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That wheezing you hear...that unmistakable click of walking stick on linoleum...that is the sound of another beyond its prime musical act trying to climb the Wal-Mart stairs back to relevance (and more importantly, larger record sales).

You might of course remember exclusive deals with The Eagles, Journey, and AC/DC with its “Black Ice” album. The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, made a similar deal, only to prove that he really was “born to run”...as quickly as he could from a PR nightmare. Aerosmith too has (perhaps accidentally) acknowledged the possibility of a deal.

The list is distinguished...but wait...aren’t we missing something? Where is the glam rock? Where is the long, permed hair? The Star Trek inspired spandex jumpsuits?? The face-paint reminiscent of Japanese Geishas??? KISS!!!!!!! Fine...we can cross glam rock off the Wal-Mart list.

“We’re about four days from finishing the new Kiss album. Eleven tracks, and it IS everything I’ve told you. It IS classic. It IS all written within the band. And IT ROCKS BIG TIME!,” guitarist Paul Stanley writes...However, when Kiss do release their new album, it will apparently be a Walmart exclusive.

With regards to Kiss’s predecessors, only Springsteen and his blue collar legend status seemed to face significant backlash:

Facing accusations that he had sold out on his principles after decades chronicling everyday working struggles in songs such as Born to Run and My Hometown, Springsteen accepted that he should not have got into bed with the retailer.

For the most part, the rest of the deals appeared to be money driven, with bands looking to jumpstart aging fan bases. I think we can safely put KISS in this category as well. So good luck to them - hopefully they’ll be able to afford all the face paint they can handle.

Kiss “Days From Finishing” New Album, Walmart Deal In the Works [Rolling Stone]

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At the request of the H-E-B Grocery Company, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus undertook a review of certain Wal-Mart advertising claims. More to the point, the grocery retailer challenged Wal-Mart’s claims of “unbeatable prices” in addition to its ability to save its customers on average $700 annually if they spend $100 a week at the supermarket on select grocery items.

Specifically, the challenger noted that Wal-Mart does not honor advertisements that require a purchase in order to receive the advertised price or free product, “Buy One/Get One Free” advertisements, double or triple coupons or percent off advertisements, “misprinted” advertised prices, Internet prices or price matches based on other methods of proof, including sales receipts.

The investigation turned up good news and bad news for Wal-Mart. First, the NAD did support the claim of “unbeatable prices,” primarily because it argued that no retailer could be expected to list all limitations in its advertisements. The NAD did, however, suggest Wal-Mart “modify its advertising to make its disclosures substantially more clear and conspicuous in its printed and broadcast advertising and on its in-store signage.”

As for the claim of being able to the save families $700 per year, well, that didn’t go so well.

NAD further recommended that Wal-Mart discontinue the “$700 annual savings” claim. NAD noted that the claim suggests that the consumer watching the ad could save, on average, more than $700 a year by shopping at Wal-Mart. The use of the phrase “on average” does not temper the overriding message that the viewer – wherever he or she is located – can expect to obtain these savings.

In a statement, Wal-Mart stood by its findings, saying they were supported by an in-depth Global Insight study. This isn’t the first time the National Advertising Division has recommended that Wal-Mart discontinue misleading advertising. And as for Global Insight, let’s hold off on calling them a bastion of flawless methodology. That group’s methods have come into question more than once by organizations including the Economic Policy Institute.

Walmart’s unbeatable prices claim scrutinized [Greensboro News & Record]

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According to the Courthouse News Service, Wal-Mart has been using a sales tax loophole to swindle customers out of a full refund on returned merchandise. Basically, the lawsuit claims that when customers have purchased items at a store that charges a particular sales tax, and have returned the item at a store in an area with a lower sales tax, Wal-Mart has refused to return the difference in paid tax if the rate at the point of sale is higher than that at the store where the merchandise is being returned.

(Plaintiff John) Whitewall says he bought a Blue Ray disc player from Wal-Mart’s store in Collinsville, Ill. for $214.04, at an 8.1 percent sales tax rate. But when he returned the player to Wal-Mart’s store in Glen Carbon, Ill., he received only $211.56, because that store has a 6.85 percent sales tax.

This seems like such a small issue - $3.50 or $4 dollars on a sale - but multiplied over thousands of transactions it has the potential to add up. Wal-Mart has had similar issues with returns before - late last year the Connecticut Attorney General began looking into Wal-Mart after charges began surfacing that major retailers (most notably Wal-Mart) were violating state law by charging a second sales tax when merchandise paid for with cash was exchanged. You can refresh your memory on that story here and here.

The lawsuit was filed as a national class action, and we’ll continue checking for updates. You can read the complaint here. The lawsuit is seeking actual damages, plus any additional damages the court would deem appropriate - read: punitive damages in an amount high enough to make Wal-Mart consider changing its practices.

It’s unclear if the plaintiff has examples beyond his own - the complaint mentions only the Blu-ray player purchase - but I have to believe they have additional plaintiffs. A class action based on one case is, after all, not really in much danger of moving forward as a class action.

Class Sues Wal-Mart Over Returns Policy [Courthouse News Service]

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We don’t have to worry about Green Day going the way of Bruce Springsteen or AC/DC any time soon.

The band is slamming Wal-Mart in the press for for its censorship policy. Green Day’s new record, 21st Century Breakdown (which is #1 in the charts), is not being sold by Wal-Mart. The company famously refuses to sell any albums with a parental advisory label - often forcing artists to produce an edited version of the album specifically for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart demanded Green Day edit their album, and the band refused.

Said frontman Billie Joe Armstrong:

“Wal-Mart’s become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won’t carry our record because they wanted us to censor it...There’s nothing dirty about our record...They want artists to censor their records in order to be carried in there...We just said no. We’ve never done it before. You feel like you’re in 1953 or something.”

Guitarist Mike Dirnt was honest about the implications of Wal-Mart’s policy. A super-popular group like Green Day can obviously survive without Wal-Mart’s sales, but smaller artists are forced to compromise their product or lose a huge chunk of sales:

“If you think about bands that are struggling or smaller than Green Day ... to think that to get record your out in places like that, but they won’t carry it because of the content and you have to censor yourself,” he said. “I mean, what does that say to a young kid whose trying to speak his mind making a record for the first time? It’s like a game that you have to play. You have to refuse to play it.”

As always, we’re confronted with the dilemma: Wal-Mart controls an ever-increasing share of the U.S. retail market, and is using that to continually homogenize and censor the product that it sells.

Is that good for the country?

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When is a loss really a win? In Colorado, it’s when a piece of legislation fails and the result is a victory for the little guys.

The Colorado General Assembly has been debating HB 1192, a bill that would have allowed large grocery chains and drug stores to sell liquor, wine and full strength beer (grocery stores can already sell beer with an alcohol content at or below 3.2% - Bud, Miller Lt., Coors Light, etc). The reasons for the bill being introduced are many, but basically for a long time in Colorado, grocery stores were the only place that you could purchase beer on Sundays. When laws were changed in mid-2008 and liquor stores were allowed to remain open 7 days a week, grocery stores saw their revenue dip ever so slightly, and they were not happy. So the grocery industry began pushing HB 1192.

The consequence of allowing grocery chains to move into the wine and premium beer market, of course, is that perhaps you risk putting local liquor stores out of business. One can argue all they want that the increased competition will be a good thing, but it really won’t. Why? First, as Colorado resident Denise Washington explains, the liquor store industry in Colorado really is a local industry:

Many liquor stores and wine shops in Colorado are family owned. They build relationships with their customers and learn their tastes. There is added value of a knowledgeable staff who wants to work with you to make your experience with a new wine or beer memorable. Who enjoy teaching you about how to choose a good Pinot Noir for your dinner party or a hearty stout for your big BBQ.

Beyond that, however, is the fact that local liquor stores and wine shops support other Colorado businesses - vineyards and microbreweries from across the state that Coloradoans wouldn’t be able to find in large grocery aisles regardless of whether HB 1192 passed.

With the bill failing, grocery stores (many owned by companies outside the state) aren’t really going to see much change - they aren’t going to close up or raise prices simply because they can’t sell craft beers or wine. For them, life will go on. But had the bill passed, 1,650 locally-owned liquor stores would have been devastated to the tune of 50% of its full-strength beer sales in the first year. It doesn’t take much to determine that a loss of business like that would eventually threaten not only the local liquor store industry, but the breweries and wineries they support.

You can get more information on the legislation, including a great video piece from BeerTap TV, after the jump.

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$2 MILLION GETS WAL-MART OUT OF CRIMINAL CHARGES IN DAMOUR CASE

• Wal-Mart Pays $2M to Avoid Charges in New York Death Probe [Associated Press via Insurance Journal]
  Wal-Mart agreed Wednesday to pay nearly $2 million and improve safety at its 92 New York stores as part of a deal with prosecutors that avoids criminal charges in the trampling death of a temporary worker last year.

• Legal Eagle: Wal-Mart pays up [Capital News 9-TV (N.Y.)]
  A case out of Long Island where a trampling death of a temporary employee has Wal-Mart paying up.

• Valley Stream, NY. D.A. Lets Wal-Mart Buy Its Way Out of Criminal Charges In Trampling Death [Battlemart Blog]
  On January 3, 2009, Sprawl-Busters reported that the police in Nassau County, New York had released a new plan designed to prevent the recurrence of a trampling death that took place at a Valley Stream, Long Island Wal-Mart.
  

RETAIL SALES FINALLY STEADY?

• Retail Sales, Output Probably Steadied: U.S. Economy Preview [Bloomberg News]
  Retail sales in the U.S. probably stabilized in April and factory production fell at a slower pace, indicating the economic slump may be starting to ease, economists said before reports this week.
  

WAL-MART DUKING IT OUT WITH OTHER RETAILERS FOR ONLINE SHOPPING MARKET SHARE

• Store Names Wal-Mart, Safeway, Lowes Drive Consumers to Online Shopping [Bnet Retail]
  According to ForeSee Results, Wal-Mart is an example of a retailer whose established business is driving online sales.

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While same-store sales rebounded ever-so-slightly in April, Wal-Mart continues to chug merrily right along, posting a 5% gain. Meg Marco at Consumerist explains it thusly:

A new survey of American consumers shows something very unusual — they’ve lost their interest in shopping. Is this lack of interest driving them to discount stores like Wal-Mart? Seems so...As interest wanes, more and more shoppers are heading to discount stores like Wal-Mart, says CNN.

So there you go. A little happy, uplifting news for your Thursday afternoon. We’ve lost our will to shop so much so, that we’re willing to go to Wal-Mart just so we can get it over with. So when the economy was going well Wal-Mart’s same store sales were flat, but with the economy in the tank, they’re rolling right along? Yay.

We’ll let Meg have the final word:

Have you “downgraded” to Walmart?

Walmart To Rest Of Planet: “What Recession?” [Consumerist]

A little less gloom at the store [CNN.com]

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It seems that Wal-Mart - everyone’s favorite recession profiteer - is finally starting to feel the sales pinch like many of its competitors.

A few retailers, like Family Dollar and Hot Topic, had strong sales growth last month, but Wal-Mart seemed to finally fall back into the pack with with everyone else.

And once again, when Wal-Mart’s sales go south, company executives quickly look to find a scapegoat. Typically Wal-Mart blames the weather, but come spring time they’ve found a new enemy: the Easter Bunny.

Today, in CNNMoney: 

Wal-Mart Stores reported March sales Thursday that were much softer than analysts’ forecasts, citing an ”Easter calendar shift” that it expects to push holiday-related purchases into April.

Wal-Mart Press Release, 4/10/2008:

“This year’s Easter calendar change from April to March negatively impacted the March period, when compared to last year. Wal-Mart discount stores historically are closed on Easter Sunday. In addition, with Easter coming much earlier this year, the traditional selling period for the holiday was shorter.”

Wal-Mart Press Release, 5/10/2007:

“For the April period, overall sales at the Wal-Mart Stores were impacted negatively by weather conditions throughout most of the United States. An earlier Easter season this year also drove some seasonal sales into last month’s period.

Wal-Mart Press Release, 4/6/2006:

“Tom Schoewe, executive vice president and chief financial officer is quoted in the March sales release as saying, ‘With Easter being three weeks later this year than 2005, we expected weaker sales in March.’”

Notice any patterns?

Regardless of any excuses Wal-Mart makes, the company is proving now that even Wal-Mart is not recession-proof. And furthermore, what will happen to sales numbers when the economy starts to turn up again? Two recent surveys show that Wal-Mart has the exact same image problems it had before the economy collapsed - problems that company executives know they need to fix before consumers start having the option to avoid their stores.

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Just two days ago, Wal-Mart exec Bill Simon was bragging (again) that Wal-Mart is now appealing to more high-income shoppers. But a new survey shows otherwise.

Tim Manners posts on his blog the results of a recent Cool News Wal-Mart survey. According to BusinessWeek, the readers of Manners’ blog are “approximately 3,000 senior-level, client-side executives in Fortune 1000 marketing departments and top management of major advertising, promotion, direct and marketing-services agencies.” The survey participants are marketing professionals, over 50% of which claim to have over 15 years in the business.

So not only are these high-income shoppers, but the ones who make and sell Wal-Mart products.

The results make it look like the recession hasn’t changed anything. About a third “never” shop at Wal-Mart, and half “sporadically” shop there. Almost none regularly shop at Wal-Mart. The recession has seemed to have little affect on their shopping habits, or opinions of the company.

It’s what we’ve always said at Wal-Mart Watch. Recession or no recession, Wal-Mart is not winning over the key demographics it needs to continue its rapid pace of growth. People aren’t being fooled: for a large block of the population, the company’s business and labor practices still remain unacceptable.

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Wal-Mart sent out a press release yesterday claiming to help small businesses. That’s just rubbing it in a little, don’t you think?

Sam’s Club Savings Drive To Help America’s Small Businesses Succeed [Wal-Mart Press Release]:

Sam’s Club is fighting for America’s small business owners and operators and beginning today, thousands of associates from all of its 600 clubs across the country are committing to visit 100,000 small businesses to help them identify ways they can lower their costs and succeed. The Sam’s Club Small Business Savings Drive is part of a campaign that culminates during National Small Business Week May 22. Associates are working for small business owners to find at least $270 million in savings by comparing the prices of similar business related products to items available at Sam’s Club.

And last week in the Wall Street Journal...

When a Wal-Mart comes to town, trying to compete with the big-box store by reducing prices does not help, concludes a two-year study by the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University in Hanover, N.H.

The study found that after a new Wal-Mart store opened, local supermarkets in seven regions of the U.S. suffered sales declines of 17%, while mass merchandisers saw sales fall 40% and drug stores saw a 6% decline in sales.

read more on Wal-Mart’s effect on local business here and here.

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The Institute for Local Self Reliance and the New Rules Project have developed proposals for closing four of the most significant loopholes — two involving state sales taxes and two involving corporate income taxes. Those proposals include:

1. Require large online retailers to collect sales tax;
2. Stop big retailers from skimming sales taxes;
3. Bar companies from hiding taxable income in subsidiaries;
4. Eliminate corporate “nowhere” income.

Not surprisingly Wal-Mart serves as a reoccurring example of poor corporate conduct, especially when it comes to skimming sales tax or funneling money through subsidiaries. You can read the entire story here. The article suggests that adopting the proposed changes would have several beneficial effects, especially considering the shortfalls facing many state budgets.

One way states could make up some of the shortfall is to close several common loopholes that allow large corporations to escape paying their fair share of state taxes. Doing so would ease the pressure on state budgets and have the added benefit of restoring a measure of competitive fairness for small businesses, which are unable to take advantage of these loopholes and end up shouldering a much heavier tax burden than their biggest rivals.

Four Corporate Tax Loopholes States Should Close [The Hometown Advantage]

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Mike Duke is wasting no time putting his stamp on Wal-Mart.

In a time when workers everywhere are struggling through the recession while Wal-Mart eats market share and makes billions, and pro-Wal-Mart flakkery is printed every day in the media, the company has decided on a prescription: more PR.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Wal-Mart apparently no longer thinks Edelman can handle the full load, and is looking to bring on up to five additional public relations firms. The WSJ looked at internal Wal-Mart documents and found that the company feels it needs more spin in order to lock down the gains it has made during the recession.

It’s unclear as of yet how much of slap the move is to Edelman. Perhaps the company truly thinks it needssix PR firms hock its products and defend against bad press. But we do know that we need to be on guard - more than ever - against Wal-Mart spin. 

Wal-Mart Seeks to Hold Gains With Expanded Focus on PR [Wall Street Journal]:

In a sign that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to capitalize on its sales strength in the recession, the retailer is in the process of hiring five public relations firms to better promote its products, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer plans to put the firms on retainer and then have them bid on individual projects, an effort by the notoriously frugal retailer to contain costs. This strategy is becoming more common in the advertising industry as businesses attempt to rein in marketing budgets amid falling revenues.

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Wal-Mart’s Mexican invasion just sped up today with the company’s announcement that it will invest $805 million in the country, and open 252 new stores in 2009. The number is remarkable, given that Mexico is less significantly smaller than the U.S. where Wal-Mart is planning to open less than 150 new stores this year.

This aggressive growth also comes at a time of particular weakness for one of Wal-Mart’s main domestic Mexican competitors: the troubled Comercial, which last December was on the verge of bankruptcy. Wal-Mart has also challenged Mexico’s major commercial banks by offering its own store-brand credit card and other in-store financial services. Wal-Mart pledges to be “aggressive” in their Mexican moves, yet we’ve seen how this “aggressiveness” is connected to Wal-Mart’s poor treatment of its U.S. employees. One can only hope the Mexican government has the best interest of its people and workers at heart and makes sure Wal-Mart treats both its consumers and employees with the dignity they deserve.

Walmex to invest $805 million, open 252 stores [Business Week]

Wal-Mart de Mexico SA said Thursday it will invest 11.8 billion pesos ($805 million) and open 252 new stores in 2009 despite the slowing Mexican economy.

The investment represents a 4 percent increase compared to last year and will create 14,500 new direct jobs, said Walmex Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Solorzano.

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Russell Simmons is a hip-hop pioneer. He’s an activist; a philanthropist; a role-model for young, disadvantaged youth.

But is he really launching a new line at Wal-Mart? And now???

Yes, apparently he is. On Feb. 15 Wal-Mart will roll out a new line of men’s clothing designed by Simmons in 350 stores - about 10% of its U.S. outlets - and on its Web site.

[T]he move seems surprising, especially as Wal-Mart flopped famously in its previous efforts to sell more fashionable, pricier clothing… But as Wal-Mart slows its store expansion, it needs to sell higher-profit items to continue generating growth, and apparel is one segment that can still draw new customers.

The clothing items will be priced anywhere from $10-30, not terribly expensive, but some analysts are still questioning the move. From BusinessWeek:

Still, the new line’s timing could not be worse, some analysts say, since Americans have chopped discretionary spending so dramatically.

Wal-Mart to Launch Simmons Clothing Line [BusinessWeek]

As most apparel retailers announce job cuts and store closures because of sluggish sales, it is a precarious time for any of them to launch a new brand. But on Feb. 15 Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) will roll out a new line of men’s clothing designed by hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons in 350 stores, about 10% of its U.S. outlets, and on its Web site. The launch will come less than a week after the world’s largest retailer announced that it will move buyers in the apparel division from its Bentonville (Ark.) headquarters to New York to increase the focus on fashion.

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This morning, it was the news that rocked the financial world: Wal-Mart missed its sales estimates and cut profit outlook:

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, surprised investors who have seen it outperform rivals as the store of choice in a downturn. It said sales at U.S. stores open at least a year rose 1.7 percent, excluding gasoline—worse than Wall Street’s expectation of a 2.8 percent increase.

It also cut its profit forecast for its fourth quarter, which began on November 1.

As in the past, when sales take a dip in the winter, Wal-Mart blamed....the weather:

Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said the company, which last month projected growth at the higher end of the quarter’s predicted 1% to 3% advance, said Thursday the holidays were more challenging than expected for retailers because of the economy and “severe winter weather” in some parts of the country.”

But the report this morning was a serious matter. It sent the market tumbling and others wondering if the retail sector would be able to recover at all any time soon. 24/7 Wall Street points out what some other stories seem to have missed - that for the first time in a while, Wal-Mart International has taken a hit as well:

Wal-Mart International has turned in sales improvement of 15% to 20% on a very consistent basis. In December of last year, that number fell by 10.4% to $10.7 billion. For the entire company, revenue was flat at $47.5 billion, which means that Wal-Mart US carried all of the load.

In many sales periods past, Wal-Mart has relied on strong international sales to boost the company while same store sales in the U.S. remain mostly flat. And Wal-Mart has made no effort to hide the fact that it is concentrating much of its projected growth in the international sector, while slowing down at home.

Make no mistake about it: Mike Duke has his work cut out.

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BUSTED!!!

Actually, as a recently joined member of Netflix, I have to admit I might not be impartial on this story. After all, they do deliver movies right to my door, allowing me to overcome my lifelong fear of video stores.

But that aside, the lawsuit appears to be some pretty serious stuff. From the Los Angeles Times:

The two companies agreed in 2005 that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, would close its online rental business and refer customers to Netflix, which would promote Wal-Mart’s DVD movie sales, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco.

Sounds like a case of a couple companies engaging in some “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” behavior. The complaint suggests clandestine meetings, beginning with a dinner shared by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and then-Wal-Mart.com CEO John Fleming in January 2005, in which discussions began as to how the two could reduce competition in the DVD sales and online DVD rental markets. You can check out the whole complaint here. Its like reading The Bourne Identity...if it was written by lawyers. Bland, legalese-loving lawyers. But seriously, it is pretty interesting, and at 24 pages its not tooooo long, so check it out.

Wal-Mart, Netflix sued over online video rentals [Reuters]

Wal-Mart, Netflix conspired to create monopoly, suit alleges [Bloomberg via Los Angeles Times]

Resnick v. Wal-Mart, Netflix (Complaint)

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New York’s Governor called for a host of new fees and taxes yesterday, including an “iPod tax” that taxes the sale of downloaded music and other “digitally delivered entertainment services.”

The Governor’s new budget for 2009 includes 88 new fees plus a bunch of other new taxes on anything from soda, beer, wine and cigars to movie tickets, taxi rides, and massages. According to the NY Daily News, It would also extend sales taxes to cable and satellite TV services and remove the tax exemption for clothes costing less than $110. So no more grabbing a box of stogies and hitting the local cinaplex for me, I guess...well, assuming I lived in New York. Which I don’t.

That the “iPod tax” actually refers to Apple’s popular product by name would cause one to infer that Governor Paterson has it out for frequenters of the iStore. In actuality, however, MacWorld points out that the title is a little misleading.

It’s not a tax on iPods, but rather the levying of state and local sales taxes for “digitally delivered entertainment services.” The iTunes Store would seem to be a prime target there, but Amazon, Wal-mart, and other retailers would take a hit from the proposed tax as well.

We’ll see if Wal-Mart and the rest flex their mighty lobbying muscles on this. While at least 16 states plus DC already have taxes of this nature, California shot down a similar proposal earlier this year.

New York governor proposes digital download tax [MacWorld]

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We thought this story was over last week when Wal-Mart fessed up to charging illegal sales tax in Connecticut. We were wrong.

The Hartford Courant is reporting that, despite acknowledging the wrongdoing and vowing to change its ways when it comes to double-charging sales tax, the message has yet to filter down to, you know, the people that matter. Namely, employees. The following is an excerpt from a letter submitted to the Courant:

I find it absolutely incredible that no salesperson knew the “corrected” policy. I hope the assistant manager refunded my sales tax because she really knew it was the right thing to do, or if she just did it to please the customer.  In any case, I’m happy I got my money back. Of course, it’s not the money, it was the principal of the whole thing. I’m still amazed at the whole thing and it has “tainted” my thoughts of their store and my willingness to continue shopping there.

I’d say this was a one-time deal, and we’ll never read about these sales tax shenanigans again. But…

The Courant has forwarded the complaint to the Connecticut Consumer Protection Commission.

Despite promise of reform, Wal-Mart still violating Connecticut tax laws [Hartford Courant]

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From time to time, Wal-Mart funds studies of questionable merit to justify its continued expansion around the United States. Wal-Mart claims to save people money at the register, boost local job numbers, and contribute hefty sales taxes revenue to support the community. While the media eats these studies up, others are skeptical of the findings. In 2005, Wal-Mart, trying to quell an upwelling of criticism, sponsored the Global Insight conference in Washington, DC and allowed authors and academics a chance to highlight their studies regardless of the findings. At the time, it appeared Wal-Mart might be entering into a new age of transparency and sophistication.  We were wrong. What ever happened to Global Insight conference part deux? Apparently, Wal-Mart feels it wasn’t such a great idea to showcase opposing studies. 

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What he said:

Spokesman Dan Fogleman said Monday evening that although he has no idea what Connecticut sales tax law is, his company is following it.

What his replacement would later say after the Connecticut AG asked him to please, try again:

“We thoroughly reviewed our practices and have taken steps to ensure that our associates are fully complying with Connecticut law when processing even exchanges,” [Wal-Mart spokeswoman] Ashley Hardie said in an e-mail.

I don’t know who this “Ashley Hardie” is, or what she did with my main man Dan, but I really don’t care for her “thorough reviews” or her guarantees that “steps are being taken” to insure compliance. In fact, I’d greatly appreciate it if she just started opening her mouth and letting the words flow, much like Dan used to do. Dan was so much more fun. Dan doesn’t know Connecticut law, but did Dan let that stop him? No. No he didn’t. Dan sat in Arkansas and spun tales of big, benevolent Wal-Mart spreading cheer and helping people afford Christmas, completely incapable of breaking any law known to man. And even if they did, he said, its Connecticut’s fault for having such CRAZY laws in the first place. Well, actually, that was Wal-Mart and not just Dan that said that:

Wal-Mart Stores even had posters behind courtesy desks blaming the state for its policy. “State law PROHIBITS Wal-Mart from refunding SALES TAX to any customer returning or exchanging merchandise without an original purchase receipt,” the “tax refund laws” posters said.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what the law says:

However, state tax laws clearly say the opposite, state Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr. said Wednesday in an interview explaining the out-of-court settlement he reached with Wal-Mart. State laws mandate that if a company has an exchange policy, it cannot charge a second sales tax on the new item. Wal-Mart’s website clearly says it has such an exchange policy.

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