NYT: Wal-Mart Trips as It Changes a Bit Too Fast

[DeepModem Mom]

Wal-Mart Trips as It Changes a Bit Too Fast
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: November 30, 2006


(Emile Wamsteker for The New York Times)
Shoppers at the Wal-Mart in Kearny, N.J.

....After fresh price cuts this month, few doubted (Wal-Mart) would own this (holiday shopping) season, too. But....(t)oday, the retailer is expected to announce, based on its own estimates, that sales for November fell for the first time in a decade....

***

In the last year, Wal-Mart has introduced a dizzying number of new strategies: it started a line of urban fashion, began renovating 1,800 stores, overhauled its advertising to focus less on price and more on style, rolled out $4 generic drugs, ended its layaway program and imposed wage caps on its workers, to name just a few.

Given its size, even the slightest misstep is magnified. And this season, Wal-Mart has made several, alienating shoppers with designer-inspired clothing and disruptive store remodeling....

***

Wal-Mart has little choice but to change, analysts said. The company’s formula since 1962 — pile cheap merchandise high and watch it fly — is no longer enough. Competitors like Target and Best Buy have stolen shoppers with smarter fashions and sleeker electronics, leaving Wal-Mart to sell Americans mostly everyday products like laundry detergent and socks.

And the company’s strategy of growing through relentless store openings — about 300 a year for the last decade — has begun to hurt the retailer as much as help it by siphoning away sales from other Wal-Marts nearby....

***

Wall Street has been urging the company to find a solution to the slide....But the turnaround effort — which the company has dubbed “Wal-Mart Out In Front” — is taking longer than investors had hoped. And there is a growing consensus that the rapid pace of change may be one reason why....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/business/30walmart.html?hp&ex=1164949200&en=a9be4a6926826a27&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[napi21]

1. That's an interesting article. I'm not sure if we aren't seeing the

beginning of the steady decline of WM. Totally depending on part timer work force is not a good business phylosophy. People are short termers, never get to know the products, where they are, or any company policies. That allienates customers. If they are depending on their electronics dept to carry them, they have already begun the great long decline.

I haven't been in a Wm in a very long time, so I can't judge how it really feals in there right now. Can't say that I care enough to venture in either.

[Kiouni]

2. I would be glad to see it gone

i hate wallyworld and everything they do is evil and anti-human. I hope their newly installed lamanent wood flooring is the death of them!

[Sherman A1]

3. I thought the most telling comment to be

by their "Top Dog", that he was surprise that their remodels were upsetting sales and making it difficult for the customers. Now there is a boy that hasn't spent anytime in a retail store during a remodel and is totally out of touch with the reality of what he is doing. Disruption and lost sales because of it during a remodel is an absolute given in retail. It's one of those "you bite the bullet" to get the end result and do so as quickly as possible. DUH!!!!

[fasttense]

4. I have avoided Wally world for the last six months

and made the mistake of going in for a gallon of milk because it was along my route home. I didn't want to drive the extra five minutes to the nearby Food City grocery. Turns out I spent an extra forty-five minutes trying to get in and out of the place.

I'd forgotten about the enormous size of their grocery carts, or as we call them here in East TN - buggies. I took one of those buggies because the long walk down to the milk aisle and back would make a gallon of milk feel like a bucket of bricks. To my surprise, the buggy didn't fit in the tiny aisle. I ended up leaving it halfway down the aisle and carrying the milk out by hand. Why do they make their carts so big and their aisles so little? Not to mention the large size of their costumers and employees which made it difficult to weld the tank sized cart around. I wont go into detail about how long I had to wait in line to check out. I had forgotten just how inconvenient these marts were.

[Sherman A1]

6. Well of course the best thing to do

is simply avoid Wal Mart altogether, for any number of reasons. Certainly there is that once in awhile convenience factor, but as you pointed out, it really doesn't exist. BTW I worked in Memphis for a month when my company bought out Seesels (then owned by Alberston's) so I am familiar with the term buggies.

[momster]

5. K-Mart is their Future

K-Mart used to be the place you went to for your necessities and would pick up a few extras while you were there -- I'm talking the 80's in California. You would usually run into an acquaintance or two. The folks who worked there knew where to find things and you'd actually walk over to a 'blue-light special'. Then, gradually, the stores started getting dirtier and messier as they (I suppose)started trying to improve the bottom line, as they switched to part-time workers. They started lowering price points to bring the consumers back in but that meant selling cheaper merchandise (made outside the country) and you didn't bother to go back for so little quality. It became a downward spiral that hasn't stopped yet -- despite bankruptcy and being purchased by Sears a couple of years ago.