Corporate Irresponsibility- H & M and WAL-MART

Why Are H & M, WAL-MART Destroying Unsold CLOTHING Instead of Giving Them to Charity?

On January 6th the New York Times told a story about a cache of trash bags containing unsold H&M clothing that had been mutilated and trashed behind the H&M store on 35th Street.Clearly H&M is not concerned with street scavengers. They are more concerned with their cheap merch flooding discount channels or coming back as "unpaid" returns at their cash registers.Destroying new clothes is a shameful and irresponsible act. It was also fiscally dumb, perhaps the least profitable way of handling unsold inventory. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door.H&M could have done the following:

**H&M could have made a appointment with a charity that would have picked up the garments and sorted and sold them as they do for other high-volume donations.

**The savviest option would have been for H&M to make a deal with a textile sorter and recycler the same enterprise that could organize the fiber conversion to cart away the garments but resell them to used clothes importers in Africa and South America. A lot of money could be made by H&M in this scenario for example the clothes would be picked up FOR FREE by the textile recycler (which would also save on labor—all that time cutting holes and packing garbage bags), plus H&M would be PAID about 50 cents per garment by the recycler.

**The garments could have been carted away by a clothing recycler who would then shred the clothes into reusable fiber. (Usually, fiber ends up as car-seat and airplane-seat stuffing.)

Also, A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in Wal-Mart hoodies, T-shirts and pants were discovered in trash bags the week before Christmas, apparently dumped by a contractor for Wal-Mart that has space on the block.Each piece of clothing had holes punched through it by a machine.

Week4: Marketing Environment

BARE ESSCENTUALS
"For me to consider a marketing program, I have to be able to relate to the business model as a consumer," says Leslie Blodgett, now in her 11^th year as president and CEO of Bare Escentuals and MD Beauty, the San Francisco-based cosmetics and skincare giant. "I have to think about how captivated and compelled I get by the message. And when we started considering using direct response  a year or two after we started at QVC I thought it was a good idea."Not surprisingly, Blodgett who has captivated and compelled QVC shoppers since her first appearance in 1997  has also wowed DR consumers since the first of the company's three infomercials for its bareMinerals line began airing in 2002. The company was QVC's vendor of the year in 2002. Meanwhile, Bare Escentuals' bareMinerals infomercials have been consistent sales winners. The concept of using infomercials started with the amount of mail the company received from customers. "We get hundreds of letters and E-mails  I even get gifts from customers," Blodgett says with astonishment. "We were able to contact these women, and we asked them if they'd be interested in flying in and talking to a camera about their feelings on the products. They had such a broad range of issues rosacea, acne, other things  but they uniformly said the products worked for them."

But it wasn't just great products and a great working atmosphere that built Bare Escentuals into a beauty products leader. "Having our own retail stores, that was a new experience for me," she says. Blodgett began watching QVC. "In my own head, I became friendly with all the hosts, and really began enjoying watching their sales process," she contends.It was about the same time that the company had just repackaged its make-up brand under the name bareMinerals. Blodgett says the brand, then called Bare Escentuals Make-Up, was incomplete and needed "refurbishing." She adds, "We made it complete everything from eye shadows to lipsticks and renamed and repositioned it."

 

 

Beauty Broadcasts: Bare Escentuals

MY WARDROBE

My Wardrope i wore today is made in the following countries:

My Victoria Secret undergarments are made in China and India.

My Juicy Couture track suit is made in USA.

My Coach sneakers are made in China.

My Express socks are made in Philippines.

My Aeropostal tank top is made in Cambodge.

My H & M scarfe is made in Sweden.

Week3: Marketing Environment

BARE ESSCENTUALS
"For me to consider a marketing program, I have to be able to relate to the business model as a consumer," says Leslie Blodgett, now in her 11^th year as president and CEO of Bare Escentuals and MD Beauty, the San Francisco-based cosmetics and skincare giant. "I have to think about how captivated and compelled I get by the message. And when we started considering using direct response  a year or two after we started at QVC I thought it was a good idea."Not surprisingly, Blodgett who has captivated and compelled QVC shoppers since her first appearance in 1997  has also wowed DR consumers since the first of the company's three infomercials for its bareMinerals line began airing in 2002. The company was QVC's vendor of the year in 2002. Meanwhile, Bare Escentuals' bareMinerals infomercials have been consistent sales winners. The concept of using infomercials started with the amount of mail the company received from customers. "We get hundreds of letters and E-mails  I even get gifts from customers," Blodgett says with astonishment. "We were able to contact these women, and we asked them if they'd be interested in flying in and talking to a camera about their feelings on the products. They had such a broad range of issues rosacea, acne, other things  but they uniformly said the products worked for them."

But it wasn't just great products and a great working atmosphere that built Bare Escentuals into a beauty products leader. "Having our own retail stores, that was a new experience for me," she says. Blodgett began watching QVC. "In my own head, I became friendly with all the hosts, and really began enjoying watching their sales process," she contends.It was about the same time that the company had just repackaged its make-up brand under the name bareMinerals. Blodgett says the brand, then called Bare Escentuals Make-Up, was incomplete and needed "refurbishing." She adds, "We made it complete everything from eye shadows to lipsticks and renamed and repositioned it."

Week2: Strategic Planning & Ethics & Social Responsibility

BARE ESCENTUALS
When it comes to keeping its customers looking naturally pretty, Bare Escentuals has a mineral interest. The company, which rolled out its bareMinerals makeup brand in 1976 along with its first retail shop, develops, markets, and sells natural cosmetics, skin care, and body care items. Brand names include bareMinerals, Buxom, md formulations, RareMinerals, and its namesake line. Bare Escentuals sells its products in the US through about 120 company-owned shops, 870 beauty product retailers, and 1,470 spas and salons. It also boasts distributors in Canada, Japan, and the UK and other European countries.The momentum of growth at Bare Escentuals occurred as the company entered new retail markets and faced new competition in mineral-based cosmetics. The company increased its retail expansion with new locations in major cities during 2004. Bare Escentuals initiated its first store openings in New York, beginning with a Manhattan location on Third Avenue in the spring. Despite the intense competition there, Bare Escentuals had a ready base of support from women in the New York City area through the company's successful infomercials, QVC broadcasts, and online and mail-order sales.

Week1: History & Mission Statement

BARE ESCENTUALS
In 1976 Founder Diane Richardson opens first store in Los Gatos, near San Francisco California. It was a small store, selling earth mother-type beauty products, but among them was an all-natural powder, sold by weight, that helped to heal and conceal skin concerns such as rosacea, scars and sensitive skin.

In 1994, Leslie Blodgett took over the company and recognized the potential in this powder specifically. Realizing the strangeness of the product, she knew it would be a struggle to market, so she targeted women with severe skin problems who would have struggled with other cream and liquid foundations on the market.
In 1997 she began selling the reformulated powder (now known as bare Minerals) in infomercials and on shopping channels and the business began to really take off. Now it is one of Nordstrom's and Sephora's best-selling brands, and has added lip gloss, lipstick, eyeshadows, and a skin care products to its line. Blodgett is still easy to find on television, selling her revolutionary mineral foundation.