http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041117/ap_on_bi_ge/kmart_sears_suppliers_1

DES MOINES, Iowa - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is widely referred to among its suppliers as the 800-pound gorilla. What the giant retailer wants, it usually gets.


Now, many manufacturers must be wondering whether Kmart Holding Corp.'s pending acquisition of Sears, Roebuck & Co. will create a second behemoth that demands lower prices for their goods or, worse, drops them altogether.


In announcing their marriage intentions Wednesday, the two retailers said they expect to save $300 million a year through "improved merchandising and non-merchandising, purchasing scale as well as improved supply chain, administrative and other operational efficiencies."


For suppliers, the key words are "purchasing scale" and "improved supply chain." Those goals might translate into such buying power that to retain Sears/Kmart's business, manufacturers may be forced to go overseas to make products at a profit.


"When they say they need a $49 price point for an electric drill, people have to come up with ways to do it," said Bill Drumm, president of Establish/Herbert W. Davis, a supply-chain consultant in Fort Lee, N.J. Significant U.S. manufacturing went offshore in order to meet the prices that Wal-Mart dictated, he said.


Moreover, whereas several companies may be making drills for Sears and Kmart now, in the future the combined company may seek a single source...

Competitive free market, indeed.

This puts me in mind of 'Demolition Man' where there was one restaurant, Taco Bell. I fail to see how mega-corporations reducing smaller companies and jobs until there is one supplier left, and keeping wages artificially low for employees of that one supplier is in any way helping Americans at large.

But hey, you may save 5 more bucks on that VCR.

:rolleyes:

http://www.geocities.com/justanaveragejane/heartsig.txt

:nice: :nice:

Didn't K-mart go bankrupt?

...or close to it...

http://www.geocities.com/justanaveragejane/heartsig.txt

:nice: :nice:

Hehheh. Thx. Jojo made that for me. :)

Didn't K-mart go bankrupt?

...or close to it...

No idea, but all the mega-corporations are constantly claiming they are going broke in order to get corporate welfare, avoid taxes and have excuses to keep wages low.

I don't buy it, personally.

Competitive free market, indeed.

This puts me in mind of 'Demolition Man' where there was one restaurant, Taco Bell. I fail to see how mega-corporations reducing smaller companies and jobs until there is one supplier left, and keeping wages artificially low for employees of that one supplier is in any way helping Americans at large.

But hey, you may save 5 more bucks on that VCR.

:rolleyes:

Where do you get the idea that there will be only one compay left? People have been saying that for a hundred years and today we have thousands more companies than we could ever imagine then. What are you basing your inane comments on?

kmart came out of chapter in 2003.
I work for sears. no news how this will effect anyone.

Lacey just excersized all his sears stock options. That is scary indeed.

Competitive free market, indeed.

This puts me in mind of 'Demolition Man' where there was one restaurant, Taco Bell. I fail to see how mega-corporations reducing smaller companies and jobs until there is one supplier left, and keeping wages artificially low for employees of that one supplier is in any way helping Americans at large.

But hey, you may save 5 more bucks on that VCR.

:rolleyes:
And more American manufacturing jobs going overseas, further undermining the single supporter of the working class: trade unions.

I wonder how this will affect Wally World?

No idea, but all the mega-corporations are constantly claiming they are going broke in order to get corporate welfare, avoid taxes and have excuses to keep wages low.

I don't buy it, personally.


:rofl:

I guess you've never read any company's press reports?

CEOs and BODs will say anything to make the stock price go up. That usually means they're more optimistic than they should be.

Oh and the reason KMart and Sears are merging isn't because they're going to gain so much productivity from it. That's a wild fantasy and anyone who knows anything about business will tell you that mergering two companies is a hairy business that usually takes years while they deal with wildly inefficient redundancy issues.

The real reason they're merging is because neither store can compete with Wal-Mart or Target.

It's the same reason HP and Compaq merged, because neither could compete with Dell. now take a look at their numbers, and tell me if their merger made all the synergy they spoke of in their initial press releases on the subject! :rofl:

its called buying power people. Read up on it

personally, it is a strange move to me. K-mart has had not much luck with their business, sears isnt the most popular chain around either. They need to do some serious work to get the consumers back.I personally love Wal-Mart, so the change will not affect me, as I dont go to Kmart or sears anyways, but no one really cares.
I recently got into importing furniture from Mexico, and am going through the process of getting listed as a supplier to Wal- Mart, so this is good news to me. They will be shopping for products to be exclusive and keep customers away from Kmart, so I have a better chance with my products..:)

The only things I buy at Sears are Craftsman tools. As long as they're still made in the USA I'll continue to do so. Everything else is overpriced, so I don't go there.