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Walmart general overview
Walmart
in the News
Wal-Mart Sees March Sales Up
Like Feb.
Business - Reuters
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it expected
sales at U.S. stores open at least a year to show an increase
similar to or better than the 4.1 percent posted in February.
Sales of food were better than general
merchandise in the week ended Friday, the second week of
the five-week March sales reporting period, the company
said in a recorded message.
Wal-Mart said the average ticket --
or amount purchased per shopping trip -- was strongest
in the West during the week. The March sales period ends
April 1.
Wal-Mart Says March U.S. Sales
Rising Within Forecast
Bloomberg
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest
retailer, said March sales are rising within its forecast
as shoppers buy more food.
The gain this month at U.S. stores open
at least a year will exceed 4.1 percent, compared with
a year ago, Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart projected
March 3. The company updated results through yesterday
in a recorded call today.
Consumers bought more food than general
merchandise this past week, Wal-Mart said. The retailer
has been adding more stores that sell groceries to draw
shoppers more frequently and prompt them to make more purchases.
The earliest Easter in a decade may not help U.S. merchants'
clothing sales, according to the National Retail Federation.
"With Easter falling two weeks earlier
this year, Mother Nature will play a part in apparel sales," NRF
President and CEO Tracy Mullin said in a March 10 statement. "Consumers,
many of them still shoveling snow off their sidewalks,
aren't yet feeling compelled to go shopping for spring
clothes."
Easter is Sunday, March 27.
Wal-Mart's February gain, 4.1 percent,
was its biggest since last May amid stronger job growth
and a dip in gasoline prices. The company had expected
a February sales gain of 2 percent to 4 percent. Same-store
sales are measured against results a year earlier.
The U.S. economy added 262,000 workers
in February, the largest increase in four months. The average
price for a gallon of regular gasoline was 16 percent higher
in February than a year earlier.
Shares of Wal-Mart fell 55 cents to
$51.60 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday.
They have fallen 12 percent in the past year.
Like the US, Mexico feels Wal-Mart
Era
By Ken Bensinger, The Christian
Science Monitor
Canned white asparagus. Spanish serrano
ham. Sushi rice. It's the fancy imports, says Claudia Gonzalez,
that bring her to Comercial Mexicana, the nation's No.
3 retailer. But this day, she also picked up an industrial-sized
bag of diapers. "The diapers are probably cheaper
at Wal-Mart, but you can't get any of this other stuff
there," says Ms. Gonzalez, unloading an overflowing
cart in the parking lot of one of Wal-Mart's top competitors
in Mexico. Then her voice drops. "The people at Wal-Mart
just aren't like me," she whispers.
Ms. Gonzalez spends $100 a week on groceries,
four times what a minimum-wage worker earns in that time.
And while not exactly politically correct, her attitude
could be the key to survival for Comercial and a half-dozen "big
box" chains that are urgently testing new strategies
after nearly a decade of trying to keep up with Wal-Mart.
Having learned that they can't go mano-a-mano
with the world's retail champ, hundreds of stores here
are busily upscaling - adding cozy cafes and stocking fine
cheeses, gourmet dog food, and seasonal specialty items
- an alternative strategy based on hard-won experience. "Nobody
can beat Walmex. It is and will continue to be the dominant
competitor here," says Joaquin Ley, an analyst at
Santander Investments. "Instead, everyone else is
racing to differentiate themselves."
Indeed, since a consolidation in 1997,
Wal-Mart de Mexico SA, or Walmex, the Mexican extension
of its Arkansas-based parent, has steadily gobbled up everything
in its path, posting soaring numbers - sales increased
10.5 percent last year - and pouring piles of cash into
growth with trademark intensity. Today, Walmex runs 411
retailers and 285 restaurants, is Mexico's largest private
employer, and has the second-highest market capitalization
of any company on Mexico's stock exchange.
Its most recent victim is Carrefour,
the world's No. 2 retailer after Wal-Mart. The French company
announced late last Thursday that it would sell all its
29 Mexican stores, plus two under construction, to Chedraui,
the country's sixth-largest chain, for a rumored $545 million.
The retreat comes only two years after Auchan, the world's
23rd-largest retailer, also gave up on Mexico.
Eager to avoid such a fate, Soriana,
Mexico's second-largest chain, says it will invest more
than $300 million this year, and will fill its stores with
what director of strategic planning Pedro Mejia calls " perks
and improvements." It also plans an enormous emphasis
on customer service. "Until 2003, we only had one
format: trying to get all clients," he says. "Now
our new stores are oriented to a higher socioeconomic level."
On top of working to maintain a somewhat
fancier atmosphere, with more expensive stores in wealthier
neighborhoods, both Soriana and Comercial Mexicana have
begun developing their own lines of higher-end products,
a strategy analysts say was inspired by US chains like
Target.
It's a bold move, especially in a country
where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty
line. But it could simply be a pragmatic approach to a
marketplace where many people are already convinced that
Wal-Mart's famous "Everyday Low Prices" are unbeatable. " I
shop at Wal-Mart because it's cheaper. Across the board,
everything costs less here," says Maria Eugenia Zubiria,
holding aloft a box of Special K cereal that actually costs
nearly 5 pesos less at the Comercial Mexicana three blocks
away. The perception that Wal-Mart is unbeatable on price
is the store's best ally here. But in reality, thanks to
a year-old buying alliance between Comercial Mexicana,
Soriana, and the chain Gigante, prices for common groceries
are essentially identical at Wal-Mart's competitors.
In contrast to chains like Soriana,
there are other retailers who don't yet want to give up
on the Mexican masses. Among them is Gigante, Mexico's
fourth-largest big-box chain, which has most closely mirrored
Walmex's strategy, peppering the airwaves with commercials
touting falling prices. Like Walmex, the majority of Gigante's
stores are in the dense central areas of Mexico, particularly
Mexico City. Also like Walmex, which also runs Sam's Club
and the chain Bodega Aurrera, Gigante has tried to appeal
to blue-collar consumers. On top of 127 flagship Gigante
stores, it has 34 Super G and 28 Bodega Gigante big boxes,
which look and feel nearly identical to Bodega Aurrera,
with its smaller selection and emphasis on food staples.
Despite the stiff competition from Walmex, Gigante says
it will invest $90 million this year, while others, like
Soriana and Chedraui, will break into the key Mexico City
market this year.
It's a bold move in a country where
millions of shoppers are like Virginia Soto, a retiree
who never sets foot in a big-box store. "I'm just
not used to them," says Ms. Soto, who buys all her
food in a weekly street market near her house. "I'm
not about to go anywhere else." Yet Soto is the type
of person that the chains are increasingly targeting. The
big retailers point out that fully one half of the retail
market belongs to "irregular" commerce like public
street markets. And in this Coca Cola-crazy country, only
30 percent of soft-drink sales are in big box stores, according
to Mr. Ley.
"There's a lot of room for growth,
because this society is changing," says Carlos Ruiz,
professor at the Pan-American Institute of Business Administration. "We're
seeing a change in ages and in habits of consumption. More
and more, Mexico is going to become oriented to [big box]
stores."
And many are destined to be Wal-Marts.
Walmex captured about a quarter of the retail market last
year. This year it will invest $750 million, more than
all its competitors combined, opening 70 new stores, according
to Walmex spokesman Raul Arguelles. "Expect many,
many more square meters of Wal-Mart sales floor in Mexico
in the future," he says.
Labor Board Orders Wal-Mart
Hearing
The Associated Press
The National Labor Relations Board on
Wednesday ordered a hearing into complaints that Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. intimidated and bullied workers at a Colorado
store into voting against union representation last month.
After workers at the Wal-Mart Tire & Lube Express in
Loveland rejected unionization 17-1 in a vote Feb. 25,
a spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Local
7 said the union would ask the NLRB to dismiss the results.
Local 7 spokesman Dave Minshall had said no union member
was allowed to observe the election and that Wal-Mart added
employees to the unit to dilute the strength of the union
supporters. " The claims made by the UFCW are simply
not true, and we are confident that the (NLRB) regional
office will find no evidence of these allegations," said
Christi Davis Gallagher, a spokeswoman for Bentonille,
Ark.-based Wal-Mart.
A hearing was scheduled for March 25
at the NLRB office in Denver. " After a preliminary
investigation I have concluded that the (union's) objections
raise substantial and material issues of fact, including
credibility resolutions, which can best be resolved at
a hearing," NLRB regional director Allan Benson said.
Organizers of the unionization vote had hoped to establish
what would have been the second union at a Wal-Mart store.
Workers in Canada also are fighting the world's largest
retailer to form a union.
Nike Introduces Product Line
For Wal-Mart
Sneaker giant Nike is making its first
foray into the world of discount chains.The Beaverton,
Ore.-based company is launching a new sneaker line at retail
giant Wal-Mart.
The new line, produced by Nike subsidiary
Exeter Brand Group, will be the first sneakers offered
by Bentonville-based Wal-Mart for athletic use, as opposed
to casual wear.
The shoes will be marketed under the
Starter brand. They will retail for $40 and will be available
in 400 stores starting next week.
Nike has long wrestled with how to reach
the millions of budget-minded consumers who shop at discount
chains.
Wal-Mart -- Not Exactly a Juggernaut
in Europe
David Pauly Bloomberg
Small-town hardware stores, union organizers
and Kmart managers can take heart: They may not be bulldozed
by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after all.
Wal-Mart, the master of computerized
inventories and the king of cost-cutters, can wipe out
the competition -- in the U.S. The Bentonville, Arkansas,
discounter's juggernaut act hasn't always worked so well
abroad, notably in the U.K., where it's outdistanced by
Tesco Plc, and in Germany, where analysts say it's in the
red.
Since moving into the U.K. in 1999 with
the acquisition of the Asda Group Plc supermarket chain,
Wal-Mart has lifted Asda from No. 3 to No. 2 among Britain's
food retailers but remains well behind leader Tesco Plc.
In the 12 weeks ended Feb. 27, Asda's
share of the $202 billion U.K. grocery market inched up
to 16.9 percent from 16.7 percent in the same year-before
period, according to research group Taylor Nelson Sofres
Plc, as Tesco increased its share to 29.2 percent from
27 percent.
Tesco has outflanked Wal-Mart's stores
by selling more expensive food items and being quicker
to sell personal financial products like car insurance.
Asda's Chief Executive Tony DeNunzio quit last week to
take a job running Dutch electronics and clothing retailer
Royal Vendex KBB NV.
Costco's Coming
Wal-Mart's backsliding in the U.K. is
especially embarrassing because U.S. rival Costco Wholesale
Corp. has been expanding rapidly from a smaller base. While
Costco, from Issaquah, Washington, may have benefited from
a quirk in zoning rules that makes it easier for a wholesaler
to get new stores approved than a retailer, it recently
beat Wal-Mart prices on such things as cat food and gin
-- and it sells in bulk and peddles big items like wide-screen
TVs.
America's discount giant has fared even
worse in Germany, where analysts say the U.S. retailer
has lost money ever since buying Germany's Wertkauf chain
in 1997. Wal-Mart doesn't break out results by country,
lumping the U.K. and Germany with Canada, Brazil, Mexico,
China and others under "international."
While Wal-Mart blames a weak economy
for continued poor results in Germany, analysts say the
company failed to adapt its 91 stores to German tastes.
Wal-Mart also has resisted sharing its financial results
with German officials, according the Financial Times Deutschland.
Good News
Overall, Wal-Mart is still a success
abroad. In the year ended Jan. 31, its international sales
climbed 18 percent to $56.3 billion, helped by the strength
of the British pound and the Canadian dollar against the
U.S. dollar.
The discounter's majority-owned Mexican
unit, which is Latin America's biggest retailer, earned
about $860 million last year. With $1.06 billion in cash,
Wal-Mart de Mexico SA de CV was expanding and buying back
stock. Wal-Mart this year promoted Mexico CEO Eduardo Castro-Wright
to chief operating officer of its U.S. stores.
Wal-Mart's missteps in Europe do show
that big companies don't always get their way. Remember
too that Wal-Mart is exhibiting some weaknesses at home.
Its 3.3 percent sales gain in stores open 12 months or
more in the past year trailed the 5.3 percent increase
by No. 2 discounter Target Corp., which often offers trendier
merchandise. Wal-Mart shares, which closed yesterday at
$51.30, have basically treaded water for the past five
years.
A few more slips by Wal-Mart and retailing's smaller fry
may have a future.
Store Closing is Latest Salvo
in Wal-Mart Labor Fight
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Shoppers in this snowy Quebec mill town
are about to pay more for ice-fishing gear, snowmobile
covers and Celine Dion's paperback autobiography: The local
Wal-Mart is closing this spring.
But Wal-Mart's announcement last month
that it could no longer do business here because of skimpy
store revenue and escalating union demands is having a
much broader impact across Canada and even south of the
border. The closing - the first of a Wal-Mart in Canada
- is a strategic retreat for the retailer in its war with
organized labor.
Since August 2004, when the store became
the only unionized Wal-Mart in North America, Jonquiere
has become a rallying cry for retail union organizers who
want to stop an erosion of membership in the grocery industry
in both Canada and the United States.
At least three other Wal-Mart outlets
in Quebec have received bomb threats since the Jonquiere
closing announcement, forcing evacuations of people and
losses in sales.
Bernard Landry, the leader of the separatist
Parti Quebecois and a former premier of the province, has
announced that he is personally boycotting the chain. A
Quebec television broadcaster compared Wal-Mart to Nazism,
but later apologized.
In the last decade, Wal-Mart has become
Canada's biggest retailer, shoving the T. Eaton Co. out
of that spot and contributing to its demise. But in contrast
to their counterparts in the United States, unions in Canada
have had traces of success in organizing at Wal-Mart.
For the giant American chain, Jonquiere
has become another barricade in its battle to keep unions
out of its business. "What we were left with was a
store that was not going to be viable," said Andrew
Pelletier, director for corporate affairs at Wal-Mart Canada. "We
felt the union wanted to fundamentally change the store's
business model."
Unionizing efforts at Wal-Marts in North
America have virtually never progressed. A store in Windsor,
Ontario, was unionized in 1997, but workers dissolved the
union three years later when it failed to deliver a contract.
A vote in 2000 to unionize meat cutters
in Jacksonville, Texas, was followed by Wal-Mart's turning
to prepackaged meat, eliminating the need for meat cutters.
Last week, 74 percent of workers in Windsor voted against
a new union, with both the organizers and Wal-Mart filing
unfair labor practices complaints.
Union leaders say Wal-Mart is using
Jonquiere as an example to whip workers into line at a
second Wal-Mart store outside Montreal that successfully
organized in January and in more than 20 other outlets
in at least three provinces where organizing efforts have
begun.
They also claim that the 17-1 vote against
unionization at the Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express in Loveland,
Colo., last month was a sign of the chill sweeping down
from Jonquiere for workers who fear that organizing a union
could mean the loss of their jobs.
In Windsor, union leaders said Wal-Mart
posted news of the Jonquiere closing in the lunchroom;
Wal-Mart says if such a posting was made, it was by an
employee and not the corporation. "What's at stake
here," said Michael J. Fraser, Canada national director
of the United Food and Commercial Workers, "is whether
or not Wal-Mart is going to be successful at attempting
to prevent people from exercising their democratic right
to form a union."
Workers at various Wal-Marts around
Quebec say they are being pressured by both management
and labor. They describe a workplace atmosphere poisoned
by rumor-mongering, insults and damage to personal property.
Wal-Mart has been struggling to keep unions out of its
Canadian stores since it bought more than 100 outlets from
another retailer 11 years ago; it now has 256 Wal-Marts
and six Sam's Club stores in Canada.
A local of the United Food and Commercial
Workers succeeded in gathering the signatures of a majority
of Jonquiere workers in the summer of 2004.
But the battleground in Quebec, where
Wal-Mart has 47 stores, is not particularly favorable to
the chain because provincial labor law is tilted in favor
of unions. Forty percent of the province's work force is
unionized, a rate 25 percent higher than the rest of Canada
and more than three times the rate in the United States.
Toddler and
infant department overview
Wal-mart is looking
bright and bold for spring! A look around the floor of
Wal-mart
on both U.S. coasts yielded
a pleasant surprise: There was a concerted effort to be
bright, bold and fun in juniors, ladies and kids. The merchandise
on the aisle was consistently upbeat with value being almost
secondary to the upbeat basic styling and bright colors.
There was much less clutter throughout each of the departments
and there were fewer attempts at being ‘trendy’.
Styling was safe, simple, clean and featured few details
or trending silos.
In infants and toddlers, new names
on the floor included ‘Hola Bebe’ with Sesame
Street’s Maria (actress Sonia Manzano) . The styling
here was distinctly latin with bright colors and typical
yet well rendered south of the border styling. The house
brand ‘George’ has been increasing it’s
floor space consistantly while Wrangler’s #8 denim
(Dale Earhardt junior’s endorsed jeans) was spotted
in infants and toddlers with the tell tale checkered
flag and car sticker. Also seen in infants and toddlers
were peter Rabbit and Precious Moments.
Opportunities
in the infant's and toddler's department
The ethnic flavor that Hola Bebe brings
is refreshing; more looks with a touch of pizzazz would
be great. Fun fashion pieces such as gauzy flounces on
onesies, ethnic embroideries on scooters or leggings and
bright colors would be a great next step. Also, we would
like the great infant knit bottoms to be available up to
size 4!
A look into the department:
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