Why Is Wal-Mart Important?

Wal-Mart serves as a go to place to save money when buying necessities. It is a huge department store that sells not only clothes, but food, as well as home goods, home appliances, furniture, plants and many more daily household items/ necessities. Wal-Mart provides these things at a lower price that other stores where food and such items can be pretty pricey especially if you have a large family. Wal-Mart was created to serve the same purpose for everyone and very often does but for some they go there more based off need than want to actually go there. Fundamentally Wal-Mart does do the service of being a grocery/home store that has a wide range of items that a family needs whether it's food, school project materials, or things for your home.

The only real difference between purposes served are on levels of need.

Some go to Wal-Mart because they have to go there and shop in bulk and others go there because they want to save a few bucks here and there not because they can't afford to be shopping at higher end grocery stores. Some dysfunctions that could be caused by Wal-Mart is that they could be stealing business from smaller "Mom and Pop shops" from their surrounding communites. Wal-Mart also does some damage to the earth. The bigger the building the larger the amounts of land being used to build on and more of the ground being dug up in order to be able to install plumbing systems and such. Also in order to import and export things to and from the store big trucks are needed in order to do so, these trucks run on gasoline and sometimes release harmful gasses into the air that can kill tress and other earth species.(Renkow)

Question Set Two
The groups of society are affected in different ways by Wal-Marts existence. Some people go to Wal-Mart because they need to save money or can’t afford to go to more expensive super markets such as Harris Teeter or Wegmans. While others go to Wal-Mart in order to save a few bucks but they don’t go there because they need to save money. I believe that the idea of Wal-Mart does create inequality to a certain extent. When people hear that someone bought something at Wal-Mart there are still those few people who say/think some snarky comment about how they went to Wal-Mart because they don’t have enough money to go anywhere else. Wal-Mart is attached with the idea of saving money so sometimes when someone hears that they got something from Wal-Mart they automatically have a prejudicial judgment towards those who shop at Wal-Mart. Since Wal-Mart’s existence it has provided more jobs for the economy. It has also started many college scholarships and foundations giving money to many charities. While it has good impacts on the society it also has impacts on the small communities around such as smaller businesses, they could go out of business due to lack of business.
Question Set Three
An obvious symbol that can be seen at Walmart is the little spark looking icon that is always featured next to the Wal-Mart name. Another symbol would be someone wearing a name tag clipped to their shirt or someone wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants. Something that is also seen all around the store is the signs that say "Everyday Low Price.” Also the counter signs that announce the number are blue and the numbers light up white with the logo spark on the side as well. The website, www.peopleofwalmart.com, reveals images of Wal-Mart shoppers looking/ doing things most people would classify as disturbing or gross. This websites ranges from images of people urinating on themselves to men wearing sports bras to women walking around topless. These images show the different types of people who go into Wal-Mart’s all around the country, what they wear and how they behave.
Question Set Four
Over the past decade Walmart has increased the number of countries that do business with Wal-Mart, they have begun using more efficient engery forms, they have reduced their amounts of waste disposal, they have also made efforts to lower food prices on vegetables and fruits coinciding with the firsts ladies initiative to be a healthier country, they have also begun donating more and more each year to organizations they are partnered with (Walmart Highlights Progress.) Wal-Mart in the last decade has begun using Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, social networking sites like twitter/Facebook, Wal-Mart has redesigned their website to now allow customers to buy merchandise online and have it ready to be picked up in a matter of hours or have it delivered to their home (Wailgum.) Yes Wal-Mart is a very diverse place. There are always all types of people working at Wal-Mart, White, black, Hispanic, Asian, Etc. The products sold in Walmart are also very diverse, each Walmart has its own section that sells ingredients from around the world with foreign products/ brands such as Goya Foods.