AdAge: Wal-Mart CMO Stephen Quinn defended his company’s massive expansion of is private-label brands. Earlier this year, the retail giant sparked a controversy in the food marketing industry when it unveiled a revamped “Great Value” brand line that includes more than 5,000 items in 100 grocery categories.
To explain why people are upset, it means that Wal-Mart will no longer be purchasing as much from food wholesalers but instead ‘producing’ it themselves. Essentially they are cutting out yet another middleman and that means less jobs. As people get poorer, Wal-Mart gets richer. As people get even poorer yet, they arrange a way to spin their tactics to appear that they are helping “everyman” by offering less expensive food. They glance over the fact that the cost is more jobs at the vendors who formerly supplied them.
To everyman: Short-term temporary benefits are leading to long-term permanent losses. Watch out!!