Walmart To Test 20% More Toys
According to the Washington Post, Walmart will test 20% more toys in an effort to crack down on toy safety. Nu Wexler from Walmart Watch accused them of missing the point:
"Wal-Mart's not addressing the larger problem of why Chinese toy suppliers are cutting corners with lead paint and melamine," spokesman Nu Wexler said, referring to a harmful additive found in pet food made in China. "It's because they're under enormous pressure from buyers like Wal-Mart, and they're sacrificing child safety to keep costs low."Walmart has hired three firms to help it ramp up the testing. Walmart says:
"We know this is an issue at the top of mind with our customers, and we know we can play a role to reassure them that we have great, safe toys in our stores," said Laura Phillips, Wal-Mart's merchandise manager overseeing toys."
Wal-Mart Tightens Toy-Safety Program [Washington Post]
(Photo:Ms. Jessica)
Attention, Walmart shoppers! This ad is for you! Woo hoo!
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Comments:
The Chinese realized what the American mfg's realized years ago - Wal-Mart will crush you to lower the cost to them, and they don't really care about product quality. It's all about profits.
This will be Wal-Mart's interesting lesson - do they buy products from China w/out lead and melamine and pay more (and charge us more) or do they ignore it and keep going?
"Its (Walmart's)$12 billion in imports from China last year accounted for a tenth of total U.S. imports from that nation." [www.businessweek.com]
What about the other 90% of Chinese import buyers in the US? Do they get a free pass? Walmart is just being singled out by smug elitists who would hate Walmart no mater how they conducted business.
All these leads toys and poisoned food couldn't be why their profits are down could it? Nah...
@Consumer-X: 1. The point isn't that Wal-Mart is evil for importing from the Chinese. The point is that they're trying to wipe away the symptom without addressing the disease, much in the same way Geek Squad pretends to solve all their problems by catching the porn stealers while ignoring the corporate culture.
2. You don't think a firm that accounts for 10% of imports from a single country (as of 2002) doesn't drive the rest of the market in a significant way?
Cost pressure from Walmart is irrelevant. If manufacturers can't produce safe products at the prices Walmart is demanding, then they should turn down the business. Cutting corners to take the business is 100% the fault of the manufacturers. If I go into a car dealership and say "I want to pay $20k for that Camry," when the dealership cost is $22k, the job of the salesman is to say no, not to go out on the street and carjack someone to get a Camry and sell it to me.
@JustAGuy2: Again, the point isn't about who's responsible for the Chinese Poison Train - it's obviously the manufacturers and Communist Party bureaucrats who look the other way.
It's just that ramping up testing doesn't solve any problems. The real problem is that when Wal-Mart demands cheap and that's exactly what they get.
20% x $0.00 still = $0.00
So they're testing an extra 200 toys/day, hmm, thats far less than 1/store, unless its 200/store; hard to tell. What about the pet food?
You don't cut corners by violating laws. You just don't.
For those who are Wal-Mart Impaired, let me translate this statement:
"We know this is an issue at the top of mind with our customers, and we know we can play a role to reassure them that we have great, safe toys in our stores."
Translation:
"We really did bring this on ourselves by driving manufactures to China because of our own greed. How can we put a band-aid on our failings until people forget that this all happened because of us" ?
@Front_Towards_Enemy: "Wal-Mart: we're doing it because WE CARE"
(nah, not really, but most of our customers are too gullible and or stupid to know any better)
@mopar_man: Actually, it is rising gas prices and subprime mortgages. I think just about every retailer is using that cliche excuse to hide their piss-poor business practices.
What was wrong with testing 100%?
In fact, let me see what my boss thinks of me testing only 20% of my code base.
(30 seconds go by...)
My boss thought the idea needed 80% more work. Figures.
Anyone else feeling the Engrish quotient on this post. If a native English speaker wrote this I would be surprised.
I'm thinking the poison train has infiltrated our PR and Marketing firms...
Or Wal-Mart is owned by the Chinese.
20% of 0 is still 0.
THE TOYS WILL KILL YOU DON’T GO NEAR THEM AAAAHHH! In case you haven’t heard, the toys at Wal-Mart could kill your children in several different, painful ways.
...because they're under enormous pressure from buyers...
Exactly, the lady doth protest too much.