Utahns are known for their big families, active lifestyles and tendency to be, for lack of a better word, cheap.
In other words, they are the perfect customers for Wal-Mart.
A recent survey by Salt Lake-based Kagel Research Associates bears that out. When Kagel asked 300 Utahns to name their favorite stores in a variety of categories, Wal-Mart was at the top of the list for major retail stores, more than doubling the tally of second-place Target.
It's probably not surprising, with the growth of Wal-Mart's Supercenters, that the company also was the fourth-favorite grocery store. Or the fifth-favorite clothing store.
But what may be a little more unexpected is that Wal-Mart was named by at least a few respondents as a favorite in the categories of office supply store, tire store, auto parts supply store, jewelry store, music store, book store, electronics store, computer store, hardware store and home improvement store.
"The fact that Wal-Mart appeared in so many different categories as people's favorite surprised me," said Richard Kagel, owner of Kagel Research. "They just kept popping up. . . . People were saying, 'Oh, yeah, I go to Wal-Mart for everything, so Wal-Mart's my favorite for buying CDs and buying groceries and buying this and buying that.' "
And Utahns are not alone. Ten thousand executives, directors and analysts polled by Fortune magazine in late 2003 chose Wal-Mart as America's Most Admired Company for the second year in a row, according to Fortune's March 8 issue.
Wal-Mart fans say its low prices and friendly service keep them coming back, and many are effusive in their praise of the company.
But another characteristic of Utahns is their tendency to grow passionate about sometimes-contradictory issues, and just as Wal-Mart's rise to prominence has won it ardent supporters, it also has created vocal foes.
Most common of all are the folks in the middle, who fret about Wal-Mart's dominance and its effect on small business but can't always resist the siren call of its low prices.
From humble beginnings
Suzanne Haney, a spokeswoman in Wal-Mart's Arkansas headquarters, said the company didn't open its first store in Utah until 1990, when it entered the St. George market.
Now Wal-Mart has five discount stores, five neighborhood markets, 19 Supercenters and seven Sam's Clubs in Utah. The most recent neighborhood market opened in Layton earlier this month, and two new Supercenters, in Richfield and Clinton, opened in January.
Haney said the company has 12,631 employees in Utah. That makes Wal-Mart the largest private, for-profit employer in the state, according to James Wood, director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
The world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. had overall revenue of more than $258 billion last year, along with profit of more than $9 billion.
So why has Wal-Mart grown so quickly and drawn such admiration from some people? Haney says it comes down to the company's core values.
"We love bringing everyday low prices to (customers), and I believe that's a big reason why we scored so high in all those (Kagel) categories," she said. "They know when they come to Wal-Mart it's going to be the best price in town."
Murray resident Amy Goeckeritz said the company's prices hooked her.
She did not always like Wal-Mart. But a friend told her that once she tried it, she wouldn't be able to stay away. She started going to the store with her mom to have film developed and found herself wandering the aisles while waiting to get her pictures.
Pretty soon, she was hooked.
"I always just seem to forget things, and then I run back there, because it's the cheapest," Goeckeritz said.
"I think it's done an awesome job at helping people get everything at one store and being able to spend a little bit less."
All about price
Kathy, a Bountiful resident who asked that her last name not be used because she works for another retail store, said the combination of convenience and price also made her a Wal-Mart devotee.
"I think Wal-Mart's appeal is to all of us who are running as fast as we can," she said.
"I think it's a combination of convenience and price. They suck you in with the low-price thing."
Wood, of the U.'s business research bureau, said he doesn't often shop at Wal-Mart, but he knows its reputation for low prices. And for consumers, that is a big deal.
"You always have to pay attention to what it means for consumer choice and for prices," he said. "And lower prices mean improvement in economic well-being for the consumer. . . . It all comes back to prices."
However, in the free-market system, Wal-Mart's presence in a retail community can be bad news for other storeowners. Competition puts less efficient players out of business, Wood said, and if Wal-Mart forces some businesses to shut their doors, that could lead to less diversity in the retail sector.
Janet Mortenson has first-hand experience with that. Mortenson and her husband, Randy, owned Rainbow Crafts Distributing at 3216 S. State for 27 years. They're in the process of closing their shop, and Mortenson said chain stores like Wal-Mart are largely to blame.
Five years ago, Mortenson said, Rainbow Crafts had 1,500 wholesale accounts, shipping supplies to stores in smaller communities. Now it has fewer than 15 such accounts, largely because Wal-Mart and national chain craft stores have moved into those small towns.
"Wal-Mart has all these warm and fuzzy ads about how they do all of this for the community," Mortenson said. "All I see that they do for the community is put a lot of people out of work. They create a lot of new jobs, but they're all low-paying jobs."
Haney counters that Wal-Mart gave more than $2 million to community causes in Utah during the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2003. In addition, she said, the company collected and paid $97 million in sales taxes and $10.9 million in state and local taxes.
Wood adds that, last year alone, Wal-Mart started building eight new Supercenters and three neighborhood groceries in the state, as well as a distribution center. That amounts to a total of about $130 million in construction projects, he said.
"However you feel about Wal-Mart, there are several hundred construction workers right now at sites where they're building Wal-Marts," Wood said.
Set against Wal-Mart
But such facts do not sway Mortenson. She said she never has shopped at Wal-Mart and never will. She actively encourages others to avoid the store. Once, when she received duplicate gifts, she returned the one that came from Wal-Mart to get the money back.
"My kids still buy diapers there, because they say it's the cheapest," Mortenson said.
"I'm not sure they do have the best prices; people just kind of think they do, but they do have the best price on some things. . . . I think the only people who realize what they're doing to the country are people who own small businesses."
Joey Caputo, director of the Better Wage Project of Utah, is another anti-Wal-Mart evangelist. He has helped organize two local demonstrations against the retail giant, protesting its labor policies, working conditions and other grievances.
"We just want people to know that Wal-Mart's prices are artificially low," he said. "They're not a function of . . . market mechanisms. They're a result of unethical business practices."
Caputo said people who stop to talk to him during demonstrations outside Wal-Mart stores seem sympathetic to his ideas. But he does not have any illusions about them changing their behavior.
"I'm not going to block anyone from going in there," he said. "I'm just going to make the statement that these are artificially low prices. If people choose to shop there regardless, I suppose that's their moral choice."
It's a choice that is difficult for people like Courtney Mattson. Mattson is a marketing student at Utah State University in Logan, but she comes from the Bear Lake area. She said she has seen stores in her hometown close as people decided they would rather drive over the mountain to get items cheaper at the big chain stores.
"That's why I have problems with Wal-Mart," Mattson said. "They move into an area and take business away from people who have lived there their whole lives."
But even as she says that, Mattson admits to being something of a hypocrite. She is, after all, a poor college student, and she sometimes shops at Wal-Mart to take advantage of its low prices.
"It's like you hate it, but you still have to do it, because there are not a lot of other options," she said.
"If people thought about it long enough, they would want to support something local to the community. But it's just a hard balance."
And it's a balance that seems to be tipping more and more in Wal-Mart's favor in Utah, as the Kagel survey shows.
"I think our society is fast-moving, and I think it is into one-stop shopping," Kathy said. "I think specialty stores are for a day that's passed.
"I don't think that's necessarily right, but I think that's the way it is."
E-mail: gkratz@desnews.com