19 ms·

Walmart Whistle-Blower Claims Cheating in Race with Amazon

181 points by kyleblarson 9y ago

gt_ 9y ago
>Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war at all costs. Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Innovation is only one way to compete, and a rare one at that. It’s one to be treasured, not defended on disgraceful terms like that of how both Amazon and Wal-Mart are content to treat their employees.
- henvic 9y ago
  Markets left to their own? And what is your magic solution? Socialism? How come do you trust more people who rob others with tax and enslave society more than the rest of others (the market)?
  - musage 9y ago
    Why are you asking for a "magic solution" right out of the gate, or assume "trust" should enter into any of it, towards some "other" people?
  - sli 9y ago
    That is nothing but a strawman argument. Please raise your level of discourse, this isn't reddit.
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    ...rob other with tax... I don’t understand this mentality. Every sufficiently large collection of people in the history of the world has had taxation. The evidence suggests that taxation is necessary to have a functioning society. Reasonable people can and do question taxations levels but not on the necessity of having taxes. It is unreasonable to consider taxation theft.
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      henvic doesn't like roads. :)
      - TallGuyShort 9y ago
        Who-would-pay-for-roads is as dumb a meme as taxation-is-theft. I complain about taxes all the time, but I wouldn't complain as much if the publicly funded roads I drive on most weren't absolutely shitty and if the snow removal that's part of my local government budget was actually done anywhere near where I live. I wouldn't complain as much if my state wasn't going into debt for the next 70 years to do upgrades and talking about charging tolls for other upgrades. I wouldn't complain as much if any significant percentage of my taxes were actually going to roads, and not political agendas, pet projects, wars on drugs and unauthorized wars on brown people who don't like our foreign policy. And I wouldn't complain as much if I didn't have to spend days and hire professionals to figure out how much I owe the road makers. Fuck the roads.
        yequalsx 9y ago
        It’s not a meme. It’s a proper question to those who decry taxation as theft. Without taxation who would pay for government services? Your complaint about the road system indicates that taxes ought to be higher or are currently misallocated. The ire is not at the concept of taxation it’s at the allocation and level of taxation.
        TallGuyShort 9y ago
        The fact that a government agency fails to provide the services you're taxed to pay for does not mean they should get more money. I pay far higher taxes where I live now than when I lived in an openly socialist country that had better roads, faster police response times, better (and universal) healthcare. Every time I dig into specific government projects the amount of waste and corruption is disgusting. Wanting to throw more money at it is stupid, and the burden of proof is not on the people who want to be taxed less that it's actually doing anything.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    I don't trust almost anyone, but democratic process ensures that politicians at least have to pretend to care about some of the people who are affected by their decisions.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    The solution isn't magic; it's simply "don't leave markets to their own." Markets are regulated in many ways, the most painfully obvious example of which is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, mentioned in the article.
- legitster 9y ago
  > Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. That is not the takeaway from this. The enemy of a corrupt, shady organization is an open and transparent market with lots of consumer options and stock researchers drilling deep into their numbers.
  - kimdcmason 9y ago
    Sounds sensible, but how does one ensure that the "lots of consumer options" part holds? There seem to be quite a few sectors with winner-take-all dynamics (e.g. social networking), and quite a few other sectors that under many conditions tend toward oligopoly or monopoly (e.g. insurance, banking, credit history reporting).
- wgerard 9y ago
  > Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Sort of? There's also a strong financial incentive to expose that dishonesty and manipulation - I mean, that's basically why Jim Chanos is famous. I'm not saying I think the system is perfect as-is (far from it), just that it's maybe not as clear-cut as you're making it sound.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ineedasername 9y ago
  >Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. Companies that view things like customer service as a cost center rather than customer retention & profit center tend not to experience as much success as their all-else-being-equal competitors. It's a PITA to return something to Walmart Online, refund are slow and sometimes nonexistent, requiring lengthy exchanges and delay. Amazon makes it easy, and is one of the primary reasons I long ago made them my first and, when possible, only stop for shopping online.
  - da_chicken 9y ago
    > Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. So only the companies run by poor business managers or otherwise openly traded on stock markets. That makes me feel so much better.
    - InclinedPlane 9y ago
      Nah, only the companies run by humans.
    - ineedasername 9y ago
      You describe incompetence, not dishonesty & manipulation. Glib words are easy, strive for a deeper level of understanding than reflexive misanthropy.
ars 9y ago
I don't know anything about this lawsuit, but the reason their growth in this most recent quarter went down so much is very simple: They raised prices for online orders. Now stuff you buy online is not the same price as you get in the store, I used to buy a lot of stuff from them for delivery, now I don't. I personally wouldn't mind slower shipment and lower prices. But I guess that's a hard sell in today's world.
- adventured 9y ago
  Their online growth rate went down so much in the most recent quarter, because they rolled year over year past the acqisition of Jet.com. It's an issue of YoY comparables. "Walmart's e-commerce sales growth in its U.S. business slowed to 23 percent during the fourth quarter, a sharp decline from 50 percent in the third quarter. It noted last year's results got a big boost from its acquisition of online retailer Jet.com." http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-walmart-earnings-20180220-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-walmart-earnin...
  - karmapolic 9y ago
    insider information, they got their inventory wrong. they ran out of inventory the night of black friday.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  > I personally wouldn't mind slower shipment and lower prices. I think that would be expressed as an option for "combine my shipment with a bunch of others going to my neighborhood until there is a full tractor trailer load, or 30/60/90/120 days elapsed, and pass the savings onto me", because ground shipping is already available and about the slowest available standard shipping. Solving that logistics problem would be a strategic advantage, as it becomes a hairy optimization problem but with big savings over time, and offering this option opens up supply chain planning strategies that are now closed to us.
kareemm 9y ago
> Huynh claims Walmart ... failed to process customer returns I've had this exact experience. A car seat I returned was "lost" when I shipped it back. It took me 6 months to get a refund, and it was only because I pinged an exec there and he facilitated the refund. Front line phone customer support was useless in a Kafka-esque manner. I didn't think it was nefarious, but as much as I want competition for Amazon, the thought of buying from Walmart makes me feel like it's going to be a painful ordeal.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sahil-kang 9y ago
  What do you mean by “Kafka-esque” in this context?
  - ranie93 9y ago
    Probably this: "The term "Kafkaesque" is used to describe concepts and situations reminiscent of his work, particularly Der Process (The Trial) and "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis). Examples include instances in which bureaucracies overpower people, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu which evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque"
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - pdkl95 9y ago
      One of The Onion's best skits is a about a very "Kafkaesque" business. > Business Week rated Franz Kafka International among the worst airports in terms of customer service, calling the employees completely indifferent to traveler's needs. "If there is as problem, fill out complaint form and place it in an envelope addressed to the name of the hospital in which you were born." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ
kodablah 9y ago
Is the chart mislabeled or is it a forecast/projection? It shows % growth for Q3 and Q4 2018.
- mplewis 9y ago
  It shows declining growth quarter over quarter.
- dpark 9y ago
  > Note: Fiscal year ends Jan. 31 The chart is fiscal year, not calendar year. Q4 2018 ended a month and a half ago for Walmart.
  - heartbreak 9y ago
    No, Walmart’s Q4-2017 ended on January 26, 2018. Q4-2018 doesn’t start for several months.
    - dpark 9y ago
      Fiscal year is numbered to match the calendar year it ends in. Walmart's FY2018 is already done and they've reported earnings. http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q4FY18-Combined-Doug-and-Brett-final.pdf http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q... http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q4FY18-Earnings-Release-final.pdf http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q... http://stock.walmart.com/investors/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx http://stock.walmart.com/investors/financial-information/qua...
    - pfhayes 9y ago
      It is typical to label the fiscal year by the date of the end of the period. This distinction doesn't matter when your fiscal year is Jan - Dec, but comes up in this case If your fiscal year goes from Feb 1 2017 - Jan 21 2018, then that is commonly referred to as FY 2018
thinkloop 9y ago
$7 million doesn't seem material enough to warrant a big conspiracy theory. And purposely mis-categorizing a few items to screw vendors of a little commission? Unlikely. These both seem like genuine issues of fast growth.
- ineedasername 9y ago
  They may be genuine issues of fast growth. The problem is that, according to the lawsuit, when they were brought to the company's attention as problems that needed a solution, the person who raised the issue was ignored, and then fired. It might not have been deliberate to begin with, but the cover up in firing this guy is a separate matter, if in fact that's why he was fired.
  - amckenna 9y ago
    Exactly. The case is not alleging that Walmart is engaging in a broad conspiracy, despite what the title of the article seems to suggest. It is simply saying that the plantif was terminated when he brought up to management that there were issues with how they were conducting business - "Walmart did not properly address these issues, its failure to do so could have serious long-term implications for its critically important e-commerce business."
chaoticmass 9y ago
I'd say most online shoppers are not the kind of people who would buy from Walmart, and most people who shop at Walmart are not the kind of people who will shop online.
- jonknee 9y ago
  Walmart is one of the largest ecommerce businesses in the world...
  - jborden13 9y ago
    Or so they "say"...
- adventured 9y ago
  80%+ of American adults are now routinely shopping online. [1] Which is another way of saying that the majority of Walmart's customers are online shoppers. [1] http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/19/online-shopping-and-e-commerce/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/19/online-shopping-and-e-...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- kbsletten 9y ago
  I guess you'd be wrong. "Online shoppers" is most people these days, and Walmart is one of the strongest retail brands around. They don't even have to be that good to compete in online retail. I think you're likely the victim of a very specific perception bubble.
- barsonme 9y ago
  Ehhhh... try it, you'll be surprised. I default to Amazon, but if I don't see what I want in my price range I try Walmart as well. This is probably playing into some stereotypes, but when I needed some thermals for going hunting this last year I first tried Amazon and Cabelas, but their prices were around $10/shirt. Walmart had them for less than $2/shirt. Free 2 day shipping, too! Generally though—and perhaps to your point—buying from Walmart, whether in person or online, always feels lower quality than Amazon. I don't quite know why, but it does.
akvadrako 9y ago
There should not be anyway to "cheat" Amazon - as Amazon is the 2nd largest company in the world, anything you can do to outwin them should be allowed.
- ineedasername 9y ago
  What a ridiculous statement. Especially when what Walmart is accused of doing doesn't "outwin" but instead consisted of lies and fraud against their 3rd party sellers and investors. Ethics & laws aren't relative to market share. Can a slow runner knife the guy in 1st place, because "anything should be allowed" against the current winners?
- ejdjdn505040 9y ago
  Even fraud? Breaking the law? Misleading investors? Why in the world should that be?
- Posibyte 9y ago
  In this case, it was cheating to beat Amazon by duping customers and investors. Hurting people innocent to the situation is not okay, even if it is in a try to topple a behemoth.
- whoisjuan 9y ago
  Ohh yeah... The classic "let's screw our customers and lie to our shareholders so we can outwin f-ing Amazon because it's Amazon"
- c3534l 9y ago
  You realize the victims in that case is not Amazon, but customers and investors. Amazon still makes the same sales as before, it's just that your personal 401k is worth a little less now, and people who buy from Walmart get screwed.
djsumdog 9y ago
> “Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war at all costs,” ...Integrity? Honesty? This is the same Wal-Mart with the gender discrimination law suit in 2012 and that destroyed Rubbermaid prior to 2004, right?

181 points by kyleblarson 9y ago

gt_ 9y ago

>Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war at all costs. Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Innovation is only one way to compete, and a rare one at that. It’s one to be treasured, not defended on disgraceful terms like that of how both Amazon and Wal-Mart are content to treat their employees.

henvic 9y ago
Markets left to their own? And what is your magic solution? Socialism? How come do you trust more people who rob others with tax and enslave society more than the rest of others (the market)?
- musage 9y ago
  Why are you asking for a "magic solution" right out of the gate, or assume "trust" should enter into any of it, towards some "other" people?
- sli 9y ago
  That is nothing but a strawman argument. Please raise your level of discourse, this isn't reddit.
- yequalsx 9y ago
  ...rob other with tax... I don’t understand this mentality. Every sufficiently large collection of people in the history of the world has had taxation. The evidence suggests that taxation is necessary to have a functioning society. Reasonable people can and do question taxations levels but not on the necessity of having taxes. It is unreasonable to consider taxation theft.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    henvic doesn't like roads. :)
    - TallGuyShort 9y ago
      Who-would-pay-for-roads is as dumb a meme as taxation-is-theft. I complain about taxes all the time, but I wouldn't complain as much if the publicly funded roads I drive on most weren't absolutely shitty and if the snow removal that's part of my local government budget was actually done anywhere near where I live. I wouldn't complain as much if my state wasn't going into debt for the next 70 years to do upgrades and talking about charging tolls for other upgrades. I wouldn't complain as much if any significant percentage of my taxes were actually going to roads, and not political agendas, pet projects, wars on drugs and unauthorized wars on brown people who don't like our foreign policy. And I wouldn't complain as much if I didn't have to spend days and hire professionals to figure out how much I owe the road makers. Fuck the roads.
      - yequalsx 9y ago
        It’s not a meme. It’s a proper question to those who decry taxation as theft. Without taxation who would pay for government services? Your complaint about the road system indicates that taxes ought to be higher or are currently misallocated. The ire is not at the concept of taxation it’s at the allocation and level of taxation.
        TallGuyShort 9y ago
        The fact that a government agency fails to provide the services you're taxed to pay for does not mean they should get more money. I pay far higher taxes where I live now than when I lived in an openly socialist country that had better roads, faster police response times, better (and universal) healthcare. Every time I dig into specific government projects the amount of waste and corruption is disgusting. Wanting to throw more money at it is stupid, and the burden of proof is not on the people who want to be taxed less that it's actually doing anything.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  I don't trust almost anyone, but democratic process ensures that politicians at least have to pretend to care about some of the people who are affected by their decisions.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  The solution isn't magic; it's simply "don't leave markets to their own." Markets are regulated in many ways, the most painfully obvious example of which is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, mentioned in the article.
legitster 9y ago
> Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. That is not the takeaway from this. The enemy of a corrupt, shady organization is an open and transparent market with lots of consumer options and stock researchers drilling deep into their numbers.
- kimdcmason 9y ago
  Sounds sensible, but how does one ensure that the "lots of consumer options" part holds? There seem to be quite a few sectors with winner-take-all dynamics (e.g. social networking), and quite a few other sectors that under many conditions tend toward oligopoly or monopoly (e.g. insurance, banking, credit history reporting).
wgerard 9y ago
> Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Sort of? There's also a strong financial incentive to expose that dishonesty and manipulation - I mean, that's basically why Jim Chanos is famous. I'm not saying I think the system is perfect as-is (far from it), just that it's maybe not as clear-cut as you're making it sound.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 9y ago
>Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. Companies that view things like customer service as a cost center rather than customer retention & profit center tend not to experience as much success as their all-else-being-equal competitors. It's a PITA to return something to Walmart Online, refund are slow and sometimes nonexistent, requiring lengthy exchanges and delay. Amazon makes it easy, and is one of the primary reasons I long ago made them my first and, when possible, only stop for shopping online.
- da_chicken 9y ago
  > Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. So only the companies run by poor business managers or otherwise openly traded on stock markets. That makes me feel so much better.
  - InclinedPlane 9y ago
    Nah, only the companies run by humans.
  - ineedasername 9y ago
    You describe incompetence, not dishonesty & manipulation. Glib words are easy, strive for a deeper level of understanding than reflexive misanthropy.

ars 9y ago

I don't know anything about this lawsuit, but the reason their growth in this most recent quarter went down so much is very simple: They raised prices for online orders. Now stuff you buy online is not the same price as you get in the store, I used to buy a lot of stuff from them for delivery, now I don't. I personally wouldn't mind slower shipment and lower prices. But I guess that's a hard sell in today's world.

adventured 9y ago
Their online growth rate went down so much in the most recent quarter, because they rolled year over year past the acqisition of Jet.com. It's an issue of YoY comparables. "Walmart's e-commerce sales growth in its U.S. business slowed to 23 percent during the fourth quarter, a sharp decline from 50 percent in the third quarter. It noted last year's results got a big boost from its acquisition of online retailer Jet.com." http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-walmart-earnings-20180220-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-walmart-earnin...
- karmapolic 9y ago
  insider information, they got their inventory wrong. they ran out of inventory the night of black friday.
yourapostasy 9y ago
> I personally wouldn't mind slower shipment and lower prices. I think that would be expressed as an option for "combine my shipment with a bunch of others going to my neighborhood until there is a full tractor trailer load, or 30/60/90/120 days elapsed, and pass the savings onto me", because ground shipping is already available and about the slowest available standard shipping. Solving that logistics problem would be a strategic advantage, as it becomes a hairy optimization problem but with big savings over time, and offering this option opens up supply chain planning strategies that are now closed to us.

kareemm 9y ago

> Huynh claims Walmart ... failed to process customer returns I've had this exact experience. A car seat I returned was "lost" when I shipped it back. It took me 6 months to get a refund, and it was only because I pinged an exec there and he facilitated the refund. Front line phone customer support was useless in a Kafka-esque manner. I didn't think it was nefarious, but as much as I want competition for Amazon, the thought of buying from Walmart makes me feel like it's going to be a painful ordeal.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sahil-kang 9y ago
What do you mean by “Kafka-esque” in this context?
- ranie93 9y ago
  Probably this: "The term "Kafkaesque" is used to describe concepts and situations reminiscent of his work, particularly Der Process (The Trial) and "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis). Examples include instances in which bureaucracies overpower people, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu which evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque"
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pdkl95 9y ago
    One of The Onion's best skits is a about a very "Kafkaesque" business. > Business Week rated Franz Kafka International among the worst airports in terms of customer service, calling the employees completely indifferent to traveler's needs. "If there is as problem, fill out complaint form and place it in an envelope addressed to the name of the hospital in which you were born." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ

kodablah 9y ago

Is the chart mislabeled or is it a forecast/projection? It shows % growth for Q3 and Q4 2018.

mplewis 9y ago
It shows declining growth quarter over quarter.
dpark 9y ago
> Note: Fiscal year ends Jan. 31 The chart is fiscal year, not calendar year. Q4 2018 ended a month and a half ago for Walmart.
- heartbreak 9y ago
  No, Walmart’s Q4-2017 ended on January 26, 2018. Q4-2018 doesn’t start for several months.
  - dpark 9y ago
    Fiscal year is numbered to match the calendar year it ends in. Walmart's FY2018 is already done and they've reported earnings. http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q4FY18-Combined-Doug-and-Brett-final.pdf http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q... http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q4FY18-Earnings-Release-final.pdf http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2018/q4/Q... http://stock.walmart.com/investors/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx http://stock.walmart.com/investors/financial-information/qua...
  - pfhayes 9y ago
    It is typical to label the fiscal year by the date of the end of the period. This distinction doesn't matter when your fiscal year is Jan - Dec, but comes up in this case If your fiscal year goes from Feb 1 2017 - Jan 21 2018, then that is commonly referred to as FY 2018

thinkloop 9y ago

$7 million doesn't seem material enough to warrant a big conspiracy theory. And purposely mis-categorizing a few items to screw vendors of a little commission? Unlikely. These both seem like genuine issues of fast growth.

ineedasername 9y ago
They may be genuine issues of fast growth. The problem is that, according to the lawsuit, when they were brought to the company's attention as problems that needed a solution, the person who raised the issue was ignored, and then fired. It might not have been deliberate to begin with, but the cover up in firing this guy is a separate matter, if in fact that's why he was fired.
- amckenna 9y ago
  Exactly. The case is not alleging that Walmart is engaging in a broad conspiracy, despite what the title of the article seems to suggest. It is simply saying that the plantif was terminated when he brought up to management that there were issues with how they were conducting business - "Walmart did not properly address these issues, its failure to do so could have serious long-term implications for its critically important e-commerce business."

chaoticmass 9y ago

I'd say most online shoppers are not the kind of people who would buy from Walmart, and most people who shop at Walmart are not the kind of people who will shop online.

jonknee 9y ago
Walmart is one of the largest ecommerce businesses in the world...
- jborden13 9y ago
  Or so they "say"...
adventured 9y ago
80%+ of American adults are now routinely shopping online. [1] Which is another way of saying that the majority of Walmart's customers are online shoppers. [1] http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/19/online-shopping-and-e-commerce/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/19/online-shopping-and-e-...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
kbsletten 9y ago
I guess you'd be wrong. "Online shoppers" is most people these days, and Walmart is one of the strongest retail brands around. They don't even have to be that good to compete in online retail. I think you're likely the victim of a very specific perception bubble.
barsonme 9y ago
Ehhhh... try it, you'll be surprised. I default to Amazon, but if I don't see what I want in my price range I try Walmart as well. This is probably playing into some stereotypes, but when I needed some thermals for going hunting this last year I first tried Amazon and Cabelas, but their prices were around $10/shirt. Walmart had them for less than $2/shirt. Free 2 day shipping, too! Generally though—and perhaps to your point—buying from Walmart, whether in person or online, always feels lower quality than Amazon. I don't quite know why, but it does.

akvadrako 9y ago

There should not be anyway to "cheat" Amazon - as Amazon is the 2nd largest company in the world, anything you can do to outwin them should be allowed.

ineedasername 9y ago
What a ridiculous statement. Especially when what Walmart is accused of doing doesn't "outwin" but instead consisted of lies and fraud against their 3rd party sellers and investors. Ethics & laws aren't relative to market share. Can a slow runner knife the guy in 1st place, because "anything should be allowed" against the current winners?
ejdjdn505040 9y ago
Even fraud? Breaking the law? Misleading investors? Why in the world should that be?
Posibyte 9y ago
In this case, it was cheating to beat Amazon by duping customers and investors. Hurting people innocent to the situation is not okay, even if it is in a try to topple a behemoth.
whoisjuan 9y ago
Ohh yeah... The classic "let's screw our customers and lie to our shareholders so we can outwin f-ing Amazon because it's Amazon"
c3534l 9y ago
You realize the victims in that case is not Amazon, but customers and investors. Amazon still makes the same sales as before, it's just that your personal 401k is worth a little less now, and people who buy from Walmart get screwed.

djsumdog 9y ago

> “Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war at all costs,” ...Integrity? Honesty? This is the same Wal-Mart with the gender discrimination law suit in 2012 and that destroyed Rubbermaid prior to 2004, right?