Aside from the misspelling of Wal-Mart, what else catches your eye here? (Hint… It’s in bold)…

Wall-Mart accused of stealing
SKIATOOK, Okla. - The new Wal-Mart Supercenter isn’t supposed to open here until August, but it already is engaged in what the city’s other grocery, Super H, is calling an underhanded war.

On Monday, the battle spilled into Osage County District Court, where Super H accused Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in a lawsuit of repeatedly sending its workers to steal price information by illegally scanning bar codes on goods on Super H shelves.

In a police report he signed June 1, Super H Manager Greg McNeil called Wal-Mart’s behavior “corporate espionage stealing sensitive information from a competitor.”

The bar codes contain more than just price - they have information about retailers’ costs, inventory and other details considered highly private by Super H, which shares a parking lot with a nongrocery Wal-Mart store while the supercenter goes up down the road.

Super H says in court records that it wanted to press criminal trespassing charges against a Wal-Mart worker caught June 1 toting a portable scanner through the store. However, it says, Osage County District Attorney Larry Stuart decided not to follow through on its criminal complaint.

So Super H filed suit, alleging that Wal-Mart trespassed and stole proprietary information.

Okay… Let’s cut to the chase.

1. If Super H wanted the details secret, wouldn’t it make more sense to NOT put them on the shelves where the entire public could see them? I mean, let’s be honest here… What’s your expectation of secrecy when the information you’re keeping secret is viewed by thousands of people in the course of a week?

2. If it’s sensitive, it shouldn’t be publicly available. Period.

3. The bar-codes cannot realistically contain more than price, and anything beyond price is likely to be inaccurate anyway. Think about what the article claims those bar codes contain. They only mention the “highly private” details of cost (possible but not likely because tags for store shelves are there over multiple shipments of a product; in other words that “cost” information, after two or more shipments, may no longer be accurate) and inventory (a static barcode representing an inventory? If you’ve ever worked in retail, think about how dumb that statement is).

4. Criminal tresspassing? For walking through a store? Odd thing to charge someone with for being in a public store. I guess we’re at a point now where Wal-Mart employees cannot shop at a competing retailer? I’d best be on guard. By those standards, I could be sued if I ever walked into a Sprint PCS, Verizon Wireless, Nextel or Cingular store.

This story would be interesting if it weren’t so anti-Wal-Mart. After the above assertions, they continue to paint Wal-Mart as evil. They mention another unrelated case, of course making a point to note that one of the people apprehended was a former CEO, and then note that Wal-Mart decided to try to (gasp!) put their competition out of business by cutting it’s prices!

OH NO!

They’re cutting their prices!

Those bastards!

“Wal-Mart is not satisfied by being the 800-pound gorilla,” Drummond said. “They are only going to be satisfied when they kill these little companies.

“They want to be the 1,200-pound gorilla.”

No, they probably want to be the 22,000,000 megaton gorilla. Sorry guys, that’s the way business works!

You know, Wal-Mart may be a bastard company, and I’m sure they do their fair share of shady stuff. However, let’s turn the tables a bit. When small-box stores charge $1.79 for a can of Hormel Chili with no beans (as does a local store here) and Wal-Mart charges $0.89 for that same can of chili and runs a sale at 2 for $1.49, who do you think is gouging you?

The problem with most “mom & pop” stores is that they’ve been gouging customers for so long they think they have an unbridled right to do so. Well, actually, they do, but that does not mean I’m required to shop there, or keep my prices as high as yours so you don’t lose your business. If I’m the CEO of Wal-Mart, it’s not my responsibility to make sure your store survives. You either eat or be eaten.

Wal-Mart is popular because most people are tired of overpaying at mom & pop, and I for one agree wholeheartedly with them.