseas suppliers and preventing US employees from joining trades unions.

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SHAREHOLDERS MEETING: MORE SHOW, LESS SUBSTANCE
Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban are going to be performing in Bentonville next week! And some band we’ve never heard of called Lifehouse (and Taylor Swift)! WE’RE SO EXCITED ABOUT THE ENTERTAINMENT WE CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER WHY THE MEETING IS HAPPENING IN THE FIRST PLACE oh wait, yes we do.

Wal-Mart to Shareholders: Just Say No [The Iconoclasts]

Lay up groceries and rent some DVDs before the Wal-Mart shareholders descend on Fayetteville and occupy the city next week. The big annual meeting is scheduled for June 6 at the University of Arkansas, the corporate giant’s wholly-owned subsidiary. They are coming to be entertained and to vote against any shareholder proposals to reform policy or hold management responsible for their actions.

Wal-Mart’s habit of entertaining visitors rather than conducting actual business has everyone raising eyebrows:

Wal-Mart’s green efforts becoming a smokescreen? [BloggingStocks]

Next week’s annual shareholder’s meeting in Fayetteville should once again be more spectacle that business.Last year, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) seemed to spend more money lining up speakers, having pieces of its global operations dance with flags and having a pep rally rather that digging into issues.This year, expect the same—as the retailer has already opposed all the shareholder proposals anyway, so it should be a nice, big party full of entertainment. Nothing else.

Wal-Mart’s emphasis on entertainment have activists decrying the retailer’s lack of commitment to the social issues on this year’s proxy. Pam’s House Blend states,

Call me less than flabbergasted, but Wal-Mart is opposed to a shareholder proposition to add gender identity and expression to their non-discrimination policy...this is the second major corporation we’ve tracked at Pam’s House Blend that has used their DiversityInc rating (Wal-Mart was no. 41 of top 50 company’s for diversity in 2007; Verizon was no 1 on the same list for 2008) as to why the corporation doesn’t feel a need to specifically add gender identity and expression language into their non-discrimination policies.

After the jump, Menu Foods settles with pet owners over melamine-tainted food, Wal-Mart’s environmental policy, classified ads and look out! There’s scorpions in the watermelons!

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More people have written in letting us know what they want discussed at Wal-Mart’s shareholder meeting. To submit your suggestions, go to our speakout page.

• What is Walmart doing to assure that its “organic” products are actually organic?
• The overseeing of human rights and executive compensation, as well as, carrying more made in America products.
  My husband and I were sitting in our lawn chairs this Memorial day weekend and he asked me if I remembered where we bought them.  I did not, but he said it was Sam’s Club when they were a good place to shop.  Wal-mart used to boast about carrying so many American made products, this is not the case anymore.  We no longer shop at either store.  The last time I was in a Wal-mart was 2005, when I bought some cookies and later found out they were cheaper at the grocery store.
• Dear Sir or Madame, I would deeply appreciate it if you would listen to your shareholders on issues like human rights, sexual harassment, sexism and racism in your stores (especially when it comes to promotions). Thanks!
• I think Wal-Mart should discuss how they are going to better the treatment of their employees by providing better benefits to them.
• Fair treatment of all employees, including equal pay regardless of gender and race and equal health opportunities. Review of how the Shank issue was handled and how Wal-Mart can better its tactics to prevent future public outrage. Wal-Marts impact on small business owners and its abuse of monetary power to gain more land for its stores. Wal-Marts treatment of factory workers who are undoubtedly working in sweat-shops and the like. And finally, I want Rob Walton to think about how he can best apologise to the millions of people he directly or indirectly affects with the poor choices he makes on a daily basis.

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Two days ago, we asked our readers what Wal-Mart should discuss at its annual shareholders meeting. We’ve already gotten hundreds of responses, with issues ranging from health care to expansion practices to the company’s green campaign. Go to our speakout page to add your own thoughts. Here’s a sampling of what we’ve already received:

• The high cost of Wal-Mart’s health insurance for employee & child and/or family coverage.  I currently work at Wal-Mart in Mt. Airy MD and will no be able to get insurance for myself or my son because if I do I will not be able afford to take him to daycare and pay for gas to come to work.
• Better health care and wages for your employees. Shame on you for paying all these celebrities money to be at your board meeting when that money could be spent on your employees.
• Expand the “Green” program by building all new Wal-Mart buildings to be LEEDs energy efficient certified! 
• I am a shareholder and concerned with two issues.  I’m unimpressed with the scheming that management devises to evade treating its employees fairly, equitably and humanely.  I am also unimpressed with the inordinate dependence on Chinese-made goods, some of which have been shown to be very harmful. What is management doing to address these two issues?
• Is is possible for Wal-Mart to return to it’s previous vote of confidence in America by stocking, selling and promoting products made in America (I mean the 50 states), They have the power to re-ignite the American economy by selling US products. A move like this would provide jobs for US workers and would make Wal-Mart look like a hero. Can Wal-Mart stop supporting China and their poorly made and often times dangerous products? Be a hero Wal-Mart. -buy and sell American made products!
• An honest discussion of Wal-marts goals for growth and whether these are sustainable. For instance, does Wal-Mart really need to get into New York City? Do they really need a market in Japan? I personally liken Wal-Mart to a cancer because cancer is a system which has broken off from the whole and is only interested in its own growth. This describes Wal-Mart perfectly.
• Have a Heart, leave Schnecksville , PA alone. You took our factories and our small stores, and are ruining our small towns. Get lost in PA.
• Walmart is planning on opening a store in Blacksburg, Virginia right next to a school in a residential neighborhood.  Town council was tricked by Fairmont developers and is bringing the case to Virginia Supreme Court.  Why start off on the wrong foot?  There is pleanty of room in rural Southwest Virginia to find another site.  Sincerely, Karin Gregory.

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Anyone familiar with tag clouds will understand the newest website on brand name recognition - Brand Tags. The concept is simple: users are shown a number of logos and asked to type in the first thing that comes to mind for each. The responses are used to generate a weighted list of brand connotations. The cloud for Wal-Mart is less than flattering, with consumers associating it with “exploitation,” “evil,” “crap” and “slavery.”

As we mentioned in a post here yesterday, Wal-Mart continues to face social and reputation issues that are cutting in to its profits. Brand Tag’s informal poll shows that despite Wal-Mart’s public relations efforts, consumers still have a very low opinion of the company. While Wal-Mart likes to think it can gloss over its business practice problems with marketing, sites like this show consumers aren’t being fooled.

Brand tag website reveals least popular firms [Telegraph (U.K.)]

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