alonovo.com (beta 2.0)

biased film is intentionally misleading 2010-06-15

Reviewer: R. Chatham

In business school, Walmart is one of the companies that we frequently have to analyze. There are many things that ARE true about the company. It IS the biggest company in the world. It IS bigger than pretty much all competitors combined.

However, this movie gives almost no FACTUAL information, instead pushing a clearly biased agenda. Having studied for almost 100 hours the balance sheets, business practices, legal claims, strategy, and everything else involved in Walmart, I can easily say that this isn't true.

In the average town where Walmart enters, there is a net benefit of about 50 new jobs. (100 new jobs are created at Walmart, and 50 are lost at other stores.) Walmart pays new employees a dollar or more above minimum wage, and payraises are built in on a yearly basis, as well as additional raises for good ideas and performance. The healthcare plan is open not only to fulltime but parttime employees at a price significantly less than most companies, including, very likely, the one you work for. The average family saves over $4000 a year by shopping at Walmart, both in direct savings and in competitive savings. (Do YOU want to give up your savings?) Walmart achieves these savings not by taking advantage of suppliers, but by working WITH them. In fact, Walmart has consistently been named one of the best retailers to supply to in Fortune magazine because they see all relationships as win-win.

Walmart started out as a small, family business just like the ones profiled in this movie. It got bigger and bigger because they consistently sought to add value for their stakeholders by delivering higher quality at lower prices. Taking a few vignettes of dissatisfied people and turning that into a movie says nothing. EVERY company has a pissed off employee. The company YOU are working at right now has some disgruntled employee who I could go interview in order to 'expose' your evil employer. Rather than listen to rhetoric, though, listen to facts.

Walmart is currently the global leader in creating environmentally stores. They are pushing to purchase local produce because it is cheaper to ship and fresher for the customer. Please do your homework before buying propaganda put out without factual basis, and read the other reviews that point out the outright LIES in this film. (Like the fact that H&H hardware went out of business 3 months before Walmart even opened.)

-Rick
*Note: I do not work for Walmart. I do not own stock. I am an MBA student who has poured over every detail of this company and listened to every argument from each side.

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices 2010-03-21

Reviewer: Sue Evans

This movie is quite eye opening. WalMart really needs to step up and be accountable for helping their employees rather than their pockets. I think all those who shop at WalMart need to watch this movie. I used it as a teaching tool for my AP English class. They were appalled at what they saw. This movie was more of a documentary but well worth watching.

Garbage 2010-02-28

Reviewer: Gordon

This film was laughably simplistic in its appeals to the viewers' heartstrings. The documentary consisted primarily of interviews and anecdotes. Any statistics that were presented were given as absolute numbers, so it was impossible to tell how significant a particular issue was. There were many logical fallacies presented in which Wal-Mart was held responsible for problems that they did not directly contribute to. Some legitimate points were made, but the film failed to make any case other than that Wal-Mart is guilty of being a large corporation looking out for its bottom line.

Although I always knew I wasn't a fan of Wal-Mart, today I learned I'm even less of a fan of crappy documentaries about Wal-Mart.

Good documentary - take the time to know where your money goes 2010-02-13

Reviewer: S. Proffitt

While there are a few blunders made by the creators of this film (i.e. H&H actually closing before the Wal-Mart even opened), I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone.

Think back to your own Wal-Mart shopping experiences...have you ever seen a happy Wal-Mart associate outside of a Wal-Mart commercial?

As a public school teacher, the portion about government subsidies and money being taken away from schools (potentially, it could have gone to other local commerce endeavors) and given to Wal-Mart just made me ill. Upon reading other reviews, I agree that this is also an indication of flaws within government. However, when you have pockets as deep as the Waltons, you're probably able to grease the wheels in several jurisdictions.

The most telling of all were the former Wal-Mart managers. Granted, we don't officially know why they are no longer working for the corporation, but so many willing to speak up seemed a bit odd.

Finally, this film was released in 2005/2006. With it now being 2010 I'd love to see if these figures are even higher.

I hope you'll at least give this film a check out from your local library. If you enjoy it you can purchase it and then lend it to friends to help spread the message.

excellent 2010-02-12

Reviewer: Ronnie Mac

The DVD arrived in a padded envelope , upon opening it I found it to be wrapped in it's own envelope , sealed just as it would be if purchased from a store.
Delivery was speedy and the DVD has no issues whatever .. excellent service