Re-emphasis on its core, low-price marketing message — put in place early in 2007 – paid off for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., during the holiday shopping season. Profit increased 4 percent in the quarter. Associated Press via The New York Times (Feb. 19, 2008)
Wal-Mart reported a half-point increase in stores open at least a year, shy of the two-percent gain analysts expected. The trend suggests that consumers are pulling back, even after a lackluster holiday shopping season. The New York Times (Feb. 7, 2008)
After bucking the broader trend and turning in a successful holiday shopping season, Wal-Mart pours it on, slashing prices from 10 to 30 percent on groceries, electronics and other products likely to interest shoppers ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday. Reuters (Jan. 29, 2008)
In December, when its rivals’ earnings plunged, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported a 2.7% increase in same-store sales. The stage for that strong performance was set a year earlier when the chain planned its “disrupt-the-marketplace” campaign for the holiday season. Instead of merely opening stores early, Wal-Mart decided to conduct numerous, Black-Monday-style, early morning discounts on high-demand [...]
In response to Retail Federation surveys indicating a slow start to the Holiday shopping season, Meijer, Wal-Mart and other retailers plan to pre-empt their “Black Friday” circulars in an attempt to jump-start sales. Toledo Blade (Nov. 13, 2007)
Wal-Mart may have quietly rescinded its mandate for all suppliers to use RFID, but the chain’s ambitious plans generated all kinds of awareness, and helped make the technolog a venture capital darling. From 2002 to 2005, venture capitalists invested 658 million in 70 RFID deals. Widespread adoption of the technogy in supply chains hasn’t taken place, but it is [...]