Wal-Mart to Offer Wal-Mart Notebooks

[WebGemsHosting]

This is so wierd...
Would you EVER buy a Laptop made by WalMart????? :zoinks:

Read the article (http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-5110593.html)


:salute:



Last edited by WebGemsHosting at Nov 21 2003, 09:27 PM

[media]

Originally posted by WebGemsHosting@Nov 21 2003, 09:19 PM
Would you buy a Laptop made by WalMart????? :zoinks:

Read the article (http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-5110593.html)


:salute:
Most likely no.. Haha..

If I was a kid with no money, maybe...

Media

[SykkBoy]

My wife bought one of their shitty walmart.com computers...what a piece of shit...

[KRL]

Why not? They always have the best prices on most everything they carry.

You ever look at their sales stastitics? Pretty darn impressive.

World's largest retailer.

Gross revenues of $245 Billion from 4,750 stores. Its current aim is to triple in size in the next 10 years.

1.5 Million Employees.

Ove 140 Million customers shop Wal-Mart every week. On their biggest day right after Thanksgiving they will do about $1.4 Billion in sales.

Controls about 7% of the entire retail market.

Most people don't know this, but its now become the #1 supermarket in the US.

For every Wal-Mart store that opens, 2 other major retailers in that city will eventually be run out of business.

Largest distributor of magazines, books, video's, DVD's, etc.

Started in1962. Now aggressively expanding its retailing concept worldwide.

Its computer system is second in size in the US. The only one larger is the Pentagons. Even has its own satelitte in space so its not dependent on any other company for its worldwide computer network.

Sam Walton was one of the most frugal Billionaires ever. Drove around in an old pickup truck. Lived in a regular house. Employees at Arkansas headquarters work in tiny cubicles. When he died he left 38% of Wal-Mart to his wife and children whose family wealth excceeds $100 Billion today.

3 Basic Company Beliefs:

1. Respect for the Individual
2. Service to Our Customers
3. Strive for Excellence

Sam Walton's 10 Rules For Building A Business

Rule 1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule 2
Share your profits with all your Associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your Associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day-by-day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your Associates to know what's going on, they'll know you don't really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your Associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5
Appreciate everything your Associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free - and worth a fortune.

Rule 6
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm - always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your Associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8
Exceed your customers' expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer - we ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

Rule 10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.

[Hell Puppy]

A notebook computer is one of those items I wouldn't buy from wal-mart though. Unless it was cheap enough that I could treat it as a disposable.

Notebooks take a beating if you actually carry them around with you or travel with them. And there are virtually no user-serviceable components. So one cheap part that fails can knock you down and render it useless.

[clemsontiger]

Originally posted by KRL@Nov 22 2003, 01:52 AM
Why not? They always have the best prices on most everything they carry.

You ever look at their sales stastitics? Pretty darn impressive.

World's largest retailer.

Gross revenues of $245 Billion from 4,750 stores. Its current aim is to triple in size in the next 10 years.

1.5 Million Employees.

Ove 140 Million customers shop Wal-Mart every week. On their biggest day right after Thanksgiving they will do about $1.4 Billion in sales.

Controls about 7% of the entire retail market.

Most people don't know this, but its now become the #1 supermarket in the US.

For every Wal-Mart store that opens, 2 other major retailers in that city will eventually be run out of business.

Largest distributor of magazines, books, video's, DVD's, etc.

Started in1962. Now aggressively expanding its retailing concept worldwide.

Its computer system is second in size in the US. The only one larger is the Pentagons. Even has its own satelitte in space so its not dependent on any other company for its worldwide computer network.

Sam Walton was one of the most frugal Billionaires ever. Drove around in an old pickup truck. Lived in a regular house. Employees at Arkansas headquarters work in tiny cubicles. When he died he left 38% of Wal-Mart to his wife and children whose family wealth excceeds $100 Billion today.

3 Basic Company Beliefs:

1. Respect for the Individual
2. Service to Our Customers
3. Strive for Excellence

Sam Walton's 10 Rules For Building A Business

Rule 1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule 2
Share your profits with all your Associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your Associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day-by-day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your Associates to know what's going on, they'll know you don't really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your Associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5
Appreciate everything your Associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free - and worth a fortune.

Rule 6
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm - always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your Associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8
Exceed your customers' expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer - we ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

Rule 10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.
Try working for Wal-Mart. Then you'll see why they mass so much money. If there is a chance to save a penny they do it. If they see a chance to not have someone work as much therefore not paying as much, they will do it. They say most of Wal-Mart is done by employees ideas, this employee has yet to see one of his ideas go to work.

3 Beliefs:

1.) A penny saved is a penny earned.
2.) Why have someone work 30-40 hours a week to live and eat when we can save money by them not coming in.
3.) Why listen to ideas when we can come up with some on our own.

[Forest]

i have 3 words for you

Branding
Branding
Branding

[Mystery Man]

Originally posted by KRL@Nov 21 2003, 09:52 PM
Why not? They always have the best prices on most everything they carry.

You ever look at their sales stastitics? Pretty darn impressive.

World's largest retailer.

Gross revenues of $245 Billion from 4,750 stores. Its current aim is to triple in size in the next 10 years.

1.5 Million Employees.

Ove 140 Million customers shop Wal-Mart every week. On their biggest day right after Thanksgiving they will do about $1.4 Billion in sales.

Controls about 7% of the entire retail market.

Most people don't know this, but its now become the #1 supermarket in the US.

For every Wal-Mart store that opens, 2 other major retailers in that city will eventually be run out of business.

Largest distributor of magazines, books, video's, DVD's, etc.

Started in1962. Now aggressively expanding its retailing concept worldwide.

Its computer system is second in size in the US. The only one larger is the Pentagons. Even has its own satelitte in space so its not dependent on any other company for its worldwide computer network.

Sam Walton was one of the most frugal Billionaires ever. Drove around in an old pickup truck. Lived in a regular house. Employees at Arkansas headquarters work in tiny cubicles. When he died he left 38% of Wal-Mart to his wife and children whose family wealth excceeds $100 Billion today.

3 Basic Company Beliefs:

1. Respect for the Individual
2. Service to Our Customers
3. Strive for Excellence

Sam Walton's 10 Rules For Building A Business

Rule 1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule 2
Share your profits with all your Associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your Associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day-by-day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your Associates to know what's going on, they'll know you don't really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your Associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5
Appreciate everything your Associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free - and worth a fortune.

Rule 6
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm - always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your Associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8
Exceed your customers' expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer - we ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

Rule 10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.
1.5 mill employees?? you gotta be shitting me... where did you come up with that number?

[RichC]

Walmart's success is primarily due to the mastering of JIT inventory.

[KRL]

Originally posted by Mystery Man@Nov 22 2003, 03:18 AM
1.5 mill employees?? you gotta be shitting me... where did you come up with that number?
Wal-Mart's Corporate Info

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by WebGemsHosting@Nov 22 2003, 12:19 AM
This is so wierd...
Would you EVER buy a Laptop made by WalMart????? :zoinks:

Read the article (http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-5110593.html)


:salute:
I buy my house electronics from...Costco,
which sells the same shit as Circuit City for 20-40% less.

But when I grow rich, I promise to buy this shit at Circuit City to be cool
;-)))

[Bishop]

I bought a pc through walmarts website last year.. I paid less than $200 for it including shipping. I let my nephews and niece play games on it.. keeps them away from my computers.. haha

[brand0n]

fuck no, i wouldnt buy something from a company just now breaking into the biz when there are so many who have exceled so long

dell, alienwares,ibm

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by brand0n@Nov 22 2003, 11:42 AM
fuck no, i wouldnt buy something from a company just now breaking into the biz when there are so many who have exceled so long

dell, alienwares,ibm
Dell broke into the business dominated by others.....and where are "others" may I ask?

[Forest]

Originally posted by Serge_Oprano+Nov 22 2003, 12:23 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Serge_Oprano @ Nov 22 2003, 12:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--brand0n@Nov 22 2003, 11:42 AM
fuck no, i wouldnt buy something from a company just now breaking into the biz when there are so many who have exceled so long

dell, alienwares,ibm
Dell broke into the business dominated by others.....and where are "others" may I ask?[/b][/quote]
playing catch up

[Mike AI]

KRL are you a heir to Sam Walton? Or own a lot of stock?

You should be being paid!!

:D

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Forest+Nov 22 2003, 12:56 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Forest @ Nov 22 2003, 12:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Originally posted by -Serge_Oprano@Nov 22 2003, 12:23 PM
<!--QuoteBegin--brand0n@Nov 22 2003, 11:42 AM
fuck no, i wouldnt buy something from a company just now breaking into the biz when there are so many who have exceled so long

dell, alienwares,ibm
Dell broke into the business dominated by others.....and where are "others" may I ask?
playing catch up[/b][/quote]
not all..some are now out of the PC business
;-)))

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Nov 22 2003, 01:18 PM
KRL are you a heir to Sam Walton? Or own a lot of stock?

You should be being paid!!

:D
nope, but he is following in the right footsteps...

[KRL]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Nov 22 2003, 01:18 PM
KRL are you a heir to Sam Walton? Or own a lot of stock?

You should be being paid!!

:D
Its a good long term buy. Despite their enormous size already, they still have a lot of markets to expand into, especially overseas. At their present rate of growth they'll undoubtably hit $500 Bil in revs by 2010.

If any company has the potential to be the first to hit $1 Trillion in annual revenues, its Wal-Mart. That's going to happen by 2015 according to growth spreadsheets I ran on it.

[Mike AI]

Originally posted by KRL+Nov 22 2003, 01:34 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (KRL @ Nov 22 2003, 01:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Mike AI@Nov 22 2003, 01:18 PM
KRL are you a heir to Sam Walton? Or own a lot of stock?

You should be being paid!!

:D
Its a good long term buy. Despite their enormous size already, they still have a lot of markets to expand into, especially overseas. At their present rate of growth they'll undoubtably hit $500 Bil in revs by 2010.

If any company has the potential to be the first to hit $1 Trillion in annual revenues, its Wal-Mart. That's going to happen by 2015 according to growth spreadsheets I ran on it.[/b][/quote]


I have mixed feelings about Wal Mart.... I do think they have had some negative economic impacts in some towns. Their associates are almost cult like.

Business wise, I appreciate what they have done...

As far as the stock... I hate buying stock at high multibles. I am a value guy.

[WebGemsHosting]

-bump-

[jimmyf]

I bought the PC I'm using at Sams Club, It's a HP.
I really don't think Wal Mart is going 2 build any Notebook computers.
None of the big guys build there own, they Farm them out.

So I'm sure you would be very safe buying a NoteBook from Wal Mart.





Last edited by jimmyf at Nov 22 2003, 12:49 PM

[TheEnforcer]

Why not? It could very well turn out to be a decent product. The "super WalMart" stores that have groceries in them are great. I don't like their meat department and get steak and sucxh elsewhere but otherwise you save a ton shopping there.

[Fletch XXX]

must be some smart kids they have in those child labor camps assembling these thangs.

:stout:

[Nbritt]

Originally posted by KRL@Nov 21 2003, 09:52 PM
Why not? They always have the best prices on most everything they carry.

You ever look at their sales stastitics? Pretty darn impressive.

World's largest retailer.

Gross revenues of $245 Billion from 4,750 stores. Its current aim is to triple in size in the next 10 years.

1.5 Million Employees.

Ove 140 Million customers shop Wal-Mart every week. On their biggest day right after Thanksgiving they will do about $1.4 Billion in sales.

Controls about 7% of the entire retail market.

Most people don't know this, but its now become the #1 supermarket in the US.

For every Wal-Mart store that opens, 2 other major retailers in that city will eventually be run out of business.

Largest distributor of magazines, books, video's, DVD's, etc.

Started in1962. Now aggressively expanding its retailing concept worldwide.

Its computer system is second in size in the US. The only one larger is the Pentagons. Even has its own satelitte in space so its not dependent on any other company for its worldwide computer network.

Sam Walton was one of the most frugal Billionaires ever. Drove around in an old pickup truck. Lived in a regular house. Employees at Arkansas headquarters work in tiny cubicles. When he died he left 38% of Wal-Mart to his wife and children whose family wealth excceeds $100 Billion today.

3 Basic Company Beliefs:

1. Respect for the Individual
2. Service to Our Customers
3. Strive for Excellence

Sam Walton's 10 Rules For Building A Business

Rule 1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule 2
Share your profits with all your Associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your Associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day-by-day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your Associates to know what's going on, they'll know you don't really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your Associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5
Appreciate everything your Associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free - and worth a fortune.

Rule 6
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm - always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your Associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8
Exceed your customers' expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer - we ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

Rule 10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.
RE: rule 10
I live in a town of about 1200 and we have a wal mart whod thought lol

[Hell Puppy]

You've gotta admire Wal-Mart from a business success story. Like many other companies who have grown from nothing to dominant very quickly, there are lessons to be learned by studying their successes.

And I'll buy a lot of things from them....basically anything that is a commodity or disposable where you're going to be buying solely based on price anyway.

However, they do often have a negative impact on towns of all sizes. They can kill all of the small retailers in a small town just by showing up.

Out in the burbs they cause different issues. They have a nasty habit of opening a Wal-Mart then as the area grows, they'll abandon that building to go to a larger one leaving behind an empty eyesore. And then if that is successful, in some cases, they'll abandon yet another building to build a Super Wal-mart.

[gonzo]

Originally posted by Hell Puppy@Nov 22 2003, 10:45 PM
You've gotta admire Wal-Mart from a business success story. Like many other companies who have grown from nothing to dominant very quickly, there are lessons to be learned by studying their successes.

And I'll buy a lot of things from them....basically anything that is a commodity or disposable where you're going to be buying solely based on price anyway.

However, they do often have a negative impact on towns of all sizes. They can kill all of the small retailers in a small town just by showing up.

Out in the burbs they cause different issues. They have a nasty habit of opening a Wal-Mart then as the area grows, they'll abandon that building to go to a larger one leaving behind an empty eyesore. And then if that is successful, in some cases, they'll abandon yet another building to build a Super Wal-mart.
Yeah but I didnt buy my laptop there last week though.

[WebGemsHosting]

I bought the PC I'm using at Sams Club, It's a HP.
I really don't think Wal Mart is going 2 build any Notebook computers.
None of the big guys build there own, they Farm them out.

So I'm sure you would be very safe buying a NoteBook from Wal Mart.


No, they are developing a plan to launch its own brand of PCs.

Read the article (http://news.com.com/2100-1044_3-5110593.html)


:bwave: