“THE WALL-MART COMPANY”

I would like to discuss the six marketing environment if Wal-Mart was opened in a

certain area.
Page 1 of 4
Local Political Forces.

Political factors include the government beliefs towards the business, the legislation to go

through and the government support for the business. The rules and regulations like minimum

wage, subsidies, and taxes affect business in both positive and negative ways. Subsidies or the

financial grants may help the business to expand but the trade restrictions might have a negative

affect for a global superstore like Wal-Mart. All goods imported into or manufactured in

Singapore are subjected to duties and/or Goods and Services Tax (GST). (Singapore Customs,

2009)

Local Economic Forces.

The economic forces include the pattern of consumption, income level, inflationary level,

and exchange of the economy. As now the world economy is in a bad shape, people will have a

lesser buying power and the pattern of consumption of people or how often people buy will be

less. Furthermore, exchange rates have been falling persistently making Wal-Mart importers and

Wal-Mart suffers badly.

Social Cultural Forces.

Social forces include the demographic and behavioral aspects in an economy. In other

words social cultural are all about the people. It consists of population growth rate, age

distribution, and cultural aspects. As Singapore is a multi-racial country, setting up a superstore

here would be a great plus as it caters to all ages since the level of income of Singapore it quite

high.

Local Technological Forces.

Page 2 of 4
 The technological forces consist of the research and development activities. A big issue

of having a supercentre here in Singapore would be their control in logistics. Since Wal-Mart has

the largest commercial satellite system in the world, they have the advantage among other

competitors. They have satellites that are collecting information and beaming it down to their

vendors and it enables them to collect it and disperse the information thus gaining control over

the supply chain. Wal-Mart has launched the world's largest private integrated satellite

communication network, providing two-way voice and data and one-way video transmission

between its headquarters here and over 1,200 store, regional office and distribution center

locations. (Markowitz, 1988)

Local Competitive Forces.

If Wal-Mart were to set here in Singapore then their biggest competitor would be NTUC

Fair Price, Sheng Siong , Carrefour, Giant. Wal-Mart would dominate the market here in

Singapore since they are the world’s biggest corporation, revenues a stunning $220 billion a year

and have more than 8000 retail units worldwide. Comparing that to Sheng Siong, they have only

23 retail units in Singapore. A Wal-Mart store in Singapore would wipe out businesses like Shen

Siong as product prices of Wal-Mart would be lower than the rest of the competitors.

Legal and Regulatory Forces.

In Singapore, we have the Consumers Association of Singapore also known as CASE.

They are an organization that protects consumer’s interest through information and education

thus promoting fair and ethical trace practices. Unlike in the United States where freedom of

speech allowed, Wal-Mart has to comply with the rules and regulation of advertising in

Singapore. Misleading advertising is against the law in Singapore as stated Under the Consumer

Page 3 of 4
Protection (Fair Trading) Act, it is an unfair practice for a retailer to make false or misleading

claims. (Consumers Association of Singapore, 2008)

References:

Singapore Customs, (2009), Valuation, Duties & GST. Retrieve December 13 2009,

http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/trad/Valuation+Duties+and+GST.htm

Markowitz.A, (1988), Wal-Mart launches world’s largest private satellite communication

system. Retrieve December 15 2009,

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3092/is_n3_v27/ai_6333369/?tag=content;col1

Consumers Association of Singapore, (2008), Misleading Advertisements. Retrieve December

15 2009,

http://www.case.org.sg/misleading_advertisements.html

Page 4 of 4