On Aug 29, 2006, at 2:08 PM, ravi wrote:
>> Combined with a smart business strategy that
>> sells a mix of higher-margin products to more affluent customers,
Talk about burying the lead (or lede, as they say in j'ism). Go to the respective websites - Costco <http://www.costco.com/Home.aspx> features digital cameras, computers, mid-level cookware sets. Wal- Mart <http://www.walmart.com/> features $16 chairs and $8 lamps.
WMT is a much bigger company, with a market cap nine times as large as COST's, six times the revenue, and profitability measures 1.5-2 times as big. If higher wages and lower turnover really led to higher profitability, who could argue that Wal-Mart managers wouldn't have figured this out? They're very smart people down there in Bentonville.
Doug