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Despite Target’s worse-than-expected third-quarter earnings, due in part to losing customers to Wal-Mart in a depressed economy, they have found several ways to stick it to the world’s largest retailer.  Other than pledging a ‘price-war’ against them, they are also hitting Wal-Mart where it counts: Bentonville.  Construction is nearing completion and signage is erected at Target’s newest location: Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart’s home when not in vacationing in China. 

Slated to open in March, the store will be located on the east side of I-540.  Jenn Glass, a Target representative was quoted in the Benton Daily Record (Arkansas):

“Target opens new stores in October, July and March of each year,” said Jenn Glass, Target representative. “We’re projecting a March 8, 2009, opening in Rogers. “According to Glass, the Rogers location will be a traditional Target retail store, not a Super Target. The Minneapolis-based retailer has 70 new stores scheduled to open in the United States in 2009.

Not to be outdone, Wal-Mart plans to open a Neighborhood Market DIRECTLY across from the new Target, in an awkward, immodest attempt to keep the citizens of Bentonville shopping at the “right store.” Wal-Mart doesn’t typically open Neighborhood Markets as frequently as they used to, and seem to be making every attempt to upgrade all of their regular stores to Supercenters.  Way to keep the gloves on, guys.

Target set to open in March [Benton County Daily Record (Ark.)]

ROGERS - Target Corp. ‘s red bull’s-eye is hardly a household trademark in Benton County. For years, the nearest Target store has been in Fayetteville, in neighboring Washington County. But the bull’seye has been shining brightly along Interstate 540, in the shadows of the Pinnacle Hills Promenade, for the past couple of weeks.

Crossland Construction crews continue to erect Benton County’s first Target store, situated across the street from the Pinnacle Hills Promenade, along the east side of I-540. The exterior of the 127, 000-squarefoot Target store is nearing completion, the signage has been erected, and the parking lot has been paved. But for those who are planning to get some holiday shopping done at the Minneapolis-based retailer, it’s still going to require a drive to Fayetteville this winter.

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AS A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF WAL-MART, I was aware that my store had a “loss-prevention team” - which basically consisted of two obvious plain-clothed, unarmed “security officers” that walked around the store watching people shop, trying to catch shop-lifters.  These guys were likely moonlighting at Wal-Mart on their days off from bouncer-duty at the bar.  Nevertheless, occasionally they would catch someone stealing, and that’s where it all gets fuzzy.  Let me make it perfectly clear, these guys ARE NOT law enforcement officials so the level of actual ‘enforcement’ they were legally allowed to use always seemed unclear.  From what I understood, they were not allowed to physically intervene in a theft situation, just ‘escort’ them to the back, and call the police. They were not allowed to slam you face-first onto the ground.

Apparently a loss-prevention officer for a Wal-Mart in Spartanburg, S.C. never got that memo. WYFF-TV in South Carolina reports that a video-survellience camera captured footage of loss prevention officer, Joseph Gregorie bear-hug a 58-year-old woman, he suspected of shop-lifting, and slam her face-first into the ground.  Talk about your all-time, total losses of composure.  The woman sustained minor facial injuries and was taken to an area hospital.  Wal-Mart was vague when talking to WSNA-TV in South Carolina about their loss-prevention protocol:

“...the spokesperson said their employees do follow certain ‘asset protection’ protocols, but she said she could not go into details about those protocols because of this investigation.”

UPDATE: if you didn’t already see it, check out the comment below from loyal reader Rob. He reports seeing a similar situation at a store where he worked.

Wal-Mart Employee Charged With Assaulting Shopper [WSNA-TV (S.C.)]

A Wal-Mart employee faces charges after police say he slammed a woman suspected of shoplifting face-first into the ground.

It happened late Tuesday night at the Dorman Centre Wal-Mart in Spartanburg. According to police reports, Joseph Gregorie, the store’s loss prevention officer, saw a 58-year old Greer woman concealing items in a bag. Gregorie says when he confronted her, the woman dropped the bag and tried to run away. The woman, Deborah Blackwell, tells police that Gregorie “bear hugged” her and slammed her face-first into the ground. She suffered a large contusion on her left eye and an injured hand and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Gregorie told police that he grabbed Blackwell and she lost her balance and they both fell. But after reviewing surveillance video, the investigating officer said it shows Gregorie “throwing her to the ground”. He took the evidence to a judge who signed arrest warrants for both Gregorie and Blackwell.

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Mary Bach, a woman from Murrysville, Pennsylvania has won her fourth lawsuit against Wal-Mart after being over-charged for a dress.  Bach, nicknamed the ‘scanner-lady’ has gained a certain level of fame recently, as a champion of consumers for filing numerous small-claims suits against retailers for what she calls: “electronic shopper-lifting.” She has sued Kmart and Eckard after being over-charged for products.  Wal-Mart plead no-contest, having violated a consumer-protection law and had to pay Bach $164 including court fees. “Bach said it is not about the money” says WPXI-TV (Pa.), who also quoted her as saying:

“Here you have retailers who can reach into your wallet by overcharging you multiple times and they then shrug their shoulders and say, ‘oops it’s a mistake.’”

The Associated Press said that Bach was a key player in passing a law which requires the state to conduct inspections of price-scanners.

Wal-Mart is accustomed to being sued over pricing issues.  Just over a year ago, we posted a story from the Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter about how Wal-Mart was fined almost $90,000 from the Wisconsin State Legislature for over-charging for bulk food items.

Woman Sues Wal-Mart Over Price Problems [WPXI-TV (Pa.)]:

DELMONT, Pa.—A woman won a lawsuit against Wal-Mart after she claimed she was overcharged for purchases at the chain’s store in Delmont.

Wal-Mart pleaded no contest and will play Mary Bach $164, including $64 in court fees.

In an earlier version of this story, Channel 11 posted only a portion of Wal-Mart’s response to the litigation. The following is Wal-Mart’s response in its entirety:

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Hey, Wal-Mart?  Do you feel the winds blowing today?  Ah, yes, the winds of change. Indeed, that key demographic of Wal-Mart women across the country surely voted their pocketbooks and their consciences - and helped the electorate hand a decisive victory to Senator Barack Obama.

You can bet the Walton family and CEO Lee Scott weren’t doing a victory dance last night when the election was called for Obama.  Oh, sure the company’s pr and gov relations guy, Leslie Dach has tried really, really, really, really hard recently (especially as things were looking really promising for Obama) to convince everyone that Wal-Mart was “non-partisan” – even going so far as to air infomercials for both candidates in the company’s stores.  But, those “non-partisan” activities, like so many things Wal-Mart does are mere distractions from what the company was really up to.

In August, the Wall Street Journal exposed Wal-Mart’s mandatory meetings to attempt to instruct its employees to vote against Democrats and Senator Obama – oh, sure they nuanced the message in some settings, but the point was clear.  And, the company implemented a plan at the beginning of 2008 to train all of its managers how to fight the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) should Obama be elected.  During the presidential campaign, we saw anti-EFCA ads (and anti-Obama – walking the legal line in various forms) from several different organizations - including (but, not limited to): the Workforce Fairness Institute; Center for Union Facts; The Center for Consumer Freedom and of course, the Employment Policies Institute.  Since these groups don’t disclose all of their contributors, it’s hard to prove that Wal-Mart gave them money, but we have a pretty good idea that Wal-Mart invested a nice chunk of change in their efforts. Maybe someone should ask Wal-Mart.

For the past eight years, Wal-Mart has had a free pass to trample workers’ rights - in part due to the ineffectiveness of the NLRB – and in part due to a system that has favored employers.  The company’s business model of paying appallingly low wages, offering catastrophic, unaffordable health care plans, forcing employees to forgo overtime pay, manipulating employees’ schedules as punishment for standing up to the company, discriminating against employees and a host of other issues – evident from a multitude of lawsuits - and from the mouths of employees themselves - is finally in jeopardy. 

Yep, change is coming.  With an Obama presidency and the Democratic gains in Congress, average Americans – including Wal-Mart workers - will once more have a say and stand a chance of getting a fair shake.  Wal-Mart knows it – and fears it.

Expect to see the company increase its lobbying expenditures in the next few months and ramp up its efforts to mislead its employees about EFCA – which by the way, could finally give its employees the ability to stand up to the company.  And, expect to see even worse treatment of employees to send a clear message to them about who is still in charge (and Wal-Mart just doesn’t ever seem to learn on this front). 

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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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Allegations of campaign violations are rising in the Big Sky State, and a recently-released decision on a 2006 complaint might lead to changes in Montana’s campaign finance law.

Complaints of violations flowing in at the rate of about 30 per day to the state’s Commissioner or Political Practices, have of which are coming from Ravalli County in southwestern Montana. According to the Ravalli Republic:

The state’s most pressing investigation in Ravalli County concerns the Higher Ground Foundation, a nonprofit group that is urging voters to repeal the county’s growth policy in an effort to prevent zoning and streamside setback regulations from being adopted later.

The group formed as an “incidental committee,” which are defined as a group that makes political contributions but whose primary purpose isn’t to influence elections. But it has become clear to many that Higher Ground has a higher purpose than simply contributing funds, and is instead directly promoting the repeal of the county’s growth policy. Complainants are urging the state to force the group disclose the sources of its funding, and its expenditures.

So how does this tie into Wal-Mart? Well, just over a week ago, Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Dennis Unsworth released his opinion regarding a 2006 complaint against a group called Ravalli County Citizens for Free Enterprise. The group supported construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter and the successful repeal of a zoning ordinance that blocked big-box stores. Unsworth ruled that RCCFE was nothing more than a Wal-Mart front-group that violated financial reporting and record-keeping laws. He said that Wal-Mart appeared to have bought a campaign in order to influence an election, and that the case could lead to Third party campaigning is growing in the state [The Missoulian]” title="changes in Montana’s campaign finance disclosure laws">changes in Montana’s campaign finance disclosure laws. It turned out that only $90 of the PAC’s money came from local residents, whereas $115,000 came from Wal-Mart.

“It’s absolutely critical,” Unsworth said, “that voters know who’s behind these groups, in order to make informed decisions.”

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This comes courtesty of Writing on the Wal. We’ve issued reports on Wal-Mart’s use of various tax schemes, including captive REITs, 80/20 companies, and captive employee leasing companies. All of these strategies have been used in the name of avoiding paying state corporate income tax. Now, one website has gone ahead and documented some additional tax issues, these of the unpaid variety.

Below are examples of tax liens placed on Wal-Mart, ranging from $104 to, well, a whole lot more. Liens are granted after notices have been sent to a debtor but the owed taxes remain unpaid. Its nice to know that, in addition to not paying taxes, Wal-Mart forces states to spend MORE money just to collect these debts. YAY!

EXAMPLE ONE:

Debtor Information
Name: WAL MART STORES INC
Tax ID: 710415188
Address: 702 SW 8TH ST
BENTONVILLE, AR 72716-6209
BENTON COUNTY

Creditor Information
Name: SC DEPT OF REVENUE

Filing Information
Filing State: SOUTH CAROLINA
Original Filing Date: 1/17/2003
Amount: $2,463,114
Release Date: 1/28/2003

Filing 1
Filing Number: 50458809
Filing Court: GREENVILLE COUNTY RECORDER
Filing County: GREENVILLE

EXAMPLE TWO:

Debtor Information
Name: WAL MART STORES INCORPORATED
Tax ID: 710415188
Address: 702 SW 8TH ST
BENTONVILLE, AR 72716-6209
BENTON COUNTY

Creditor Information
Name: STATE OF INDIANA

Filing Information
Filing State: INDIANA
Original Filing Date: 4/15/2008
Amount: $1,600,933
Release Date: 6/13/2008

Filing 1
Filing Number: 06819151
Filing Type: STATE TAX WARRANT
Filing Court: MARION COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
Filing County: MARION

Read on for more!
Wal-Mart: Examine the history of the tax liens in the millions

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Let’s say you’re a multi-national corporation worth billions upon billions of dollars. Your business is built on an empire of discount retail establishments, most of which are so large one could get lost inside. Your stores, in fact, contain more items than actually exist in reality, all of which (both the real and the theoretical) are priced at low, low prices and ready to move.

Now, sure, you have to deal with the problem of shrinkage. Not of the George Costanza variety, but the kind that entails product leaving your stores without an exchange of money taking place. Theft is a real problem, especially if the thefted item happens to cost a couple thousand dollars like, say, a laptop computer might. The solution, it turns out, is simple. Put out for sale empty boxes.

Most would think such a strategy couldn’t possibly exist, let alone have unintended positive consequences, but you’d be wrong. It seems three men in Chandler, Arizona, purchased a laptop from a local Wal-Mart. Apparently not realizing they had bought the lightest laptop this side of an Apple thinbook, the men left the store with what they would later claim was an empty box. Low and behold, Chandler police were called when the three men returned with an empty box, claiming a laptop was never in it. Long story short, when police arrived, one of the men made a run for it tossing away what turned out to be forged credit cards in the process. Wal-Mart’s shrinkage-protection scheme strikes again, only this time thwarting a Phoenix-wide credit card forgery ring instead of a simple shoplifter.

And the best part:

Store employees later discovered they had indeed sold an empty box to the three men.

Walmart Sells You An Empty Box Instead Of A Laptop—But You Bought It With Stolen Credit Cards [The Consumerist]

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Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.

This week’s issue focuses on Wal-Mart and the current economic crisis. You’ll find stories on how Americans are shifting to thrift stores in order to save money, and whether September’s retail sales figures reflect a downturn in consumer spending. You’ll also find an article from CNN Money discussing whether the state of the economy will affect Wal-Mart’s hiring, especially with the holiday season coming up.

In addition to the economy, you’ll find stories on Wal-Mart’s move to small stores. Are Wal-Mart’s Marketside Stores the wave of the future? And in health care news, Wal-Mart is rolling out electronic personal health records to all of its employees, and has announced changes to its health plan for 2009.

And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe.

Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials [October 10, 2008]

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In August 2006, everything was good at the City View Mall in Garfield Heights, Ohio. Wal-Mart built a supposedly first-of-its-kind store on top of a landfill. It made headlines for supposedly attracting 6,000 applicants for just 200 positions.

Two years later, things are a little different. It turns out that building on giant pile of garbage might not have been a good idea after all. The Ohio EPA has long been investigating the site, and has found significant soil erosion, polluted water seeping into storm sewers, and - most notably - combustible methane gas seeping into the store. The independent investigation by Wal-Mart indicated raw sewage backwash present in the store, a dangerous shift in the foundation of the store and confirmed the methane problems.

And just for a little more scandal (we know you wanted it): Mayor Thomas Longo, one of the chief architects of the landfill project, is saying publicly that he thinks methane is not the reason Wal-Mart is pulling out: “It’s a business decision...It’s a dollars-and-cents issue with these people.”

His claim sounds a little dubious, but for now - Wal-Mart is the only store to pull out of the complex.

Wal-Mart closes at City View on methane fears [Cleveland Plain-Dealer (Ohio)]:

Wal-Mart closed its store at City View Center on Monday, saying explosive gas at the site, built atop two toxic dumps, poses a danger to customers and employees.

The announcement comes less than two weeks after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency threatened to shut down the big-box plaza off Interstate 480 if the owners did not step up efforts to monitor and vent the methane from underground sewer lines.

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In a press release distributed this morning, Wal-Mart has announced that it is “once again driving unnecessary health care costs out of the system and passing the savings along to its customers through the pharmacy aisles.”

How is it doing it this time? By offering exclusive-to-Wal-Mart diabetes management products for $9 each at all Wal-Mart pharmacies nationwide. That, might I say, is quite excellent actually. I myself don’t have - and don’t have immediate family members who have - diabetes. But I’ve known and worked with people who do, and one thing an individual with diabetes shouldn’t have to worry about is the cost of testing and treatment supplies, which I could imagine can get quite expensive.

No, the problem with this story isn’t in what Wal-Mart is announcing. It is, instead, the way in which Wal-Mart has treated its own employees who have diabetes. Helping the masses might seem a little nicer if the company treated its own diabetic employees with slightly more compassion and understanding.

The gold standard of what I’m talking about is the story of Stephen Orr. Orr worked as a pharmacist at a Nebraska Wal-Mart. Orr has Type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not produce insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into the energy needed for daily life. As a result, Orr must administer insulin to himself several times each day. For a while, management allowed him to, you know, do the things he needed to do over the course of a day to stay alive...like actually take a lunch break. Eventually though, business and customer traffic forced Wal-Mart - instead of hiring an additional pharmacist - to inform Orr he could no longer take a break to eat and rest. In fact, he was told to eat behind the pharmacy counter if and when store traffic slowed. If you can’t guess what happened, I’ll tell you - Orr’s blood glucose levels dropped severely on multiple occasions, causing him to experience symptoms of hypoglycemia, which can include dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, difficulty speaking, and feeling anxious or weak. Wal-Mart still refused to accommodate him, and his manager eventually fired him, explicitly telling him it was because of his diabetes.

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Wal-Mart’s customer service is notoriously bad: chronic understaffing, low wages, high turnover and ever-shifting work schedules mean employees are unhappy and unlikely to perform well. So it’s no surprise that Wal-Mart winds up “among the worst” on AOL’s list of favorite grocery stores.

30 Most and Least Favorite Grocery Stores [Wallet Pop]

The absolute worst place hands down is Wal-mart! Now, normally, we don’t shop there—however, my husband needed something that he couldn’t find anywhere else, so ... in we went ... and out we walked! We had about 3 items that we were carrying and they had 3 registers open with about 20 customers in each line. They were not even bothering to try to open up any other lanes. We gave the merchandise to one of the employees and told her we will NOT wait in these lines.

UPDATE: Almost as interesting, if not more so, are the comments. Wallet Pop readers weigh in on Wal-Mart, after the jump.

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Remember back in June, when the FDA warned consumers about eating certain kinds of tomatoes coming out of Mexico due to potential salmonella contamination? And then expanded that warning to include certain peppers as well?  All vendors of these products, including Wal-Mart were to halt the sale of such items.

Cheryl Grubbs is filing suit against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, alleging that her husband, Brian Grubbs came close to death after eating several jalapeno peppers that were purchased at a Wal-Mart and tainted with salmonella in an article published today in LawyersandSettlements.com.

[An earlier version of this blog post mentioned that the FDA recall in question occured on June 25, 2008. This was incorrect: we apologize for the mistake.]

Tomato-Pepper Salmonella: Why the Grubbs are Suing Wal-Mart

Dolores, CO: “Truckloads of contaminated jalapenos were turned back at the border before we bought them at Wal-Mart,” says Cheryl Grubbs, “so why did Wal-Mart still have them in their store?” Her husband, Brian Grubbs, almost died from the tomato/pepper salmonella outbreak, and Cheryl is furious because his illness could have been avoided.

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The past couple weeks have seen plenty of stories describing ways in which Wal-Mart has mobilized to aid the Gulf Coast in preparation and relief efforts during hurricane season.

It seems, however, that even though the corporation was making efforts to lessen the blow of the storm, they still haven’t lost sight of the bottom-line.  In a story posted yesterday in The Examiner, Wal-Mart was accused of price-gouging gasoline at one of their stations along an evacuation route in Southeast Texas. The Wal-Mart/Murphy USA located on U.S. 69 in Lumberton raised their price of gasoline a total of 12 cents in the day leading up to the evacuation for Hurricane Gustav, then another 10 cents when the evacuation was announced. 

These prices were NOT consistent with other gas-stations in the area and following the storm, prices dropped again to reflect market prices. And despite a gas station manager claiming that prices went up because of a “gas price rise”, the cost of oil per barrel dropped over each of the three days. 

Evacuation Gas Game [The Examiner (Texas)]:

In the days and hours leading to the potential call for a mandatory evacuation for Southeast Texas residents the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) blasted across its electronic billboard alert system that a hurricane was coming and residents needed to fill up their tanks with gasoline.

According to a local wholesale fuel provider, most everyone heeded TxDOT’s advice, but The Examiner also kept close watch on one gasoline retailer located along the main evacuation route from Southeast Texas.

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Several stories were published this week regarding Wal-Mart’s newest way to annoy the already frazzled American shopper - the “Smart-Network.” Set to launch in close to 300 stores by the holiday season and chain-wide by 2010, the in-store TV marketing network will include 27,000 screens and feature everything from time-specific advertisements to a series of ‘welcome screens’ to be displayed at store entrances. Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer of Wal-Mart stores, discussed the new system in a story from Adweek:

“We’ve built a network tailored to the way consumers shop our stores, delivering helpful, custom content closest to the point of decision that helps them shop smarter”

“Smarter” is right: now customers won’t have to make shopping lists, decisions about what products are for them, or even have to open their eyes upon entering a Wal-Mart. All they have to do is listen for the comforting sound of a television screen beckoning them closer and closer to whatever Wal-Mart feels like selling them at that time. The company sank $10 million into R&D for this project, coming off slightly better-than-expected sales numbers for the month of August, and seems to show the company’s faith in the system.

Wal-Mart Smart Net Pushes Point-of-Sale Ads

Trying to reach additional shoppers, Wal-Mart has launched the Wal-Mart Smart Network, which supplies information via in-store TV. The company invested $10 million in the project billed as “shopper-intelligent network at retail.” Powered by Internet Protocol Television, the new net will appear in more than 2,700 stores nationwide.

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We’ll be extremely busy this weekend relaxing and celebrating the valiant efforts of American workers, so in the meantime - a brief round up of the week’s Wal-Mart blogs.

DEADLY BASSINETS SOLD AT WAL-MART

Wal-Mart Still Selling Dangerous Cribs [WakeUpWal-Mart.com Blog]

Wal-Mart has long been plagued with recalls of dangerous products, and it has often been implicated in taking too little action about such products. Now it seems Wal-Mart is still selling a dangerous crib that is responsible for two deaths.

CPSC uses new authority against defiant manufacturer of dangerous bassinets after another tragic death [U.S. PIRG blog]

Here is the story yesterday at Consumeraffairs.com. I hope Wal-Mart (mentioned in this story) and other retailers have stopped selling these products, since being notified of the imminent hazard warning. And I assure readers, if SFCA’s defense somehow prevails in court, that the Congress will be quick with a technical correction to the new law.

After the jump, Wal-Mart’s local food, more on the company’s mandatory meetings and the new Marketside stores.

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A story out today from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette helps to clear up some of the questions about Wal-Mart’s recent logo change. The article explains that Wal-Mart The Company will continue to use the current, hyphenated form of the logo but that Walmart The Store will use the fancy new non-hyphenated version. As if that weren’t confusing enough, the article explains that the ever popular “squiggly” will remain in the Wal-Mart cheer. Yes, questions of how to spell Wal-Mart’s name will now involve a lengthy existentialist examination.

Exactly why Wal-Mart feels the need to make this distinction - between “the company” and its stores - remains unclear. The company wanted a new look for its stores, but changing every instance of its logo might have proven too complicated. Wal-Mart is, after all, the world’s largest company. But the distinction also plays in to an issue we raised yesterday - Wal-Mart The Company is beginning to distance itself from its stores. The company’s new Marketside shops bear no mention of their Bentonville parent, and perhaps the hypen/no-hypen distinction plays in to that. Does Wal-Mart The Company exist separate from its stores? Can it ever?

‘Walmart’ new, but store’s familiar [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Wal-Mart or Walmart ? That depends, the company says. With the June 30 announcement of its new, nonhyphenated store logo, “Walmart” started showing up in some of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ’s news releases and other statements and has been appearing in its printed advertising and in-store signs since then.

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Wal-Mart Canada has faced some big labor problems lately. A 2005 lawsuit against the company’s anti-union labor practices made it to the Canadian Supreme Court this month, and at almost the same time workers in a Wal-Mart garage in Gatineau, Quebec managed to unionze, much to the company’s chagrin. So the company’s PR department did what it does best: divert attention.

David Cheesewright, CEO of Wal-Mart Canada, announced today that all of the company’s new Canadian stores will be “energy efficient.” The retailer has yet to meet any independent guidelines for energy efficiency, so its environmental claims are somewhat unclear, but the announcement comes at a time when Wal-Mart Canada could use some serious public relations karma.

Cheesewright insisted that the efficiency improvements were simply cost-saving measures, and said “environmental sustainability and business sustainability—it’s the same thing.” However, the company has yet to announce any such measures for its U.S. stores - or its stores in any other country, for that matter. The number of “energy efficient” Wal-Mart stores remains a pitifully small percentage of the company’s total operations. So if Cheesewright’s statements are true, Wal-Mart is missing out on a lot of cost savings - and we all know Wal-Mart wouldn’t do a thing like that. Perhaps the retailer is actually just looking for some free PR among our neighbors to the north.

Wal-Mart aims for ‘greenest stores on the block’ [Financial Post (Canada)]

Wal-Mart Canada Corp. pushed its green agenda ahead Tuesday by pledging that all new stores will be built to be markedly more energy efficient, and existing stores will be retrofitted to make them more environmentally friendly.

“Wal-Mart Canada (WMT/NYSE) has been intensely dedicated to environmental sustainability over the past three years,” Wal-Mart Canada CEO David Cheesewright said at the annual meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario on Tuesday. “Perhaps no change has been as significant as those made to the way we build and operate our buildings. And the changes are progressing. We are confident that Wal-Mart stores will be among the greenest on the block.”

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Wal-Mart has, unsurprisingly, been the target of more lawsuits than one can count over the years. The company’s treatment of its workers and “save money at all costs” mentality has resulted in a flood of legal challenges ranging from single plaintiff suits to multi-million dollar class actions. Dukes v. Wal-Mart is of course one large example (the largest class action in American history, actually), as are the myriad wage/hour/overtime class actions the company faces.

At Wal-Mart Watch will be focusing on one of these stories each week, highlighting those cases that warrant further attention because of the light each sheds in its own way on how Wal-Mart does business.

Deborah Metcalf v. Wal-Mart Stores East

In the process of scouring the country searching for egregious examples of Wal-Mart malfeasance, we came across this interesting little case filed earlier this year in Oklahoma. On its surface, it’s a retaliatory discharge case – however, the plaintiff here, Deborah Metcalf, was fired for blowing the whistle on what should be considered some pretty repulsive conduct.

Among the many programs funded by the United States Government, we’re going to focus on one in particular – the federal WIC program. WIC stands for Women, Infants, and Children, and is a special supplemental nutrition program funded by grants by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered in Oklahoma by the OK State Department of Health. Basically, WIC provides food and education to low-income women, infants and children deemed eligible for the program. The program’s website tagline delivers the following:

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children - better known as the WIC Program - serves to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, & children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, and referrals to health care.

Deborah Metcalf, at the time of her firing, was an employee working at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy located within store #47 in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. In 2001, the Sallisaw Wal-Mart became a participant in the WIC program. Before we go any further, perhaps a little more information is needed on how the WIC program works:

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