Wal-Mart & gas prices...is there a correlation?

I found a very interesting story on Yahoo News reported through Reuters titled, "Gas prices still big concern for Walmart shoppers." This article centered around a survey that asked frequent Wal-Mart shoppers why they had visited the store less and forked over less cash to the superstore during the month of November.

The article says, "About 28 percent of Wal-Mart consumers said fluctuating gas prices had impacted their spending, according to Phil Rist, vice president of BigResearch, which conducted the survey for NRF, in a conference call on Friday. 'The real issue we are seeing is still the impact of gas prices. And even though gas prices are down from last year of post-Katrina of over $3 a gallon, they are still high and still fluctuating,'Rist said."

Wal-Mart reported that they had a 0.1 percent decrease in sales throughout November, a drop that hasn't been seen since 1996. I found this fact a bit startling, especially since Wal-Mart offers such low prices to its customers. However, I have never been a fan of the store personally and especially dislike it now after learning about its internal politics through Dr. Mark Frezzo's Sociology of the Marketplace class at Florida Atlantic University. I highly recommend anyone take this class if they are interested in how some corporations are assaulting social, economic and political institutions, as well as violating human rights around the world.

Wal-Mart is a case study our class learned about. This superstore ships and distributes all of its goods using its own warehouses and trucks. Outsourcing manufacturing to countries like China, extinguishing local competition and cutting employees' hours right before they can reach benefits are main reasons why I have negative feelings toward the superstore. The Reuters article says, "How much shoppers spend at the world's biggest retail store depends on how much money they make, Rist said. Wal-Mart regulars, on average, make $48,500 a year, $24,000 less than those who frequent Federated Department Stores Inc.'s Macy's and earn an average of $72,500 annually, Rist said."

So, apparently lower-income families shop at Wal-Mart to save money, but how come their sales decreased if gas prices were to blame? Wouldn't more people shop at Wal-Mart, including some in higher-income brackets, if gas prices were the real reason behind the store's decrease in sales?

The article goes on to say, "This year, fewer shoppers are going to discount retailers, while more are going to department stores, according to the survey." I don't know about you, but if I truly had a limited budget because of the high gas prices this year, Wal-Mart and its low prices wouldn't look so bad. Funny how shoppers are going to the mall and department stores more than the warehouse we call Wal-Mart. This leaves me wondering if there is really a correlation between fluctuating gas prices and the store's loss in revenue.

Maybe I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I hope the reason behind its loss in sales is because more people are realizing that while they may save a few dollars at the cashier, it may very well be at the expense of local community, the single mother in the blue smock getting minimum wage or the people slaving away in sweatshops in Indonesia.