More vendors

There’s even more to the story about all the big companies moving to Bentonville to be near Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest account for most of them, than you will read in this issue’s cover piece.

It seems that there are hundreds of other companies represented in the town other than the ones that have rented office space ? a number that already is as high as 125.

Although identifying all of the salespeople working from their homes is nearly impossible, we hear that the practice is common. The companies usually install an extra telephone line in the sales rep’s house and a few other basic office equipment items, such as a fax machine.

Many of the company representatives are former Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees who left the retail giant for better paying jobs representing the vendors, our sources say.