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Critics: More Turning Away From Wal-Mart
By MARCUS KABEL BERRYVILLE, Ark. (AP) - Nancy McShane used to spend $600 to $700 a month at Wal-Mart on everything from groceries to oil changes. Then in March she abruptly switched to other discount stores, upset over what her turkey-farming relatives saw as undue price pressure from the world's largest retailer.
McShane, a Springfield, Mo., housewife with children aged 11 and 12, is among what organized critics claim is a growing number of Americans turning against Wal-Mart amid allegations from unions and others that the company is bad for workers, the environment and communities. ``We cut off Wal-Mart cold turkey. Now I'm preaching it to other people,'' McShane said. But for James Butler, a chicken plant worker from Alpena, complaints that Wal-Mart is bad for America just don't add up - but the savings do. ``It doesn't change my mind. It's just a convenience. And anywhere else costs more,'' Butler said Wednesday night outside a Wal-Mart Supercenter where he had just purchased batteries.
According to a poll released Thursday by Wake Up Wal-Mart, an anti-Wal-Mart group launched this year by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, more Americans have an unfavorable view of Wal-Mart today than at the start of the year.
The poll showed that a majority, 58 percent, viewed Wal-Mart favorably, but the figure was down from 76 percent in January. Wake Up Wal-Mart said that was proof that its message against the company's low-price business model is hitting its intended target - the average Wal-Mart shopper.
``What this polling indicates is that Wal-Mart's reputation is in a tailspin,'' said Paul Blank, campaign director at Wake Up Wal-Mart.
Blank said changes in behavior would follow if consumer's opinions about Wal-Mart continue to fall.
Wal-Mart said the survey was questionable and argued that November sales and an onslaught of holiday shoppers the day after Thanksgiving showed it remained popular.
Retail analyst Don Gher said Wal-Mart's monthly sales growth did not suggest that shoppers were staying away amid a slew of attacks by groups alleging that Wal-Mart's low prices come at the cost of poor treatment for its workers, suppliers and communities.
``At this point the sales numbers wouldn't seem to indicate a backlash,'' said Gher of Coldstream Capital Management in Bellevue, Wash. The company has Wal-Mart stock as part of the roughly $900 million in assets it manages.
Consumers appear divided.
Steve and Sandy Larsen of Holiday Island, which is near Eureka Springs, said they liked Wal-Mart for the prices and the company's pledges to the local food kitchen and the Habitat for Humanity in Benton County, the retailer's home town.
``We work a lot in charity, and they are great,'' Steve Larsen said at the Berryville Supercenter. ``They just keep giving.''
But at Springfield, McShane said she changed stores after her relatives, who also raise produce, complained Wal-Mart exerts too much pressure on suppliers to cut their prices.
``That's too much power for one company to have,'' she said.
The Wake Up Wal-Mart figures came from two national telephone surveys of about 1,000 adults in January and November. The January 15-20 poll by Lake, Snell & Perry had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, and the November poll by Zogby had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.
``In terms of overall favorability, in the span of about 11 months, Wal-Mart experienced a decline of 18 percentage points in the number of American adults who view the company favorably,'' Wake Up Wal-Mart said in a summary.
The number of people who said they viewed Wal-Mart very favorably or somewhat favorably fell 18 percentage points to 58 percent while the number who answered that their view was very or somewhat unfavorable increased by the same amount to 38 percent.
The group said attitudes were starting to change shopping practices. Asked how often they plan to shop at Wal-Mart in the next month, the number who said they would not go at all rose 8 percentage points to 28 percent. The largest group, those who planned to shop there once or twice, fell 7 points to 32 percent.
Wal-Mart said the November poll appeared to be times to take advantage of publicity around the release of a scathingly critical documentary, Robert Greenwald's ``Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices.''
``It would be hard for anyone to believe that a poll paid for by the UFCW was more accurate than the fact that our estimated November store sales were up 4.3 percent and that 10 million people shopped at our stores during the first six hours of sales last Friday,'' Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark said.
She added: ``A good poll would be to ask if working families enjoy the $2,300 in savings we provide per year.''
Clark said Wal-Mart does its own internal tracking of consumer sentiment, but declined to release that data. She said the questions were not the same as Wake Up Wal-Mart's poll so they wouldn't be comparable.
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