The company used foreign labor, including children: -

It’s been estimated that over 50 percent of Walmart goods come from overseas
suppliers. This doesn’t just take away American jobs in favor of cutting costs; it
also creates a living hell for those forced to meet Walmart’s hefty supply needs.
The corporation has been accused of paying off officials in foreign companies in
order to keep many of the details silent, but various stories paint a gruesome
picture.
A great example of this is Bangladesh, where the minimum wage for garment
industry workers is just $37 a month. The conditions in the facilities where these
products are made are incredibly unsafe.
To top it all off, it’s been noted in the past that many of the employees at
Walmart’s overseas factories may be underage. Of course, Walmart isn’t the
only company who has employed child labor, but as the United States’ top
retailer, its continued use of the practice is even worse. While the company
claims to be changing many of these policies, there is ample documentation
which suggests otherwise. By now, child and foreign labour has become such a
key part of the fabric of Walmart, and of the product they sell, it’s hard to
imagine anything less than a complete overhaul of Walmart’s business methods
will change.
Walmart underpays women:-
Although working at Walmart may not necessarily be great for anybody, it may
also be additionally tough for women. As recently as 2015, despite the fact that
women account for as much as 57 percent of Walmart’s U.S. workforce , women
were paid $1.16 less per hour
And if you think working at Walmart as a woman is hard already, forget about
working there when you’re pregnant.

It wasn’t a safe environment for employees:-

In addition to unsafe conditions in factories overseas, Walmart has been notorious

for endangering their workers at home, too. The most publicized instances of this
have been the company’s practice of night “lock-ins,” which literally locked in
overnight employees at several Walmart outlets, in order to make sure they
stayed at their jobs. Walmart employees have been found to be sicker on
average than most American workers, and it’s no wonder why. Though the
company has taken various steps to provide cheaper insurance , the result has
simply been to give their workers plans that include less care.

Wal mart isn’t just greedy. The company is the epitome of greed. As its
overworked and underpaid employees struggle to make ends meet, Walmart’s top
brass make billions, even as stock is dropping. Everything about the company is
capitalism at its worst.

The company was notorious for wage theft:-

Besides mistreating their employees, Walmart has, in some ways, literally stole
money from them over the years. In one instance, the company forced
employee to buy new uniforms—when they could have just bought them new
uniforms themselves.
 The good part about these cases is that the workers who were wronged saw some
of the money they were owed returned to them. The bad part is that unless
Walmart shares drop more than six cents, the cycle is likely to continue.

Walmart had a bad track record on animal welfare: -

If the way Walmart treats people wasn’t enough to turn you against them, then
perhaps the way the company treats employee. Walmart was among the worst
companies when it comes to ensuring that the animal products its stores sell came
from livestock that was well-treated.

Walmart’s Weaknesses (Internal Forces)

Walmart’s weaknesses impose challenges on the firm’s ability to withstand the

threats also identified in this SWOT analysis. These weaknesses are directly
related to the company’s generic strategy and its implications in business
development, capabilities, resources, and profit margins. Walmart uses the cost
leadership generic strategy, which leads to the following weaknesses:

1. Thin profit margins

2. Easily copied business model
3. Competitive disadvantage against high-end specialty sellers

Thin profit margins are a typical effect of using the cost leadership strategy.
Because Walmart minimizes selling prices, it also needs to minimize profit
margins and rely more on sales volume. The cost leadership strategy also makes
Walmart’s business model easy to copy. The firm does not have significant
competitive differentiators, except for its business size and prices. Furthermore,
high-end specialty retailers have the upper hand in attracting quality-seeking
buyers who have low sensitivity to price. Thus, the weaknesses presented in this
SWOT analysis of Walmart reflect business vulnerability to innovative competitors
and disruptions in the industry environment, especially in the E business
Major competitor of wall mart

The Everything Store is the most aggressive and dangerous competitor that
Walmart has ever faced. Amazon is capable of undercutting Walmart’s prices; and
it offers the ultimate in convenient shopping experiences, you can order everything
you need from your couch and never have to go to a store. A major problem for
Walmart is that Amazon steals the most affluent shoppers, at a time when its core
customers are more strapped for cash than they have been in a generation. Walmart
recognizes the threat, but it will take years to counter it. Walmart, and pretty much
every other retailer, ignored them.

There are several areas of concern for Wal-Mart. These can be divided up into
categories: Extensive labor relations problems, Community Relations Problems,
and Miscellaneous PR Problems.

Extensive labor relation’s problems are common at Wal-Mart. . Generally, the

company is opposed to Unionized labor . Wage issues, shift scheduling, and
workplace rights abuses are cited by labor groups. This seems to go against its
founding principles of respect for employees. The company is also in frequent
legal trouble with regulators and union groups in the courts
Major Drawvbacks of WallMart
.
. Low wages: Walmart pays workers low wages and most of the time they focus
on hiring part-time workers in order to cut down on total wages paid.

. Anti-employee policies: Walmart does not support their employees’ and most of
the time they’re mistreated. The employees’ purpose is to fit into the philosophy
and the corporation is only concerned about itself.

. Illegal citizens and racism: There is a lot of racism and gender discrimination in
the stores. In 2003, the Corporation was in the headlines for hiring illegal citizens
to do cleaning after opening hours.

. Micromanagement: There is a lot of micromanagement of workers in the store

and rules are not properly enforced and have too many exceptions.
. Health coverage: The Corporation doesn’t pay health insurance for the
employees and it pushes them to get government-funded programs like the Medicaid
and public housing instead of paying for them.

. Work schedules: Your days off are always split and sometimes you may find you’re only
scheduled to work for only four hours a day. This may sometime hard to plan for your personal
life.

. Goal imbalances: The senior management are required to meet the compliance goals over the
best-qualified individual and this may make the managers result in inappropriate techniques in
order to demonstrate compliance.

. Un-environmentally friendly operations: The Corporation was fined for violating water
quality laws and regulation in one of its construction sites. The company was forced to create an
environmental management plan which is worth billions in order to improve its compliance with
laws in every state.

. Market differentiation: The stores operate on what works for one region should work for
another region. These techniques cannot work for all regions.

. No participation in decision making: Employees don’t contribute their ideas and opinion
towards the growth of the chain of store. They receive orders on how to run the stores.