I don’t think this will do any good, but perhaps a reader will forward it to the higher ups at Walmart, and someone may have some sense.
Walmart is the biggest business in the entire world. It takes in more money that the government and makes a profit. Good for Walmart. Except I absolutely refuse to go into a Walmart, as do millions of people, and the reason is simple. The prices are great and the stores are beautiful, but most of the stuff they sell is made in China, and as a result, the term “China Marts” is in common usage. Maybe it could be changed, and at no harm to profits. Try this on for size.
Walmart has no “manufacturing sector.” Walmart buys from thousands of suppliers, usually overseas, and sells at retail. They’re good at it. China has gotten rich because of Walmart, and America has lost manufacturing, as well as jobs connected with manufacturing. China’s wages used to be like a quarter an hour, but in the last few years, they have gone up radically, because the peasants no longer will work for peanuts. When something is bought from China by Walmart, the manufacturer makes a profit, and the product has to be packaged and shipped tens of thousands of miles by ship to America, and probably there is a tariff, but the tariff I am only guessing about. Containers on ships traveling across the ocean are not cheap. Suppose these products could be made here, and their cost to Walmart might be close to the delivered price of Chinese goods? Would they do it?
When a factory produces something, the factory owner has to make a profit, no matter who he sells to, and that’s the same with China. An American factory, which had to show no profit, and which had no overseas shipping costs, might fill the bill, and it would be made in America, and with American labor. Impossible? Maybe, but suppose Walmart owned the factory? This might eliminate the factory profit, and make the item competitive with China’s stuff. Take things which Walmart has sold from China, and which have proven disastrous. Dog food, as an example. A batch of Chinese dog food sold by Walmart, turned to be really bad news for dog owners.
In China, baby formula was poison, and imported sheet rock was disastrous. Walmart does still sell Chinese dog food. Suppose Walmart built or obtained a used factory at a bargain price and made dog food in its own factory with American labor? Couldn’t the cost equal Chinese dog food, and be advertised as “Made in America?”
Last Saturday, my wife and I went to a “Sam’s Club” which I do like, for some strange reason, while I hate Walmarts. At any rate, there were beef jerky packages for dogs, and I thought our dogs would love it. My wife said absolutely NO, as it was made in China. Beef jerky made in China? I looked, sure enough it was made in China. Surely Walmart could make beef jerky in America, and sell it as “Made in America,” and still show a hefty profit, and especially if it owned the factory which makes it.
Plastic trash cans and other plastic products, which take a lot of space in a container from China, could surely me made in America in a Walmart owned factory, using American labor, and still show a profit when sold!
The point of this is that Walmart does not own the manufacturer or factory of the products it sells. Maybe if they began a “manufacturing division,” they could indeed begin to sell stuff made in America, because they made the stuff, rather than buying it from a Chinese maker who made a profit, which product had huge shipping costs. Maybe Walmart could begin to regain what they have lost, and that is Sam Walton’s firm rule that he sold only things made in America. Even foreign Walmarts might just sell a lot more stuff that was “Made in America,” as opposed to stuff made in China. America has a great reputation, and China has a poor one.
Since Chinese labor costs are increasing, shipping isn’t cheap, and since buying from China has public relations costs everywhere, in my opinion anyway, why wouldn’t Walmart start a ’manufacturing division,’ and begin to make what the sell in America? In their own factories. A beginning could be made, which might return to old Sam’s rule of selling only what is made in America. What a great advertising slogan, around the world even!