Walmart.com sells Microtel PC with SuSE Linux software
Erik Price
eprice at ptc.com
Tue Jul 15 15:10:10 EDT 2003
Derek Martin wrote:
> If walmart moves into a town predominated by little shops, and they
> all can't compete with walmart (and rest assured they can't), then the
> owners of those shops will have to close down, and go get jobs at
> walmart. Their incomes will likely be reduced by between 50 and 75
> percent, and along with it their disposable incomes will be
> drastically reduced, meaning they have almost no money to spend on
> things besides basic necessities.
Ironically, the average price of goods is *not* less at Wal-Mart than at
pre-existing stores. I read an article on it a couple years ago --
Wal-Mart specifically marks down the goods that are sold at the local
stores, in an attempt to put them out of business, since the chain-owned
store can operate at a loss until those stores are gone. Once they're
gone, the new Wal-Mart then re-adjusts the prices, often to become even
*higher* than they were originally, so the consumer just ends up getting
the shaft.
Also, next time you walk through your local Wal-Mart, note how the
amazing prices are all on the end-caps of the aisles and the
attention-grabbing product stands in the middle of the "main" aisles.
Once you get deep into the store, you'll find that the average price of
a Wal-Mart item is not any better than the average price of an item at
any other store.
Erik
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