http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/sears-holdings-closing-68-kmarts-and-10-sears-stores.html?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity

Quote from: walkstall on April 23, 2016, 06:49:37 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/sears-holdings-closing-68-kmarts-and-10-sears-stores.html?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity

We all remember when Sears was "Where America Shops". That all changed when some guy from Bentonville, AK expanded his hardware store. Wall Street made Sears spin off Allstate in the 1990's and Sears lost its biggest asset.

Quote from: supsalemgr on April 24, 2016, 04:39:01 AM
We all remember when Sears was "Where America Shops". That all changed when some guy from Bentonville, AK expanded his hardware store. Wall Street made Sears spin off Allstate in the 1990's and Sears lost its biggest asset.

Sam Walton ran a Ben Franklin dime store in Bentonville in the 1950s.
That original store is now the WalMart museum.
(I saw a hat on sale in there that reads,
"When I die, bury me at WalMart so my wife will come visit me.")

Around 1966, he opened his first WalMart store.
He then spread from Arkansas to Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas,
and then on from there.

His strategy was the opposite of what all the other chains did.
Instead of starting with the largest cities and expanding to smaller ones,
he started in small towns (where there was little competition)
and then spread to big cities after he'd gotten his financials
strong enough to compete with the established chains.

WalMart is notorious for eminent domain abuse,
"bribing" local officials with the promise that
his store will pay them more property tax
than the individuals who owned the land first.

They're also notorious for telling their employees to clock out,
but work a couple more hours as a condition of keeping their job.

Quote from: je_freedom on April 26, 2016, 02:08:01 PMThey're also notorious for telling their employees to clock out,
but work a couple more hours as a condition of keeping their job.

That's illegal.  I'm sure if that was a practice they would have several labor board lawsuits going on.  There may be exceptions to salaried managers working more than their forty hour weeks, but even those, if abused, can bring lawsuits.

I can tell you Walmart hired my grandmother when no one else would. Think about that before you bash them too hard. All of these wild claims of abuse I hear about Walmart..... I have had several family member (including my wife) work for Walmart and not ONE has made claims of abuse.