[bmalicoat]

I've never had a bad shopping experience at Walmart, well not one that was within Walmart's control, but that's not really the reason most people dislike them. The real problem is on the supply side, Walmart is so massive that supplying them can make or break your company. So if getting a contract means your margins are razor thin you do it even if it may not be a very good long term strategy. People don't like Walmart because they squeeze everything out of their suppliers and then move on to a new supplier.

Now granted you could view this as the suppliers not being efficient or smart enough but in a non-Walmart monopoly world they would have easily survived.

Pretty good Fast Company article on their negotiation techniques: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

[nazgulnarsil]

im sorry, but are we assuming that suppliers are inherently worthy of business? if wal-mart is slowly squeezing out inefficient suppliers in favor of more efficient ones everyone is winning.