Wal mart
... 31, 2003, Wal-Mart is far and away the world’s largest retailer. ... More than 100 million customers per week visit Wal-Mart stores worldwide. ... Powerful buyers like Wal-Mart have the ability to dictate production schedules and prices based on their well-established trends and customer buying loyalty. ... Wal-Mart has established cost leadership through mass production, mass distribution, and economies of scale. ... Wal-Mart has recently demanded cost data from suppliers so it can show them how to reduce costs. For many of them, this means lowering labor costs to reduce prices of goods sold on Wal-Mart shelves. Wal-Marts purchasing power even drives down manufacturing wages in the developing world.