Business Digest

NATION

No more free bags at 3 California Wal-Marts

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It’s BYOB at Wal-Mart stores in California.

Customers must bring their own bag to three California Wal-Mart stores to haul home all those eggs, soup cans and sandwich meat — or shell out 15 cents to buy a reusable bag at the store.

No more free bags at checkout at two Sacramento stores and a third store in Ukiah, Calif.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched an experiment in October at the three stores to ease customers into the BYOB habit as the huge retailer attempts to reduce its global waste by one-third by 2013.

Author: Cost-cutting a risk

NEW YORK — Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Maybe, but businesses should think twice before they try to match the prices of their competitors.

Cost-cutting can erode and destroy brands and can render companies unable to survive, says Richard D’Aveni, author of the recently published book “Beating the Commodity Trap.”

Just because a low-cost competitor comes along from seemingly out of nowhere or a rival business offers discounts and snazzy perks, that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice profit margins.

“By improving their power over real prices, firms can actually beat their commodity trap rather than simply trying to outpace it,” D’Aveni said.

Vindicator wire reports