The history of e-commerce dates back to the 1970's. With the start of EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), these programs allowed companies to facilitate commercial transactions electronically. Throughout the 1980's the e-commerce, orELECTRONIC COMMERCE, started to grow even more. With this growth came even more acceptance of credit cards and ATM's (Automated Teller Machines). By the 1990's e-commerce ERP systems (Electronic Resource Planning) was introduced, as well as data warehousing and data mining. *Data Mining is the process of sorting through large amounts of data and picking out relevant information.

 

By the mid 1990's popularity of the Internet grew. By 2000, many US and Western European companies began to emerge on the World Wide Web. With this emergence came a new meaning for e-commerce. Unfortunately, during 2000 many of these e-commerce businesses disappeared with the dot-com collapse. Even though the Internet was being used by the general public now, the largest transactions of e-commerce were B2B (Business 2 Business). This all took place by the end of 2001 and translated into nearly $700 billion dollars in transactions.

 

In 1994 Amazon.com, Inc had begun. Founded by Jeff Bezos and launched by 1995, the company started out selling books. To date, Amazon.com, Inc has added many other products to its line. Some of these products are DVDs, MP3s, CDs, Furniture and much more. As one of the founding e-commerce companies, Amazon.com, Inc has revenue of US $14.84 billion and a net income of US $476 million as of 2007. By 2007, Amazon.com, Inc has nearly 17,000 personnel working for the company.

 

In closing, the effect of e-commerce can be seen throughout our everyday lives. Whether it is in the form of ATM's, online banking, shopping or credit card transactions, one thing remains the same... e-commerce in a sense has made our lives easier. From a business stand point to a consumer view, e-commerce has developed into a technology of endless avenues. As our lives push forward and grow, so does this technology. E-commerce is the future and will continueto impact us as we continue to shop, bank and spend our hard earned cash.

 

 

That is a big difference, but there is a lot to take into account when comparing names and places. Is it better for the earth if I buy Annie's Mac n' Cheese in Whole Foods rather than Wal-Mart? Yes, Annie's is available in Wal-Mart, so, is Annie's bad for selling to a company that doesn't offset 100% of the energy they use? Well, Annie's might one day be selling to another company supplied 100% by renewable energy. Wal-Mart's goal is 100%, the actuality of that: Wal-Mart recently purchased solar power to supply 22 of their stores in Hawaii and California, their largest step toward their goal of 100% sustainable, renewable energy. (All of this information came from company websites.)

Well Wally World, you have a few more stores to power before you are 100%, but hey, at least they're trying. Or, they are just trying to improve their image, but at the end of the day, aren't we all? No one and nothing is perfect but try to do your best and exceed your best everyday when interacting with the environment and we just might make it out alive, actually, no we won't, but maybe a couple more generations might make it in!

When the company's founder Sam Walton, died in 1992, he left behind a staggering 80 billion dollars. His widow and children are now worth more than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined. Unfortunately most of this wealth has been accumulated through the use of deceit and manipulation. Public relations experts are kept very busy trying to keep up the appearance of a wholesome family shopping center.

Unfair Employer

Women working at Wal-Mart definitely feel they have been pushed around long enough. They have filed the largest work place biased lawsuit in U.S. history due to the sexist nature of Wal-Mart's policies. On average, female employees working there earn thirty-seven cents less on the hour than their male counterparts. And they make up ninety-two percent of the cashiers but only fourteen percent of store managers.

In 2001 they were forced to pay six million dollars for violations of The Americans with Disabilities Act, passing over handicapped applicants for more able-bodied workers. Discrimination towards African-American truck drivers has also recently surfaced as an issue of concern.

The employees there seem to have a high threshold for pain. They'd better, because Wal-Mart has some of the worst healthcare imaginable. For a family, the deductible is 3,000 dollars. And they must wait far too long for coverage. A full time employee has to work there for six months to get their policy. On top of every thing else the workers are forced to work different hours from month to month or risk disciplinary action. Disgruntled employees are easily replaced with fresh, friendly faces.

Tainted Food

From one of their filthy, overseas, illegally operating food plants straight to your dinner table…even the family dog gets a special treat in his kibble: Melamine. Melamine is an arsenic derivative used in pesticides and fertilizers. E. coli has been found in various foods including spinach and peanut butter. Salmonella has also been an issue in the Chinese factories that supply Wal-Mart's shelves. Wal-Mart has also refused to give the almost expired and excess food to shelters for the needy. They just throw it out despite the desperate need. This lack of any kind of heart is a large part of what has caused nationwide shortages in food banks. Top brass in Wal-Mart's executive branch have flagrantly flaunted their wealth and left the bottom rung of the American populous to starve to death in a free country.

Wal-Marsh

Wal-Mart loves sensitive wetland ecosystems. It appears they make a great spot to set up shop. One acre at a time they are covering up tracts of the last of the natural beauty the world has to offer with pavement and lies. And then, when they decide that across the street they would sell more paper towels, they abandon the old building, leaving it to rot. Graffiti and vandalism are inevitable. And since the next logical occupant must be a large retail style store the site never gets sold because no one can compete with Wally-World across the road.

In 2004, a swarm of lawsuits in nine states for violations of environmental laws stung Wal-Mart in the backside. They ended up paying 400,000 dollars out of court. They even have designs on your culture. They had no problem putting up a Super Center in the shadow of a two-thousand year old pyramid from the Teotihuacán Empire located in Mexico. The natives were understandably upset. You can see a Wal-Mart lurking in almost any culture in the world, ready to pounce on the people's pocketbooks. What's next, replacing the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem with the “wailing” Wal-Mart?

Pack Your Bags Mom and Pop

The days of small people with big dreams are almost over. No one can compete with those gosh darned low prices. No longer will Americans be able to achieve their goals of simple business. Even when communities rally to stop Wal-Mart from moving in, corporate terrorism and back room politics, get them in the door. As a result, people must shop there, despite their best interests. And since nobody has a choice of where to shop anymore they can't complain when some of the products they are sold turn out to be junk.

The products are so shoddy because the manufacturers are forced to compete for Wal-Mart's business which in many cases ends up with American jobs being sent overseas. Paul Krugman, a Princeton University economist was quoted as saying "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So-wham!-you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."

Underage workers in some of the retail giant's supplier's sweatshops have long been at the end of Wal-Mart's thoughts .The notion that utilizing another countries poverty-stricken people and those people's children for cheap labor because said countries laws don't stand against it is horrendous. Just because someone will work for a single crumb of food when they are obviously starving does not mean its okay if that's all you give them.

The Wrap Up

The bottom line is globally, Wal-Mart has dominated the retail industry. They should have been using this power constructively and with regard to the needs of others less fortunate. Instead they have mindlessly gobbled up any and all profits they can. The flaws of Wal-Mart's business strategies have been underplayed for far too long. When they go on for so long without being acknowledged, a company's bad habits seem to turn into evil ethics. This is what seems to have happened in this case. The size and strength of Sam Walton's brainchild should mandate its role as a positive influence for commerce worldwide. But instead the focus has remained solely on money. But it may not be too late for this low price leviathan to reshape its image and move forward in a positive direction. One feather in their cap is the assistance they provided in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Mobilizing a convoy of trucks loaded with relief supplies, they helped many people who had lost it all. In another move towards a softer more huggable store, Wal-Mart lowered all generic prescription prices to just four dollars. There is no doubt that this will save millions for the infirmed and elderly. This is just the kind of thing that may eventually rejuvenate their bad reputation if they don't just drop the act when the heat dies down..

In Lee Scotts 23 Jan 2008 speech entitled "The Company of the future”, He laid out a set of goals they will be striving for this year. He plans on switching over to 100% renewable energy sources in order to power their many stores. They will also be changing their product lines to include more environmentally friendly products. Employees' benefits and ethical treatment are also on the docket for this year. More rigorous inspections of food, more affordable healthcare, and a renewed commitment to reflect the diverse needs of the communities which Wal-Mart serves are all things, necessary to gain back the consumer's trust. If they can follow through with their lofty promises the public at large may rethink the image of the world's second largest company. But until proven otherwise they represent the ugliness of corporate greed hiding behind a familiar smiley face.

Wal-Mart's Internal Strengths' include price advantage over competitors, supplier manipulation, and inventory management. Wal-Mart was the first to revolutionize RFID technology into the retail arena. Wal-Mart recently announced that it is taking technology a step further, drilling even deeper into sales and production tracking. It will now require its suppliers to provide microchips which will service radio frequency identification, or RFID, which will greatly enhance the systems created by bar codes. By using the Bar-Code, they are able to manage tens of thousands of items in the store at any given time. Internal weaknesses include low wages, low employee moral and benefits. Activists regularly argue that competition from Wal-Mart destroys small businesses; particularly the "mom and pop" stores that they say make their communities unique. Another charge that local communities have made against Wal-Mart is that the company provides inadequate benefits and that local taxpayers are forced to pick up the burden.

Wal-Mart's Grand Strategy is a Cost Leadership Strategy. They maintain that they can buy goods for cheap, sell them for less then their competitors, and turn a profit on volume and turnover. They achieve this strategy by under pricing competitors and therefore gaining market share and sales, driving some competitors out of the market entirely.

Wal-Mart's Corporate Level strategy is to obtain goods at the lowest cost possible. There has been a power shift from manufacturers to retailers. The retailers have more and more say over what is being produced, under what pricing, at what time. They're basically playing a key role in dictating exactly what will be produced, when and where.

Wal-Mart runs as a low-cost, low wage company as its business level strategy. Its employers work for less with fewer benefits and longer hours then so its competitors. Wal-Mart cuts costs, sells for low prices in hopes of selling enough volume to maintain its position as low-cost leader in the market.

Wal-Mart's Functional Level Strategy includes their Price-Point sales. They have an extremely low cost on certain items meant to pull customers into store. These items are positioned in such a way that the consumer believes everything is cheaper. Other items may not be an actual savings to customer. Wal-Mart puts a tremendous amount of planning, organization and thinking into what their opening price points are going to be, based on last year's sales, based on customer requests, what's in demand this year, what's the newest, hottest item on the market. In addition, Wal-Mart makes Higher Profits on China's and other low wage Country's imported goods. If American companies want to participate in the low-end of the market, they must sell to Wal-Mart at the prices they request. This is Forcing the local supplier to move to China to produce at a lower cost in order to compete.

Wal-Mart plans to expand by adding over three-hundred stores nationwide and opening it's doors in nine new countries. Some economists argue that Wal-Mart is good for America despite the jobs that have been lost due to its low-cost practices. The justify their argument by claiming that since Wal-Mart makes it possible for American's to buy good's at low-cost, they will have money left over to purchase other goods. Thus creating jobs that are needed to produce the additional goods. Because of this, they claim that the purchasing power of the consumers has been increased. On the other hand, those opposed to this view argue that those that have lost their jobs and are now unemployed can not afford to buy the low-priced goods that Wal-Mart is trying to offer them. So there is no way they can buy the presumed "extra goods" that would make up for the loss of their jobs. Because of the later argument, I feel that Wal-Mart is not good for America. Cheaper is not better if it causes pressure on the supplier as well as lowers the standard of living for the employee. The low prices become only a better deal for the retailer, not for the consumer.

Wal-mart has been in business for years, and they are still in business, and will be for years to come. For many people their are a few things about every store that just drives them up the wall. Wal-mart could run a more efficient business, if they would just improve or change a few things.

Department Service

It doesn't matter what department you are in, you will probably only see customers. Or, you might possibly see customers waiting for an employee to help them out. If you need help from an employee at Wal-mart, you might as well forget about it happening anytime soon.

Some, if not all departments, have something that is to heavy or big for just one person to handle. When you need help with an item, it may take up to fifteen minutes for an employee to get there to assist you. Wal-mart has great customer service, when they are around. But, it is a pain to track somebody down every time you need help in there store.

Checkout Lanes

All Wal-mart stores around the country are notorious for the same flaw. The number of checkout lanes open at any given time, is about 25-50%. When these stores are built, they put in at least thirty functional checkout lanes. The newer stores are putting in the self checkout lanes as well.

So why is it when you go to Wal-mart on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, they only have 10-15 lanes open with lines of people waiting to checkout? It makes no sense. Wal-mart is a multi-billion dollar a year business. So they can afford to have more employees working the departments and cash registers.

Every four self checkout lanes can be operated by only one employee. Most often you will see alls of the regular lanes open and all of the self checkout lanes closed. That also makes no sense whatsoever. It creates more work for the employees and the customers.

Wal-mart's serious ambition for low prices is why millions of Americans shop there on a regular basis. Most individuals are willing to go through the extra hassles of shopping there to get the lowest price. So the old saying “you get what you pay for” still proves to hold true.

 

The thing is, people are so paranoid these days on products made from China that people even thought of boycotting them! Insane! Without products made in these countries, we would have no Wal-Mart, dollar stores and other stores made for the working class. Business men love to get a deal and when Asian countries want money to, scam is all they give. Mass produce for low wages but it's good for the business men.

So my last words are, don't be afraid of Chinese made products because it won't have a higher chance of killing you than in a car crash. Buy Chinese made stuff and buy Canadian/American made stuff. It's ok.

The philosophers speak of light and dark, stating the truth that without darkness, light would not exist. The dark is like a yeast, like the earth from which good things grow.

But, I see the homeless people on our streets. I can give a few of them a little change as I pass, but I do not have enough to give to all of them, nor do I have enough to be able to make a real difference in even one of their lives. Responsibilities to my family chain me in that respect.

It is beyond shameful that the wealthiest country in the world has such a problem. People who have no other place to sleep at night exist under bridges or in train tunnels. Families with children are forced to camp out in their cars, because they cannot afford a place to live. And countless people-our census has no way to number them-working full time at low paying jobs, who cannot afford a place to live. People who shelter anywhere they can, so that they can get to work the next day.

Wal-Mart has set the standard for that. The largest employer in this country will not pay a living wage. However, at least some of the managers, at some of those stores will permit their indigent employees-nay, associates-to camp out in the store's parking lots.

Let us face it-most of these employees/associates cannot afford to buy what the store sells. The store's executives advise their associates to get Medicaid for their health insurance, because the store will not support any other. And Wal-Mart is essentially the equivalent of the five and dime of the 1950s. It is greed, enough to kill the workers of this country whose life blood supports it, and annihilate several others. It feels as though the darkness is engulfing our lives, leaving me to wonder what sort of good could grow from it.

"It's a matter of credibility” says Representative Paul Gilmore (OHIO) and Representative Barney Frank (Mass.) who are co-sponsoring a bill that will prevent non-commercial companies like Wal-Mart from operating something like a bank. Thus far the bill has had wide support passing the House by 95% and will then move to the Senate. Other politicians are likely to jump on the band wagon and vote for it.

Financial services are a hug contributor to the national economy. Approximately 20% of the U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) is comprised of financial related industries. It is also likely that such services will increase in the future as other industries slow down. Americans save -1% of the income which means they are heavily reliant on debt.

Large companies like Wal-Mart have the ability to utilize their huge customer base to offer additional services. It is an easy way for these big companies to continue their growth. Customers are a captive audience because they can be marketed to as they come through the door which increases the chance they will use the service.

In addition, the customers already have a relationship with the store (or company) and the cost of selling to them is low. This relationship and good will result in more trust and in more dollars. Trust and previous relationships mean that you don't need to find new customers for your service you just use the people you have.

Finally, the convenience of having banking and shopping together cannot be matched. When you walk into Wal-Mart with your check you can cash it, put it on your credit card, pay your bills, pick up grocery's and buy your kids soccer shorts. One-stop shopping has its advantages where everyone is busy and visiting another store might mean a 20 minute drive.