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Unpaid Teens Bag
Groceries for Wal-Mart
Thousands of
adolescents work as unpaid baggers in Wal-Mart's Mexican stores. The
retail giant isn't breaking any laws, but that doesn't mean the
government is happy with the practice.
By Joseph Contreras
Newsweek
July 31, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart prides itself on cutting
costs at home and abroad, and its Mexican operations are no exception.
That approach has helped the Arkansas-based retail giant set a track
record of spectacular success in the 16 years since it entered Mexico as
a partner of the country?s then-leading retail-store chain. But some of
the company?s practices have aroused concern among some officials and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that Wal-Mart is taking advantage
of local customs to pinch pennies at a time when its Mexican operations
have never been more profitable.
Wal-Mart is Mexico?s largest
private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local
residents on its payroll. An additional 19,000 youngsters between the
ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores,
mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico?and none of them receives a
red cent in wages or fringe benefits. The company doesn?t try to conceal
this practice: its 62 Superama supermarkets display blue signs with
white letters that tell shoppers: OUR VOLUNTEER PACKERS COLLECT NO
SALARY, ONLY THE GRATUITY THAT YOU GIVE THEM. SUPERAMA THANKS YOU FOR
YOUR UNDERSTANDING. The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico
because the kids are said to be ?volunteering? their services to
Wal-Mart and are therefore not subject to the requirements and
regulations that would otherwise apply under the country?s labor laws.
But some officials south of the U.S. border nonetheless view the
practice as regrettable, if not downright exploitative. ?These kids
should receive a salary,? says Labor Undersecretary Patricia Espinosa
Torres. ?If you ask me, I don?t think these kids should be working, but
there are cultural and social circumstances [in Mexico] rooted in
poverty and scarcity.?
In a country where nearly half of the
population scrapes by on less than $4 a day, any income source is
welcome in millions of households, even if it hinges on the goodwill of
a tipping customer. And Wal-Mart did not invent the bagger program that,
as a written statement from the company notes, pre-dates the firm?s
arrival in Mexico, nor is it alone within the country?s retail sector in
benefiting from the toil of unpaid adolescents. But in Mexico City, for
example, the 4,300 teenagers who work in Wal-Mart?s retail stores free
of charge dwarf similar numbers laboring unpaid for Mexican competitors
like Comercial Mexicana (715) and Gigante (427). Although Wal-Mart?s
worldwide code of ethics expressly forbids any ?associate? from working
without compensation, the company?s Mexican subsidiary asserts that the
grocery baggers ?cannot be considered workers.? The Mexico City
government?s top labor official dismisses that contention as so much
corporate hogwash. ?To my mind, that is not an accurate description
because the bagger is providing a service on the store?s premises that
benefits the company by serving the customer better,? argues Federal
District Labor Secretary Benito Mirsn Lince. ?In economic terms,
Wal-Mart does have the capability to pay the minimum wage [of less than
$5 a day], and this represents an injustice.?
Certainly, Wal-Mart?s bottom line is
healthy. Wal-Mart de Mexico reported net earnings of $1.148 billion in
2006 and $280 million in profits in the second quarter of this year, a 7
percent increase in real terms over the same period last year. Buoyed by
the handsome bottom-line results of the preceding 12 months, Wal-Mart de
Mexico Chief Executive Eduardo Solsrzano announced plans in February to
add 125 new stores and restaurants to its existing network of 893 retail
establishments during the course of 2007. That ambitious expansion plan
will represent new investment totaling nearly a billion dollars,
according to company spokesmen.
And in its defense, Wal-Mart says it
fully complies with a 1999 agreement covering the teenaged baggers that
the Mexico City municipal government negotiated with the Supermarkets
and Department Stores Association of Mexico. The company also says it
goes beyond the obligations of that accord, awarding bonuses twice a
year to baggers who maintain high grades in school and also providing
accident insurance that covers the kids not only when they are on duty,
but also when they are en route between home and workplace. The
company?s written statement cited a study conducted by the Mexican
government and a U.N. agency that found that teenagers participating in
the baggers? program were less likely to use illegal drugs than peers
who panhandled or hawked merchandise on city streets.
Wal-Mart says the bagger program was
designed ?in accordance with the International Labor Organization?s (ILO)
guidelines.? That?s questionable: Article 2 of the ILO?s Convention 138
specifically prohibits the employment of 14-year-old children. (When
asked by NEWSWEEK specifically about this clause, a Wal-Mart spokesman
said in a written response: "With respect to your questions about the
ILO, I repeat that we subscribe to an agreement signed between the
Supermarkets and Department Stores Association of Mexico and Mexican
labor officials. I suggest you share your doubts with Mexican
authorities as to whether the [1999] accord [with the Mexico City
municipal government] is in line with ILO guidelines.") A study
conducted by three student researchers at the Autonomous University of
Mexico documented violations of the 1999 agreement at a Wal-Mart
Supercenter store in southern Mexico City. These included inadequate
training and forcing youngsters to work a double shift, thereby
exceeding the six-hour limit per day established by the accord. Then
again, things could be a lot worse. In February 2005, Wal-Mart agreed to
pay the U.S. Labor Department $135,540 in civil money penalties to
settle charges of 24 child-labor violations. Some of the accusations
involved minors who operated forklifts, chain saws and other potentially
dangerous equipment. Stuffing groceries into plastic bags would seem
considerably less hazardous.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Canada Set to Roll out Clearly Canadian Brands' Healthy Snack
Businesswre
[back to top]
Clearly Canadian CCBEF (the "Company")
is pleased to announce that its new line of Glengrove Organics dried
fruit and nut products will be sold at Wal-Mart Canada stores and all
Ontario stores of Sobey's, one of Canada's top grocers.
Brent Lokash, CEO of Clearly Canadian,
stated, "Wal-Mart and Sobey's are high volume retailers and provide
great consumer exposure for our Glengrove Organics line. This is a
significant step toward establishing one of Clearly Canadian Brands'
products as a major national organic snack brand in Canada and
strengthening our platform to launch this line into the U.S."
[back to top]
Doubts cast on Wal-Mart
price war
By Tu Lei
chinadaily.com.cn
2007-07-31
[back to top]
Wal-Mart recently waged its largest
ever price war since its presence in China 11 years ago. However, many
consumers cast doubts on the real purpose of this retail giant's price
campaign.
Beginning July 5, all of Wal-Mart's 80
shops gave a discount up to 20 percent to more than 1,000 items, mainly
foodstuffs, according to insiders. It is the first time in Wal-Mart's
history that it has cut so many items' prices.
The move suggests Wal-Mart is eager to
lure more customers in China, a market in which it has not enjoyed the
competitiveness it has at home.
However, the price reductions are not
attractive enough, and some discounted products' prices are still higher
than those in other markets.
A package of 120-gram Lays potato
chips is priced at 7.5 yuan after a 45 percent discount, higher than
that of Wumart, another supermarket chain store in Beijing. Meanwhile
the price of one package of Qiaqia sunflower seeds is 5.4 yuan in
Wal-Mart, but it only costs 4.8 yuan in Carrefour.
"My wife cares about the prices so
much, but she was disappointed when back," said a buyer surnamed Li.
"I have been to Wal-Mart twice these
days, but hardly found the discounted items," said another anonymous
buyer.
Home supplies and home appliances are
included in the new pricing package, with lowered rates of 10 and 15
percent respectively.
Miss Wang plans to buy a Midea
electrical kettle in Wal-Mart at the new price, but she found the price
was 269 yuan after a 10 percent discount, while the product's price in
Carrefour is 238 yuan.
Wal-Mart's discounted prices fail to
match those of its competitors, which suggests that offering the lowest
prices is not part of the company's strategy.
Dong Yuguo, supervisor of the public
relations department at Wal-Mart, said the price reduction is the result
of controlling costs and our suppliers' efforts to provide better prices
in a proper time."
"Our 'Every Day Low Prices' strategy
can not ensure buyers get goods at the most favorable prices," said
Dong, who emphasized Wal-Mart’s weak distribution system can not help
reduce cost.
Wal-Mart's strategy is based on
big-dimension purchasing, flexible logistics channels, advanced
information technology systems, and sophisticated shop management, which
ensure the lowest prices for global buyers. However, according to an
anonymous expert familiar with the matter, in China its competitive edge
is blunt.
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Fired Wal-Mart worker
protests
Edwin Lopez, who
was fired from the Wal-Mart on Farmington Avenue, talks to Attorney
General Richard Blumenthal at a protest outside the store in New Britain
on Monday. Lopez claims his termination was racially motivated.
By SCOTT WHIPPLE,
New Britain Herald
July 31st, 2007
[back to top]
NEW BRITAIN - Michael Edwards says he
stands up for what he believes.
Edwards could lose his job at the
Farmington Avenue Wal-Mart because on Monday he held a sign that read,
"You can roll back your prices, but not our rights," as he joined the
Connecticut Working Families protest there with about 50 other people.
The protest was sparked by the July 9
sacking of Edwards' best friend and co-worker at Wal-Mart and
allegations of ongoing racism at the store.
Edwin Lopez, 47, a city resident, was
fired after seven years on the job for charges he claims were fake. He
said his firing had more to do with race and that other current and
former Wal-Mart employees have also been unfairly disciplined or fired
because of race.
His manager, whom he declined to name,
used obscene language toward him and laughed in his face, Lopez said. He
also said his wife, who still works at the store, is the subject of
ridicule by management.
"It's not just Hispanics," Lopez said.
"This guy also disrespects Polish-speaking people who work there."
According to Lopez, his former
manager, a New York City native, walks around the store muttering: "I
hate the f---ing people in New Britain." Lopez said he told his boss "to
watch his mouth," and called a district manager to complain as well.
He left a voice mail in which he used
the word "freaking," he admitted.
"That's as far as I went," he said. "I
would never use the other 'F' word."
In the days that followed, Lopez said,
he was the subject of verbal abuse and finally fired.
He said he was told his dismissal was
because he swore at someone in the home office, but Lopez insists his
firing had more to do with his heritage and because Wal-Mart "doesn't
like Spanish-speaking people."
"They need to clean up management and
begin with this store," Lopez said. "Workers need to stop being scared."
Edwards, who worked with Lopez in the
lawn and garden department, said he has been protective of his friend's
wife. On Tuesday, Edwards stood with Lopez at the rally against Wal-Mart
although he risks losing his own job.
The corporate folks in Bentonville,
Ark., view the situation differently.
"While it is our policy not to comment
on personnel matters, I can tell you that the facts surrounding Mr.
Lopez's termination are very different than what he suggests," said
David Tovar, director of media relations, from Wal-Mart headquarters.
"Mr. Lopez's termination had nothing to do with speaking Spanish or
ethnicity; it was for disciplinary reasons."
Tovar would not elaborate, saying only
that Wal-Mart policy "allows associates to communicate in any language
they know. In fact, the policy requires associates to communicate in a
language common to the customer if you are able to do so in order to
better serve our customers."
Connecticut Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal isn't convinced. He told protesters he will investigate
allegations of systematic discrimination against Spanish-speaking
employees by Wal-Mart.
"Racism has no place anywhere," he
said.
Phil Sherwood, Democratic candidate
for alderman in New Britain's 4th Ward, said when he worked for Wal-Mart
he saw harassment and intimidation of racial minorities.
"Wal-Mart is currently the target of
the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history," Sherwood said. "The
issue is [sexual] discrimination."
Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alleges
female employees of Wal-Mart are denied advancement and training
opportunities, paid less than men for the same or comparable work,
steered to lower-wage departments, subjected to a sexually hostile work
environment and retaliated against when they attempt to address sex
discrimination.
Sherwood believes "the lack of
Spanish-speaking manager" could be a problem. "It breeds an atmosphere
of insensitivity."
Connecticut Working Families is a
coalition of community organizations, labor unions and neighborhood
activists "united to fight for a fair economy."
[back to top]
Joint venture with
Wal-Mart is imminent
SiliconIndia
Monday , July 30, 2007 [back to top]
New Delhi: Telecom-to-retail group
Bharti Enterprises Monday said the creation of a joint venture with US
retail juggernaut Wal-Mart, which is set to come to India, is very much
on the cards.
"Work is on, people are being hired,
land is being seen ... launch of a joint venture is imminent with the
roll-out (of stores) being slated for next year," Mittal told reporters
on the sidelines of a conclave organised by the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII).
He said both the parties were engaged
in various legal and licensing issues, "There are no problems with the
legal issues; however, real estate pricing is a concern."
Bharti Enterprises' wholly owned
subsidiary Bharti Retail had signed an agreement with the US retail
behemoth last year in cash-and-carry segments like wholesale trade and
support-related areas like cold chains, logistics and transportation,
where the government allows 100 percent foreign direct investment.
[back to top]
Kicking ass, saving souls: Religious action figures coming to Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has seen
the light. It has noted the signs. The dollar signs, anyway.
Mary Vallis
The Post
[back to top]
The world's largest retailer, and the
biggest toy seller in the U.S., will be lining its shelves with a series
of "Tales of Glory" biblical toys.
The faith-based toy line, which will
appear in the pre-school aisle of 425 select Wal-Mart stores in
mid-August, is produced by one2believe, a California toy company urging
parents to join "the battle for the toy box" by bringing home muscular
Samson and Goliath action figures instead of the usual Transformers and
Spider-Men.
The toys' release is billed as the
first time Wal-Mart has offered a full line of faith-based toys.
"I think parents are dying for
something for their young child that they can give them that they know
is going to give them a positive image," said David Socha, the company's
founder. The company's goal is to "spread the word of God to children
throughout America."
"What's nice is that they're real, as
opposed to other superheroes that are out there. Kids can relate to
people who didn't have superhuman powers, but relied on God's strength."
Not everyone is so optimistic about
the plan to stock plastic figures of Jesus, Mary, David and Goliath,
however. From the BBC News web site:
One religious leader does not consider
Wal-Mart in the fold.
"They'll carry anything that sells,"
says David Croyle, president of FamilyLife, a non-denominational
ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. "This simply signals intelligent
buying within Wal-Mart."
For David Socha, CEO of One2believe,
it's a dream come true. "Our goal is to give the faith-based community
an alternative to Bratz dolls and Spider-Man," he says.
The One2believe web page is a gold
mine of unintentional comedy. If you click and drag on this animation
you can make Samson repeatedly punch Goliath in the face (if only they
had battled it out in "real" life!). I'm waiting for the Moses/Noah
grudge match: "I didn't need no damn ark to save my people! I just
pointed and the water got the hell out of my way!"
And here's a beautiful full-colour
gallery of the creepily robotic Old and New Testament figures (all
courtesy of One2believe).
[back to top]
Bredesen Frustrated by Board of Regents Pace on
'Wal-Mart 101'
By ERIK SCHELZIG
Associated Press
[back to top]
NASHVILLE (AP) - It's been nearly a
year since Gov. Phil Bredesen announced a proposal to create a community
college curriculum designed to prepare students to become managers at
big-box retailers like Wal-Mart.
Yet there is no sign that any such
"Wal-Mart 101" program will be available at two-year schools across the
state anytime soon.
Asked in a recent interview with The
Associated Press about what the holdup is, Bredesen responded: "The
Board of Regents - and the general difficulty of moving things forward
in the educational system."
The Board of Regents oversees two-year
schools and public universities that are not part of the University of
Tennessee system.
"The Board of Regents on that one has
not picked up the idea and carried forward on their own in some
fashion," Bredesen said.
Bredesen said he prefers state
officials to move aggressively on new ideas. He said he'd rather have to
tell officials to slow down rather than have to constantly prod them
into action.
The governor said that he sometimes
has to ask UT President John Petersen to rein in the pace of new
programs, but that that rarely occurs with the Board of Regents.
Board of Regents Chancellor Charles
Manning could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
Bredesen acknowledged that the Board
of Regents may have been distracted by debate during the legislative
session over several community-college related subjects like his
ultimately doomed proposal to give free tuition to high-school graduates
who average a 19 on their ACT college entrance exams. Bredesen has vowed
to bring back the community college scholarship proposal next year.
Meanwhile, the state last week
announced that as part of Eastman Chemical Co.'s $1.3 billion
reinvestment in its Kingsport facilities the state will pour $1 million
into tailoring programs at Northeast State Technical Community College
to the company's work force needs.
The "Eastman 101" program will address
specific job skills for mechanics, lab analysts and chemical operators.
The proposal also could benefit other companies in the region because
they could hire graduates of the programs.
Although the job training program will
be at a Regents college, it won't be available at campuses across the
state the way Bredesen envisions the "Wal-Mart 101" program
"We had the opportunity to do the
'101' with somebody, so we obviously grabbed that and took it," Bredesen
said. "The other one (for big-box retailers) I'm still interested in and
we're still pushing for it."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Mom-and-pops
strategize vs. big boxes
By Bryce Benson
[back to top]
"Local businesses—unite!"
That could have been the battle cry of
the Chico Independent Business Forum held at the City Council chambers
Friday (July 27).
About 25 local business owners were
there—instead of at the Friday night concert going on across Main
Street—to listen to Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent
Business Alliance, outline a strategy for helping local businesses
thrive against "big box" stores such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best
Buy. The California Healthy Communities Network and Lyon Books sponsored
the gathering.
Nearly 40 cities across the country
and one in Canada have implemented the innovative model to strengthen
hometown businesses and prevent their displacement by chains.
While groups such as the Downtown
Chico Business Association are great at what they do, "not all
businesses are located downtown," Milchen said. "But almost all
businesses are affected when a giant retailer like Wal-Mart comes to
town."
His idea for IBAs started when he
lived in Boulder, Colo. He and David Boluc, owner of Boulder Book Store,
realized that locally owned business needed to organize in order to
combat the growing power of global chains, which Milchen says are
"unsustainable and drain communities of their culture and uniqueness."
Started in 1998, the Boulder
Independent Business Alliance grew from 10 members to more than 160
within two years. Its success led Milchen, along with BIBA's assistant
director, Jennifer Rockne, to start the nonprofit AMIBA in 2001.
Using what they had learned in
Boulder, Rockne and Milchen developed a three-pronged approach: public
education, group promotion and advertising, and building effective and
lasting relationships with local government.
BIBA runs a continuing ad campaign
that both creates a brand name and informs the public of the benefits of
shopping locally. Along with the ads, BIBA uses marketing tools such as
storefront decals, BIBA bookmarks for local bookstores, bumper stickers
that instruct people to "Put Your Money Where Your House Is!" and BIBA
paper cups for independent coffee shops.
In Chico, where the expansion of the
southside Wal-Mart and the addition of a Wal-Mart supercenter on the
north side are in the planning stages, Milchen's presentation found a
receptive audience.
"This is a critical time in Chico's
development," said Heather Lyon, owner of Lyon Books. "Sustaining local
ownership and local self-reliance is vital to Chico's long-term economic
vitality."
Heather Schlaff, of the Wal-Mart
watchdog group Chico Advocates for a Responsible Economy, said Chico's
long-term economic vitality would be best served if the addition of
another Wal-Mart were rejected. Phil Tucker, of the California Healthy
Communities Network, agreed with Schlaff: "With two of these in a town
the size of Chico, they'll be competing with each other, lowering
prices, until Chico's independent stores are gone."
Tucker, a resident of Napa, said he
became interested in the big-box debate after coming across Big-Box
Swindle, a book by Stacy Mitchell (available at Lyon Books).
Mitchell is a senior researcher for
the Institute for Local Self Reliance. Her home state of Maine in June
became the first state to require cities to evaluate the impact of
proposed big-box stores (larger than 75,000 square feet) on jobs, local
businesses and municipal finances. Only stores that won't adversely
affect the local economy can be approved. The Informed Growth Act goes
into effect in September 2007.
"Retail is not like other industries
like manufacturing because you can't increase how much people spend,"
Mitchell said from her home in Portland. "So even though stores like
Wal-Mart generate a lot of sales tax, all they're doing is taking
revenue away from locally owned businesses."
In California, a bill similar to
Maine's was passed in 2006 but vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. The
Permit Streamlining Act, SB 1523, would have required that
economic-impact reports similar to Maine's be prepared for any retail
center larger than 100,000 square feet.
"I am unable to support this bill that
effectively sends a message to retailers and others that California is
'closed for business,'" Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto message.
But Mitchell thinks just the opposite.
The bill would have told California cities that they care about local
business and their communities. A study in Maine showed that for every
dollar spent at big-box stores, only 15 cents stays in the community,
while for every dollar spent at a locally owned store, 50 cents stays in
the community.
Local state Sen. Sam Aanestad (R-Grass
Valley) voted no on SB 1523. Low prices benefit low-income people, he
said, and big-box stores deliver low prices, driving down prices
elsewhere. "That's what the free market system is based
upon—competition," he said.
Yet no one has been hurt more by
Wal-Mart than the low-income family, Mitchell said. "Wal-Mart lowers
wages in a community faster than they lower prices."
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's
Seiyu to post H1 operating loss-Nikkei
by Emi Foulk and
Taiga Uranaka
Reuters
Fri Jul 27, 2007
[back to top]
TOKYO, July 27 (Reuters) - The
Japanese unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research),
Seiyu Ltd. (8268.T: Quote, Profile, Research), will post an operating
loss for the first half of the year as weak sales sidelined its forecast
return to profit, the Nikkei business daily said on Friday.
Shares of Seiyu fell 3.1 percent in
late afternoon trade, compared with a 1.6 percent drop in the Tokyo
index of retail stocks (.IRETL.T: Quote, Profile, Research).
Seiyu, 53 percent owned by the world's
largest retailer, likely suffered an operating loss of 2 to 3 billion
yen ($17 million to $25 million) in the six months to June, falling well
short of its forecast 2.8 billion yen profit, the newspaper said.
Wal-Mart has struggled since its 2002
arrival in the world's second-largest retail market, leading some
analysts to suggest the retailer should pull out of Japan -- as it did
from South Korea and Germany last year.
Seiyu has posted five straight years
of losses since Wal-Mart first took a small stake in the company,
although it has forecast a return to profit this year.
The U.S. company has invested more
than $1 billion in the 390-store Japanese supermarket chain, remodelling
70 locations last year, but has yet to see anything more than temporary
upswings in sales.
Seiyu's first-half same-store sales
fell 1 percent year-on-year, dragged down by weak sales of clothing and
electric appliances, as well as poor weather, the Nikkei said.
A spokesman for Seiyu, which is
scheduled to announce its results on Aug. 14, said the report was
speculation.
The U.S. retailer's strategy of
selling discounted products in bulk may not be conducive to shopping
habits in Japan, where consumers tend to buy groceries more often and in
smaller amounts.
While Seiyu has benefited from
Wal-Mart's knowledge of cost-efficient distribution and information
systems, its store layouts and product development have failed to
impress Japanese shoppers, the Nikkei said.
(C) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Apparel
Faces Back-to-School Test
By Reuters,
New York Times
July 26th, 2007
[back to top]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's
back-to-school season and that means it is time to see if Wal-Mart
Stores Inc.'s efforts to revamp its apparel offering can muster a
passing grade with shoppers.
The world's largest retailer has
struggled with poor apparel sales after its efforts to compete with
Target Corp. and sell hipper clothes, like skinny jeans and velvet
blazers, backfired with its shoppers, who were looking for basic,
classic and affordable clothing.
For the past year, Wal-Mart has been
trying to fix its mistakes and has marked down unsold clothing, scaled
back its trendy Metro 7 apparel line and said last week that Claire
Watts, who oversaw its apparel merchandising, had resigned.
Wal-Mart has said it hopes to show
improvements during the back-to-school season. But it remains to be seen
whether the retailer can entice shoppers back into its clothing aisles,
or if they will head to rivals like Kohl's Corp. , J.C. Penney Co. Inc.
and Target to buy fashionable but affordable school clothes.
"No one can beat (Wal-Mart) on price,
but everyone is eating their lunch on fashion," said Patricia Edwards, a
portfolio manager with Wentworth, Hauser and Violich that owns Wal-Mart
shares.
"If price is not that different and
you get fashion for an extra $1 more, people will pay that dollar" and
buy clothes at Wal-Mart's competitors, she said.
STRUGGLES
Last year, Wal-Mart downplayed its
discount roots in hopes of convincing shoppers to buy higher-margin
goods, like clothes or home goods, that could bolster slowing U.S. sales
growth.
It touted its George ME fashion line
by guest designer Mark Eisen, and its own Metro 7 clothes that were
designed "with the highly stylish, fashion-conscious customer in mind."
But the success that Target has found
pedaling cheap-chic clothes, like those by Isaac Mizrahi, was not easy
to emulate, and Wal-Mart's core low-income shoppers did not warm to the
new styles or higher prices.
Wal-Mart has since admitted that it
moved too far too fast. It is now following a "back-to-basics" strategy
-- trying to stock items like T-shirts or shorts in a wide selection of
colors and sizes that emphasize its low prices.
But winning back-to-school clothing
dollars may be tough.
"One of the challenges at Wal-Mart has
been how do you promote the cross-shopping behavior among customers?"
said Craig Johnson, president of retail consulting firm Customer Growth
Partners.
Moms may buy toothpaste and toilet
paper at Wal-Mart, but he said they often buy clothes at Kohl's or J.C.
Penney, which have recently revitalized their apparel departments.
He also noted that Wal-Mart has become
an acceptable place for children and teenagers to buy electronics, but
it does not have the same cachet when it comes to clothing.
A kid will brag about a new tech
gadget he got, Johnson said. "Nobody says: 'Hey! Look at these great
denim jeans I got at Wal-Mart'."
BACK ON TRACK
Improving its apparel sales could help
Wal-Mart jump-start same-store sales, a key retail gauge that measures
sales at stores open at least a year.
Last fiscal year, its U.S. same-stores
sales rose at their lowest level since Wal-Mart began reporting such
figures in 1980. This year, it has continued to struggle, with its April
same-store sales falling 3.5 percent -- its largest ever publicly
reported decline.
Edwards said apparel and home sales
account for 15 percent of Wal-Mart's revenue, so any improvement would
be positive.
She said Wal-Mart needs to work on
striking a balance between selling the low-priced goods it is known for
but adding fashionable touches shoppers want.
Bernard Sosnick, a retail analyst at
Oppenheimer, said a store visit last week showed Wal-Mart continues to
struggle to get its apparel departments ready for back-to-school.
"There were items that I'd seen on the
racks several months ago still not marked for clearance, and these items
and the items for clearance impeded the full transition to
back-to-school and fall merchandise," he said.
Sosnick said the announcement that
Watts, who oversaw Wal-Mart's high-fashion forays, was resigning was a
welcome change.
Edwards said she is not betting that
back-to-school will mark a definitive apparel turnaround for the
retailer. Rather, she thinks the focus will fall on the holidays.
"There's a lot of competition out
there and Wal-Mart needs to sharpen their pencils and figure out how to
compete, because the game has changed," Edwards said.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Project Is Back on for Mall Site ; Retailer Is Required to Find
New Tenant
Thomas J. Prohaska
NEWS NIAGARA BUREAU
July 25, 2007
[back to top]
The Wal-Mart supercenter project is
back on at the Lockport Mall site, but the deal has been altered so that
Wal-Mart will be responsible for finding a new tenant for its existing
store.
The retail giant, in a letter
disclosed during Tuesday's Town Board work session, requested to have
its 185,000-square-foot combination supermarket and discount store
placed on the agenda for the Aug. 14 work session of the Planning Board.
Town Supervisor Marc R. Smith said
Tuesday that the approval process could be completed by the end of
August.
"I wish they'd kept the pedal to the
metal. They'd be done by now," Smith said, adding that he found, while
collecting signatures on his nominating petitions for re-election last
month, that the No. 1 concern of voters was getting the supercenter deal
accomplished.
Wal-Mart slammed the brakes on the
project six months ago, when it appeared to be on the brink of
long-delayed approvals from the town Planning Board and Zoning Board of
Appeals.
The reason for the delay appeared to
be objections lodged by the mall's current owner, General Growth
Properties of Chicago, to the terms of a property swap. Wal-Mart was to
buy most of the mall on South Transit Road and turn over its lease on
the existing store a quarter-mile to the south to General Growth for
reuse.
Councilman David H. Knight said in
April that General Growth raised its price for the South Transit Road
mall by $1 million. Phil Serghini, a Wal-Mart spokesman, would not
confirm the figure. At one point, Wal-Mart said it was scouting other
locations in the area in case it could not buy the virtually empty mall.
"That was always our preferred location," Serghini said Tuesday. "We do
not have a completed deal with General Growth, but we're confident we'll
have one in a couple of weeks. We're finalizing the details."
The mall situation will not change.
The Bon-Ton store there will survive the demolition of the rest of the
mall and become a stand- alone store, sharing a parking lot with the
Wal-Mart supercenter.
"That's an excellent location for us.
We will continue to stay in that mall," Bon-Ton spokesman Mary Kerr
said.
Smith said the real snarl arose when
General Growth discovered how much it would have to charge a tenant at
the old Wal-Mart store. The lease on the existing Wal-Mart, held by
Cleveland-based Developers Diversified Realty, required General Growth,
or anyone else subleasing the site, to pay rent of $7 per square foot.
"You can't get that in Lockport,"
Smith said. "The going rate in our area [for retail space] is $5 per
square foot. . . . They didn't think they could break even at $7."
"Wal-Mart will be retaining its lease
obligations at its current location after Wal-Mart has relocated to the
Lockport Mall site. Wal-Mart's Relocation Team will be seeking a new
tenant for the current store," wrote Leslie M. Senglaub, Wal-Mart's
Rochester attorney, in a letter dated July 19 to town Building Inspector
Eugene Nenni.
Senglaub wrote in her letter that the
Planning Board would have to change its report of findings on the
project to take note of the elimination of the property swap.
"I don't see any problem with putting
them back on [the agenda]," said Planning Board Chairman Richard Forsey.
"If they haven't changed any of their plans and they're still able to
change the outside of the Bon-Ton building, as General Growth was going
to do, that should go through quite smoothly."
Wal-Mart needs site plan and
special-use permit approval from the Planning Board and approval of
variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals, which next meets Aug. 28.
Smith said Wal-Mart will still be
paying for new sidewalks near the mall on Shimer Drive and Locust Street
Extension, along with improved water lines near the mall.
(C) 2007 Buffalo News. via ProQuest
Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
[back to top]
Wal-Mart CEO
Addresses Hispanic Community
Chain Store Age
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart president and CEO Lee Scott
emphasized his company's efforts in the Hispanic community during an
address to the members of the National Council of La Raza, the largest
national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United
States, at their annual meeting in Miami on Tuesday. Scott pointed out
that nearly 154,000 Hispanic associates are employed at various levels
across the company in the United States. He added that the company works
with many Hispanic suppliers, such as Gruma and La India Spices.
The Hispanic community is not only
working at Wal-Mart, Scott noted, but also shopping there. According to
Scott, 14% of the 127 million customers who shop the U.S. stores are
Hispanic. And that 14% represents strong buying power, which among
Hispanics is projected to reach nearly $1.2 trillion by 2011.
“At Wal-Mart, we believe we are
uniquely positioned to seize that opportunity and give Hispanic
Americans the shopping experience they want and deserve,” Scott said.
[back to top]
Class Action Sought on
Fuel Claim
Associated Press
07.25.07
[back to top]
OKLAHOMA CITY - Three Oklahoma County
consumers are seeking class-action status on a lawsuit that claims
they've been overcharged for gasoline because it was stored at hotter
than usual temperatures.
The lawsuit claims 13 retailers and
oil companies kept gasoline at temperatures higher than the petroleum
industry standard of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, causing the fuel to expand
and provide less energy per gallon.
"The sellers of hot motor fuel are
able to pocket these billions of additional dollars in
temperature-inflated profits merely because the fuel they are selling is
warmer than 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and customers are ignorant of the
truth," the lawsuit claims.
Defendants in the lawsuit include
7-Eleven Inc., Albertson's LLC, ConocoPhillips (nyse: COP - news -
people ) Co., Shell Oil Co., Texaco Refining and Marketing Inc. and
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news - people )
Vance McSpadden, executive director of
the Oklahoma Petroleum Marketers Association, questioned the reasoning
behind for the lawsuit.
McSpadden said gasoline is often
stored underground in tanks that generally remain around 60 degrees.
Storage tanks that are above ground are more susceptible to temperature
changes, but McSpadden said the benefit consumers get from colder
temperatures in the winter would offset the impact of warmer
temperatures in the summer.
"This is a feel-good deal for the
consumer, but I don't think there's any basis to it at all," McSpadden
said. "If there is, it's very small. It's certainly not billions of
dollars."
If the lawsuit were successful,
McSpadden said it would likely cause gasoline prices to increase because
retailers would have to install equipment to adjust the sales volume to
account for temperature variances. That cost would likely be passed on
to consumers, McSpadden said.
"This isn't against the major oil
companies," McSpadden said. "The people who are going to have to spend
money on this new equipment are individual retailers, generally
independent businessmen."
The lawsuit seeking unspecified
damages was filed by attorney Jona R. Hefner on behalf of plaintiffs
Hadley Bower, Larry O. Bower, Kristy DeAnn Mott and Oklahoma City
manufacturing company TEMCO.
"We spend a lot of money on gas," said
TEMCO manager Russ Godfrey. "Any penny we could save here or there would
be nice since gas is so expensive now."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
High costs low prices: Why Wal-Mart should not be supported
progressiveu.org
July 25th, 2007
[back to top]
When most people picture prison, they
don’t see endless shelves of food, clothing, toys, cleaning products,
and other basic household goods, but for almost two hundred and fifty
immigrants locked overnight in a Wal-Mart this was the case.Though
extreme, this is consistent with the Wal-Mart corporations focus on
money over people, the workers were shut in to do janitorial duties off
the clock.
In California there are 167 Wal-Marts,
35 Sam’s Club’s and 9 distribution centers, who knows how many people
were exploited to keep these stores running. Wal-Mart’s corrupt
corporate culture and unfair labor relations should not be supported.
Wal-Mart Inc. is the worlds largest
retailer, setting the national and international standards for the
corporate industry... According to the documentary , Wal-Mart : The High
Cost of Low Price, directed by Robert Greenwald, the five members of the
Walton family make approximately eighteen billion dollars a year each,
yet...Only one percent of their total wealth is donated to charitable
funds, Bill Gates donates fifty-eight percent. If five of the ten
wealthiest American’s don’t support charitable causes, will the next
generation of corporate executives follow in their footsteps? Likewise,
Wal-Mart employees donate more than their significantly wealthier
employers. Employees donated five million dollars to the Critical Need
Fund, established to aid fellow Wal-Mart employees in times of crisis,
the Walton family donated six thousand. If representatives of a company
as wealthy as Wal-Mart cannot demonstrate philanthropic behavior, their
business is not worth monetary support.
The corporation’s stance on safety and
security, as well as their actions to prevent it, are extremely
dangerous... Eighty percent of crimes at Wal-Mart occur in the parking
lots, and an unintentionally released crime report conducted by the
Wal-Mart corporation discovered a way to completely eliminate parking
lot crimes, at a relatively low price, but they illegally withheld this
information. Rapes, murders, abductions, could be completely eliminated
in these expansive parking lots, yet this greedy company has chosen not
to care for it’s number one priority, the customer.If the most powerful
corporation’s policy places finances over employee and customer welfare,
what kind of a message is being sent to other businesses around the
world?
Wal-Mart Inc. has done very little to
support the average employee, and has participated in some exceptionally
careless labor practices... According to wakeupwalmart.com, in 2004
Wal-Mart Inc. spent 1.5 billion dollars on healthcare, and 1.4 billion
dollars on advertising, an accurate depiction of the company’s emphasis
on healthcare. Clearly, image and revenue is as important as the health
and well being of the employees.Because a significant number of
employees cannot afford the healthcare system created by the company,
they are encouraged to go on welfare, managers are supplied with local
welfare agencies by the corporation. The amount of Wal-Mart employees
relying on welfare costs taxpayers 1.5 billion dollars nationally, and
eighty six billion dollars in California. Wal-Mart would rather have the
average citizen, who’s money they are allegedly saving, cover the health
expenses of their workers.To lower costs, Wal-Mart has purposely not
supplied it’s stores with enough money to hire an adequate amount of
workers. This has resulted in store managers using whatever means
necessary to get all tasks taken care of. In 2003 one store was found
guilty of hiring illegal immigrants, and locking them in over night to
do janitorial work. This is an extreme example of the pressure managers
are under to cut labor costs.
On walmartfacts.com, the company
claims that, "They might be right for some companies but there is simply
no need for a third party to come between our associates and their
managers," in regard to unions. This is the lighter version of their
dislike for unions, a system created to protect the American working
man. The anti-union package at each store costs seven thousand dollars,
more then they spend on security. In addition, there is a twenty-four
hour anti-union hotline and rapid response team with a corporate jet
which costs over seven million dollars. This sizable anti-union program
directly contrasts their claim that they are not anti-union. Also, it
shows that the company is well aware of it’s questionable business
practices, since the amount of money it spends to protect their image is
excessive. Though Wal-Mart contends that there main priority is to
deliver low costs to their consumer, they have done so by exploiting the
very people in which they claim to help.
One hundred and seventy six million
people shop at Wal Mart every week. The top reason people shop at
Wal-Mart is the low prices, something few companies can compete with.
Regular Wal-Mart shopper Kelly King stated " It is the employees choice
to work there," a common argument amongst shoppers. Many argue that
since there has been so much negative media concerning the company
Wal-Mart has taken steps to improve their corporation. Studies have
shown the average amount of money saved shopping at Wal-Mart does not
balance out the public expense. Also, many employees work there because
it is their only option, and because they work their they can only
afford to shop there. Much of Wal-Mart’s defense for it’s actions is
ineffectual. Since the negative press surrounding their healthcare
system was so great they have created less expensive healthcare plan.
Yet this decrease in costs of the healthcare detracts from an increase
in costs of premiums, which are between one thousand and three thousand
dollars.
To prevent the dominance of Wal-Mart’s
corrupt corporate culture and unfair labor relations support for their
company should be eliminated. A company that places finances over
employee and customer care does not deserve support. A company that’s
image outweighs the basic freedoms of our constitution does not deserve
support. A company that is extremely wealthy but donates very little
does not deserve support. We must be stronger than low prices and stop
Wal-Marts monopolization of the public, industry and economy.
[back to top]
Cities weigh effects
of big-box stores
By J.M. BROWN,
Contra Costa Times
July 25th, 2007
[back to top]
VALLEJO -- If independent business
owners in Vallejo want to halt the encroachment of "big-box stores,"
they must band together to prove why consumers lose when they support
discount retailers, advises a national expert.
Keeping out Wal-Marts and the like
requires collective marketing and lobbying of local government leaders,
said Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business
Alliance, during a presentation Monday.
Milchen's ideas resonate in Vallejo,
where groups are opposing Wal-Mart's plan for a Supercenter on the
former Kmart property on White Slough. Wal-Mart wants it to replace the
regular Wal-Mart store that is to close when American Canyon's opens
soon.
Vallejo's anti-big-box movement has
"been happening a long time," massage therapist Glynda Velasco said.
"It's a matter of being pro-active."
Vallejo is not the only local town
second-guessing the benefits of large corporate stores. Sparked by the
growth of Starbucks, Benicia also recently considered banning formula
stores. To go with Wal-Mart or to fight it is also an issue in Concord,
where the company wants to build on the north side of Highway 4.
The other side of the argument is the
sales tax revenue a large store brings to a city. The Vallejo City
Council voted last month to cut public safety and transportation to
balance a $9 million budget deficit. Critics say the city should focus
more on seeking new businesses, including corporate investments, to
increase sales tax revenue. Advertisement
Considering discounts are often the
biggest draw for big-box stores, Milchen said independent businesses
might consider creating a universal customer loyalty card program that
offers discounts or other incentives for buying from locally owned
stores.
Because small businesses "rise and
fall together," Milchen, a Montana-based consultant, told Monday's crowd
of 30 small business owners and advocates they might also think about
creating a logo or brand to display at all their stores to remind
customers of the importance of investing locally.
One activist in the Wal-Mart
controversy agreed. Residents must do more than oppose big-box
development. They have to "establish a vision of what we do want in
Vallejo," said. Joe Feller, a member of Vallejoans for Responsible
Growth.
Although big-box stores often seduce
cities with promises of new jobs and increased tax dollars, cities often
lose out in the end, said Milchen, who is touring Bay Area cities this
week and will be in Concord tonight.
Jobs and tax dollars are lost when
corporate competitors force out smaller stores or restaurants, and
cities often have to invest thousands in road and sewer improvements to
accommodate large developments, he said.
"Local life is undermined in a lot of
ways," Milchen said.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart warns two Chinese suppliers over labour practices
AFX News
July 25, 2007
[back to top]
BEIJING, Jul. 25, 2007 (AFX
International Focus) -- US retail giant Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) Stores Inc
said it has cautioned two of its Chinese suppliers amid allegations they
exploited workers.
Wal-Mart audits have detected possible
irregularities by Yue Wing Cheong Light Products and Mainland Headwear
Holdings, said Jonathan Dong, spokesman for Wal-Mart China.
The companies, both based in the
southern manufacturing centre of Shenzhen, have been ordered to issue a
report on the suspected violations within 120 days and make any
necessary changes, he added.
The companies' books showed
discrepancies between paper records of worker attendance and
computerised versions, as well as possible overtime violations, he said.
The discrepancies could be due to
either sloppy record-keeping or the deliberate employment of workers off
the official books.
'But we didn't find underage labour
violations at either factory,' Dong added.
The companies were among four accused
in June of a range of labour violations in the production of official
merchandise for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The report by the International Trade
Union Confederation said the manufacturers recruited children, flouted
health and safety standards and paid half the legal minimum wage.
Dong said its two suppliers have been
classified as 'Orange alert' vendors, part of an internal colour code
system used by Wal-Mart for suppliers whose labour practices raise
concerns.
The next alert above that is 'red',
which terminates a supplier's contract.
'The purpose is to try to help
suppliers grow,' Dong said in defending Wal-Mart's decision not to issue
a red card.
'There is a learning curve for some
suppliers. You can't just instantly disqualify them.' Representatives of
the two companies could not be immediately reached for comment.
Yue Wing Cheong supplies general
merchandise such as handbags while Mainland Headwear, whose shares are
listed in Hong Kong, produces hats and similar products.
Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart discounts
could spur price war
The retailer
applies cuts to more than 16,000 items as it tries to revive sluggish
sales.
Associated Press
July 24, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's
largest retailer, set the stage for price wars Monday as it announced
that it was cutting prices on more than 16,000 items starting this week
in a bid to turn around sales for the crucial back-to-school season.
Shares of key retailers such as Sears
Holding Corp. and J.C. Penney Co. were down as investors worried about
how ensuing price wars would affect profit margins. Wal-Mart rose 5
cents to $48.11.
Wal-Mart's price cuts, which range
from 10% to 50%, will be backed by an ad campaign on how to save money
as gas prices remain high and kids head back to school. The cuts are
deeper and involve even more items than in the year-earlier period and
top the 11,000 items discounted in advance of last year's holiday
season, spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart has
been playing up its low prices since late last year after getting hurt
by a focus on trendy merchandise in an effort to get affluent customers
to buy more than just groceries.
Although the upscale strategy worked
in electronics, it failed in home furnishings and apparel, resulting in
sluggish sales since last fall.
This fiscal year, Wal-Mart has
averaged a same-store sales gain of a meager 1%, compared with rival
Target Corp.'s 4.1% increase, according to Thomson Financial.
Same-store sales are sales at stores
open at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer's
health.
In April, Wal-Mart's same-store sales
dropped — the weakest performance since it began publishing monthly
sales in 1980.
Last year, Wal-Mart's same-store sales
averaged a 2.1% increase, and Target had a 4.9% increase.
Wal-Mart did enjoy some improvement
last month, when it posted a better-than-expected same-store sales gain
of 2.4%, indicating that its more aggressive discount strategy might be
resonating with shoppers.
"We'll provide families savings where
it counts, and continue to work closely with key suppliers, reduce
packaging and lower shipping costs as we steer this program through fall
and beyond," Bill Simon, chief operating officer of Wal-Mart Stores
U.S., said in a statement.
Retail consultant Burt Flickinger III
applauded Wal-Mart's move but noted that the jury was still out on
whether it would be effective.
"While it is a smart strategic move,
it is going to add profit margin pressure," Flickinger said. "There is
also no guarantee that it will increase customer count and sales."
Flickinger also noted that rivals such
as Target have capitalized on Wal-Mart's weakness in recent months as
the biggest retailer confused shoppers with its upscale strategy. He
also added that Wal-Mart faced increased competition from drug and
grocery chains who are aiming to get a bigger share of the
back-to-school business.
Under Wal-Mart's new pricing plan, $1
will buy four wide-ruled notebooks, two bottles of Elmer's glue and a
24-pack of crayons. A $50 budget will purchase a week's worth of school
clothes, and $80 will buy two pairs of prescription glasses at the
Wal-Mart Vision Center.
The price-cutting campaign comes as
Wal-Mart has also been making changes to its merchandising team.
The company said Friday that Claire
Watts, a top Wal-Mart apparel executive, had resigned. She had been
behind the failed makeover to trendy items from low-price basics.
As part of the changes, Wal-Mart
promoted Dottie Mattison, formerly chief merchant for Walmart.com, to
senior vice president overseeing women's apparel, jewelry, shoes and
accessories as well as product development. Mattison will be based in
the company's fashion office in New York.
[back to top]
Shame and Shoplifting at
Wal-Mart
By Pallavi Gogoi,
Business Week
July 24th, 2007
[back to top]
Earlier this year, Lisa King Fithian
entered the self-checkout lane at the Wal-Mart store in her hometown of
Attalla, Ala., with a lava lamp and a pet playpen. According to court
documents, she then failed to scan the two items, worth $26.97, to add
them to her bill and tried to leave the store. Fithian, 46, later
pleaded guilty to theft in court, although she maintained the entire
incident was a misunderstanding.
Fithian's sentence was unusual. The
local judge, Kenneth Robertson, had been thinking about shoplifting
penalties that would be different from the fines and brief jail terms,
which tend to be ineffective. He talked with the local Wal-Mart Stores
manager about having Fithian go out in public with a sign around her
neck declaring her crime. The manager, Neil Hawkins, gave the green
light. So one Saturday Fithian wore two sandwich-board signs that
declared, "I am a thief; I stole from Wal-Mart."
Since then, this town of 6,859 has
become a real-life experiment in whether shaming can reduce shoplifting.
More than 20 people have endured the modern-day version of The Scarlet
Letter in recent months. Angela Bates wore a sign in the streets after
pleading guilty to taking five tank tops, two skirts, and a pair of
shorts from the Attalla Wal-Mart. Billy Williams did, too, after
allegedly trying to take a fishing reel, lures, and hooks from the
store. And Paula Regina Cox had to face her neighbors with a shoplifting
sign when the police arrested her for allegedly taking six C Ds? worth
$99 from Wal-Mart. Fithian, Bates, and Williams could not be reached for
comment; Cox did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The placards are a sign of how much
retailers such as Wal-Mart (WMT) are struggling with theft these days.
The retail industry lost $41.6 billion to shoplifting and other fraud
last year, up 11% from the previous year. The judicial system is also
looking for alternative approaches because of the ineffectiveness of
traditional punishments and the overcrowding of U.S. jails. "The
conventional form of punishments, where shoplifting offenders pay a fine
or go to jail, don't work to the extent of the embarrassment of standing
in front of a store," says Robertson.
Shrinking Profits
Shaming punishments have been used in
other states, including California, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, and
have been applied to a variety of crimes. But Attalla's is one of the
most aggressive efforts to use shaming to deter shoplifting. Robertson
says that the problem required some creative thinking. "We have
mechanisms in place that allow a judge to send offenders to court
referral programs for DUI and offer treatments for other sorts of
crimes," he says. "But there's nothing in place for a thief, so I
decided to do my own therapy." The problem is particularly acute for
Wal-Mart. As the world's largest retailer, with $350 billion in annual
revenues, it has the most to lose from shoplifting. Its rate of
shrinkage, the industry's term of art for shoplifting and employee
theft, has long been below the industry average of roughly 1.6% of
sales. But the company has acknowledged that theft is having an
increasingly negative impact on sales and warned that its second-quarter
profit would fall at the low end of analyst expectations in part because
of the losses. Analysts estimate that Wal-Mart's shrinkage has risen
from half the industry average and is approaching 1%, with losses at
about $3 billion a year. "We are concerned about shrinkage and are
investigating the cause and are taking steps to correct it," said
Eduardo Castro-Wright, CEO of Wal-Mart Stores USA earlier this year.
Wal-Mart executives have been debating
the optimal shoplifting policies for its stores. Last year, the company
decided to give store managers the option of not prosecuting first-time
shoplifters under 18 or those who steal items valued at $25 or less. But
earlier this month, it decided to get more aggressive. The company
authorized its store managers to prosecute first-time shoplifters as
young as 16, compared with the previous limit of 18. A company
spokesman, David Tovar, says, "We [lowered our prosecution guideline] in
response to suggestions from our associates."
Technology's Limits
The challenge is in striking the right
balance between making stores welcoming and making them secure. By its
very nature, the retail business is one where companies try to create a
warm environment where shoppers can touch, feel, and try out
merchandise. Stopping customers from getting too close could end up
driving them away. "To keep shrinkage low with metal detectors and
security might be a draconian environment, like going to the airport vs.
going to the mall, which encourages shopping with its fountains and
music," says Richard Hollinger, professor of criminology at the
University of Florida, who conducted a recent survey on retail
shoplifting with the National Retail Federation. The retail industry,
from Wal-Mart and Target (TGT) to Sears Holdings (SHLD) and J.C. Penney
(JCP), has tried fighting back. In recent years, retailers have upgraded
their technology and joined a shared database with law enforcement
agencies to reduce shrinkage. But the rate of loss remains consistent.
According to the National Retail Federation/University of Florida study,
shrinkage as a percentage of sales ticked up to 1.61% last year, from
1.60% the year before. "Despite our best efforts we haven't managed to
reduce the rate of crime—and that's because we are in the business of
opening our doors to people," says Joseph La Rocca?, vice-president of
loss prevention at the National Retail Federation.
Another Progressive Move?
Attalla is a microcosm of the
challenges. The town lies 60 miles northeast of Birmingham, Ala., and
has a reputation as one of the state's more progressive towns. It claims
to have been the first U.S. city with electric streetlights. Once a
large railroad hub, Attalla has struggled in recent years. The median
household income is $28,600, about $8,000 less than the state average
and $18,000 less than the national average. And shoplifting has been on
the rise. Judge Robertson says that in the last 15 years, the number of
incidents in his municipal court has tripled. Wal-Mart, a longtime local
presence, is bearing the brunt of that. "Out of the 10 cases or so that
we handle every week, 80% takes place at Wal-Mart," says Robertson.
Since Robertson took action, he has had the whole-hearted support of
local politicians. "Shoplifting is an epidemic in large stores and
there's got to be some deterrent to the offenders and to others," says
Charles O'Rear, Attalla's mayor. "Our judge found an innovative and
effective way to make public spectacle of these thieves, and when they
decided to use this form, I endorsed it."
Questionable Efficacy
The approach is not without
controversy, though. Some critics say that wearing an embarrassing sign
amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, although the accused in Attalla
typically have the choice of wearing a sign or serving time in jail.
Other legal experts question whether the punishment is even effective.
"Judges are in a poor place to measure general deterrence, and it is
purely speculative to suggest that shaming is a marginally more
effective general deterrent than other available alternatives," says Dan
Markel, assistant professor at Florida State University College of Law.
Markel points out that in one well-known case, an offender went back to
stealing mail after having to wear a sign board that read "I stole mail.
This is my punishment." Even Wal-Mart has tried to put some distance
between itself and the practice. Although Hawkins, the local store
manager, had approved of Fithian's punishment and agreed to have her
stand outside his Wal-Mart store, headquarters wasn't sure that was such
a good idea. Immediately after Fithian's first day of shaming, Wal-Mart
said shoplifters would no longer be allowed to wear the signs on store
property. Spokesman Tovar says in a statement: "While the punishment is
likely a deterrent to shoplifting, we have communicated with the judge
that moving forward, we would prefer that these actions not be completed
on store property. We do not oppose the use of wearing the signs, but we
think it should take place on public property—like at the Courthouse—and
not on our property. We also feel that the sentence should be supervised
by law enforcement. Our associates should not be involved in that
process."
Judge Robertson is convinced that the
shaming punishments are beginning to take effect. "My job as judge is to
cause a change and try to deter such crimes from happening in the
future," he says. "When I offer them the sign in lieu of the fines, the
person always drops their head in shame and I've always felt that it's a
sign that they acknowledge something. If you pay a fine, you don't
really accept your guilt."
[back to top]
US: Wal-Mart
Cuts Prices Of Over 16,000 Items
Namnews
[back to top]
Wal-Mart has launched a major price
offensive and has said it will cut the prices of over 16,000 products
this week, as it tries to boost sales for the back-to-school shopping
season, and rebound from poor results in recent months. The retailer
also said it would launch a new advertising campaign that moves away
from its yellow "smiley-face" character and instead shows actors talking
about why they turn to Wal-Mart for low prices.
Wal-Mart is reducing prices on
back-to-school merchandise like pencils, pens and notebooks by 10-50%,
and has marked down prices on more items so far this year than at the
same point a year ago. It said it will introduce new price changes week
by week, and will focus on top brands. Bill Simon, COO of Wal-Mart's
U.S. stores, said, "We'll continue to be more aggressive on pricing and
already are working with key suppliers on upcoming plans for fall and
holiday".
[back to top]
Al Sharpton and Wal-Mart's Lee Scott allies for immigration bill
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
[back to top]
MIAMI BEACH, Florida: Civil rights
activist the Rev. Al Sharpton and Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott became unlikely
allies Tuesday in their call to revive immigration legislation as they
spoke before the largest U.S. Hispanic civil rights organization.
"Congress needs to pass a
comprehensive immigration reform bill now," said Scott, who heads the
world's largest retailer.
Scott attributed his views in part to
his Mexican-American granddaughter, who has helped him to understand
immigration as more than "simply a cerebral exercise."
But Hispanics also provide a major
part of the chain's business, roughly 14 percent and growing, Scott
acknowledged. And their relatives are increasingly shopping at Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. in countries such as Argentina and Guatemala.
Sharpton, who has often railed against
corporate America, went further in his support for a bill that would
provide a path to legalization for many of the nation's more than 12
million illegal immigrants. He denounced TV and radio shows that foster
an "us against them" mentality.
"I want to say what a lot of people
won't say. The immigration debate is not simply about border security,
it is a problem of America dealing with race," Sharpton told the
audience of more than 1,000 community, political and business leaders,
at the National Council of La Raza's annual conference.
"No one is calling for English-only
tests when it comes to fighting in Iraq," he added.
Sharpton dismissed the notion that
immigrants are taking jobs from black Americans.
"What jobs?" he demanded. "Blacks were
doubly unemployed by whites before anyone came across the border."
President George W. Bush's plan to
legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the
border and strengthening enforcement collapsed in the Senate last month.
The measure fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to reach final passage.
Three-quarters of the Senate's Republicans voted to derail the bill.
Copyright © 2007 The International
Herald Tribune
[back to top]
Wal-Mart in price-cutting
mode
No. 1 discounter,
battling gas price pressures and housing softness; cuts prices on 16,000
products ahead of back-to-school season.
By Parija B. Kavilanz,
CNNMoney.com
July 23 2007
[back to top]
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As Wal-Mart
continues to struggle with soft sales amid a housing slowdown and gas
price pressures, the retailer announced Monday that it will cut prices
further on 16,000 items this week to spur sales for the back-to-school
shopping season.
Wal-Mart (Charts, Fortune 500), the
world's largest retailer, said in a statement that it hopes to save
families with children 10 to 50 percent on school-related merchandise
through its new discounts.
Wal-Mart said its plans are based on
this year's report from the National Retail Federation, which says
families on average will spend $563.49 on school-related purchases for
their kids.
Back-to-school pricetag: $18.4B
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien told CNNMoney.com via email that
this year's back-to-school discounts "are wider than last [year's] and
very focused on name brands popular for back to school."
Further, O'Brien said the price cuts
on the 16,000 items exceeds the discounts it set on 10,000 items just
before the 2006 holiday shopping period.
"We know it's tough right now and
Americans are looking to us to provide the best value, and we will,"
Bill Simon, Wal-Mart's chief operating officer, said in a statement.
Sales of Wal-Mart stores open at least
a year, a key measure of retail performance known as same-store sales,
continue to trail same-store sales growth at its main competitor Target
(Charts, Fortune 500), the No. 2 discounter.
Although Target is in the same
discount category as Wal-Mart, its sales haven't been hit as hard as
Wal-Mart's in recent months because Target appeals to slightly
higher-income shoppers whose disposable incomes are less affected by gas
price swings.
Wal-Mart 'killer' machine set to
strike again However, Wal-Mart surprised its detractors last month with
better-than-expected June same-store sales, helped by strong demand for
its expanded array of name-brand electronics, including the newly
launched Dell computers and other flat panel televisions.
No doubt, Wal-Mart is eager to keep
fueling last month's sales momentum heading into the important
back-to-school sales season, which typically the second most-important
selling season after the fourth-quarter holiday period.
"Some of this is publicity on
Wal-Mart's part," Richard Hastings, chief retail analyst with Bernard
Sands. "One the other hand, the lower one-third of consumers are
experiencing less buying power because of higher gas prices, paying more
for healthcare and childcare. Wal-Mart smells blood and it is responding
to their diminishing purchasing power."
"Wal-Mart is definitely getting more
aggressive on pricing. It's hitting hard on prices to drive traffic to
drive its sales," said another analyst who did not want to be named.
At the same time, Hastings said it's
getting harder for Wal-Mart to be price competitive. "Prices are falling
everywhere in the mass market so it has to try even harder to keep its
lower price leadership position."
As part of the new price rollbacks,
Wal-Mart said it offer customers 4 wide ruled notebooks for $1, $2 for a
10-pack of No.#2 pencils, 2-pack erasers and 10-pack Bic pens, a Texas
Instrument or Casio scientific calculator for $10 and a week's worth of
school clothes for $50.
The retailer said in a statement it
will change prices on a weekly basis, "depending on the seasonal need,"
and the top brands that customers want
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Launches
Price-Cutting Plan
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO
Associated Press
07.23.07
[back to top]
NEW YORK - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the
world's largest retailer, said Monday it is cutting prices on more than
16,000 items starting this week in a bid to turn around sales for the
critical back-to-school season.
The price cuts, which range from 10
percent to 50 percent, will be backed by a new ad campaign on how to
save money as gas prices remain high and kids head back to school. The
cuts are deeper and involve even more items than in the year-ago period
and top the 11,000 items discounted right before last year's holiday
season kicked off, according to Melissa O'Brien, a company spokeswoman.
Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people )
has been playing up its low prices since late last year after getting
hurt by a focus on trendy merchandise in an effort to get affluent
customers to buy more than just groceries. While the upscale strategy
worked in electronics,such as $1,000 flat-panel TVs, it failed in home
furnishings and apparel, resulting in sluggish sales since last fall.
So far this fiscal year, Wal-Mart has
averaged a same-store sales gain of a meager 1 percent, compared to
rival Target Corp. (nyse: TGT - news - people )'s 4.1 percent increase,
according to Thomson First Call.
Same-store sales are sales at stores
open at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer's
health.
In April, Wal-Mart's same-store sales
dropped - the weakest performance since it began publishing monthly
sales in 1980.
Last year, Wal-Mart's same-store sales
averaged a 2.1 percent increase, while Target had a 4.9 percent
increase.
Wal-Mart did enjoy some improvement
last month when it posted a better-than-expected same-store sales gain
of 2.4 percent, indicating that its more aggressive discount strategy
may be resonating with shoppers.
"We'll provide families savings where
it counts, and continue to work closely with key suppliers, reduce
packaging and lower shipping costs as we steer this program through fall
and beyond," Bill Simon, chief operating officer, Wal-Mart Stores U.S.,
said in a statement.
Under Wal-Mart's new pricing plan, $1
will be able to buy 4 wide ruled notebooks, 2 bottles Elmer's glue (4
oz.) and a 24-pack of crayons. A $50 budget will be able to purchase a
week's worth of school clothes, and $80 will buy two pair of
prescription glasses at the Wal-Mart Vision Center.
The price cutting campaign comes as
Wal-Mart has also been making changes to its merchandising team. The
company said on Friday that Claire Watts, a top Wal-Mart apparel
merchant, has resigned. The executive had been behind the failed
makeover to trendy items from low-price basics.
As part of the changes, Wal-Mart
promoted Dottie Mattison, formerly chief merchant for Walmart.com, to
senior vice president overseeing women's apparel, jewelry, shoes and
accessories as well as product development. Mattison will be based in
the company's trend office in New York City.
Wal-Mart share rose 6 cents to $48.12
in early afternoon trading.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Large retailer faces lawsuit: Case claims Wal-Mart’s leases to
optometrists are illegal
By Lynn Larowe ,
texarkanagazette.com
July 22nd, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart is being sued for allegedly
violating Texas law in its dealings with optometrists who lease space.
“It’s not reasonable and it’s illegal,” said Mark Burgess of the
Texarkana law firm Crisp, Boyd, Poff and Burgess. “They should not have
any influence over the days and hours these doctors work.” Optometrist
offices located next door to Wal-Marts are leased from Wal-Mart for a
percentage of the doctor’s monthly earnings. The leases Wal-Mart uses
have a section where doctors must fill in the hours they will work each
day of the week. One former Wal-Mart optometrist testified in a
deposition that he was given the hours and days he had to fill in on his
lease by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart will not sign the lease unless the hours and
days the doctor will operate are filled in, Burgess said. Burgess says,
as a lease holder, Wal-Mart’s concern should be limited to how much rent
they receive per square foot and whether the premises are being
adequately maintained. Doctors cannot work for anyone other than
themselves or another doctor.
The offices come fully furnished with
the necessary equipment in place. The businesses must have separate
entrances because Texas is a “two door state,” where there must be a
literal wall of separation, according to the Texas Optometry Act. After
an optometrist has been in business next to a Wal-Mart for a couple of
years, pressure to increase hours and days worked is exerted with the
threat of a lease cancellation for noncompliance, court documents say.
Burgess recently negotiated an undisclosed settlement agreement for
Texarkana optometrist Brad Aaron in federal court in the Eastern
District of Texas. A second suit filed by Burgess and two Corpus Christi
lawyers, Buddy Bell and Tony Canales, names Doris Forte and “others
similarly situated.” This lawsuit was filed in federal court in the
Southern District of Texas. Burgess says he hopes the judge presiding in
Forte’s case will certify the suit as a class action.
“We’ve chosen the class method because
that’s the only way we can protect the doctors who are still there,”
Burgess said. Forte’s suit, much like Aaron’s, alleges Wal-Mart
threatens to cancel leases if doctors don’t increase the hours and days
they work. Texas law explicitly prohibits a money-making operation like
Wal-Mart from influencing the hours, times and appointment schedules of
optometrists. Texas is the only state with such a law on the books. The
law describes its purpose as protection of the public’s visual health,
by not allowing money to come between a patient and optometrists.
Tennessee has a similar statute but it does not give as much latitude
for relief from the courts as the Texas Optometry Act does.
According to depositions and other
court documents, Wal-Mart allegedly leaves alone the recently recruited
optometrist for a couple of years before applying the pressure to work
more. Doctors are often recruited straight out of optometry school and
lease the turn-key operations from Wal-Mart as a means by which to start
a practice in a location where a steady stream of customers is
guaranteed. “It was not in our best interest to tell doctors this was
what would happen over the years,” said a former Wal-Mart optical
division employee Shawna Ledsome. Doctors who lease from Wal-Mart don’t
sell glasses and contact lenses. They perform eye exams and write the
prescriptions necessary for a patient to get the corrective eye
equipment. Wal-Mart has house vision centers where the prescriptions can
be filled. Many customers of optometrists next to a Wal-Mart enjoy the
convenience of simply walking next door to get their glasses or
contacts. Walk-ins to Wal-Mart vision centers are often directed to the
optometrist’s office next door if they have no prescription.
According to court records on the
cases, Wal-Mart employees working in the vision department as statewide
and regional managers and recruiters are allowing doctors to develop new
practices and then applying pressure to increase hours and days in the
office, the suit alleges. Some doctors practicing a stone’s throw from a
Wal-Mart are open seven days a week. Most start at five days a week and
are gradually and inevitably influenced by Wal-Mart employees who warn
of having to start a practice elsewhere while enduring the strain of a
change in income. “The threat to take away quality of life was
substantial,” Ledsome said in her deposition. In a deposition of Ledsome
by Burgess and a Wal-Mart lawyer, Jim E. Cowles of Dallas, Ledsome says
staff knew they were breaking the law, yet continued. Cowles did not
return a call to his office Friday.
“We just hoped we wouldn’t get
caught,” she said. Ledsome says her boss, Mike Morry, wasn’t worried
when he was informed a doctor had threatened to sue. “He said we’re
stronger than he is, we’re bigger than he is, he’s going to bend to us.”
Forte and Aaron have both ended their associations with Wal-Mart.
Burgess says Forte’s suit, if won as a class action, could mean
judgments for many Texas Wal-Mart optometrists, even if they aren’t
specifically named in court documents. Forte’s suit asks that Wal-Mart
be prevented from continuing the practice of pressuring optometrists to
work more and more hours by court order. The suit also seeks damages and
the recovery of attorney’s fees and court costs.
“We have found the optometrists across
the state are a hard-working group of professionals,” Burgess said. “If
this continues, patients will suffer right along with the doctors.” The
pressure to see more patients by working more hours on more days of the
week may mean doctors spend less time with patients, reducing the
quality of care the patients receive, Burgess said. “They’re your eyes,”
Burgess said. “You only have two of them.”
[back to top]
COVER STORY : better Is
bigger ?
By STEVE PAINTER ,
nwa news
July 22nd, 2007
[back to top]
Twenty years ago, No. 2 U. S. retailer
Kmart had its sights set on overtaking No. 1 Sears as No. 3 Wal-Mart
continued to expand its then-regional base. Today, Kmart and Sears are
under the same umbrella, Sears Holding Co., and in the No. 6 spot among
U. S. retailers. Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is No. 1 and
nobody else is even close. Being No. 1 is good. It can also be hard to
sustain over the long haul. Ask the folks at A&P, the oncedominant
supermarket chain that has slipped to No. 21 among food retailers, a
list Wal-Mart also now tops. Or the folks at the former Sears, Roebuck &
Co., who sat atop the retail world for years with their combination of
catalog sales, Main Street stores and, eventually, mall-anchor stores.
Being No. 1 entitles you to be the most-copied player in your field; the
target of groups that contend you’re a big part of what’s wrong with the
world; and the object of complaints from investors who don’t understand
why you can’t seem to do anything right anymore. “You are everybody in
the world’s favorite target,” said Ryan Matthews, founder and chief
executive of Black Monk Consulting in Eastpointe, Mich. “They [Wal-Mart
] do something, everybody on the planet is looking at them. If they have
a good idea, the competition will immediately copy them.” Depending on
how you figure it, Wal-Mart last year accounted for 7. 5 percent of all
U. S. retail sales or, if you don’t include cars, gasoline and
restaurant food, 15. 3 percent of retail sales. Its nearest retail
competitor, The Home Depot Inc., generated about onefourth of Wal-Mart’s
sales and doesn’t go head-to-head with No. 1 on all that many product
lines. Nos. 2 through 6 combined came up more than $ 20 billion short of
Wal-Mart’s sales last year. “I think of Wal-Mart as a phenomenon in and
of itself,” said Claudia Mobley, director of the Center for Retailing
Excellence at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. “They get
lambasted by the [retail ] analysts because they’re not making their
[sales ] numbers, but the difference between No. 1 and No. 2 is bigger
than it’s ever been.” The center is at the Sam M. Walton College of
Business. He’s the guy who built this retail phenomenon. “Speaking
generally about size,” said Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley, “size
affords us certain unique strengths that we can employ to help people
save money so they can live better. They enable us to work more
effectively with vendors to reduce packaging, improve products and
develop efficiencies to lower prices.” And with size comes
responsibility, Simley added, “which is why Wal-Mart is the largest
charitable benefactor in America.” “And the experience of [Hurricane ]
Katrina is a very good demonstration of that. We delivered food, water
and clothes to families who had lost everything, and they had nowhere
else to turn.” WAL-MART FACT: If Wal-Mart’s employees all lived in the
same place, they would make up the fifth-largest city in the United
States, behind Houston and ahead of Phoenix. If Target Corp. ’s
employees had their own city, it would be a bit smaller than Wichita,
Kan. An advertising agency Wal-Mart hired last year appeared to gloat
about scoring such a huge account with an ad about itself proclaiming,
“It’s good to be on top.” Wal-Mart soon fired that agency, citing
reasons other than the ad, but the message rings true, retailing experts
say. Because of its size and retailing clout, Wal-Mart has been able to
consistently obtain tangible concessions from suppliers, said Peter
Fader, professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School of Business. “It’s also fair to say, power doesn’t come
strictly because of size, it’s because of competence,” he said. “It’s
not like they were born the 900-pound gorilla. They had to earn it.”
Matthews said that, being the biggest, Wal-Mart places the biggest
orders, making them “everybody’s most important customer and, in some
cases, the only important customer.” The company blazed a new path on
radio-frequency identification technology for product tracking and
implemented other changes to streamline its supply chain, such as
requiring vendors to have information systems that mesh with Wal-Mart’s.
“That was not negotiable,” Matthews said. “There’s no question that
Wal-Mart has used its clout to drive certain industry practices.” Other
retailers, he noted, improved their efficiency as a result of logistics
innovations demanded by Wal-Mart. The scale at which Wal-Mart operates
gives it the ability to deliver products at previously unreachable
prices and still make money, said Don Delzell, a partner in the
consulting firm Retail Advantage of Redondo Beach, Calif. He contends
that Wal-Mart was solely responsible for bringing the price of flatpanel
T Vs? down to a level its working class customers could afford. That
same scale means no other large retailer can go head-to-head with
Wal-Mart on price, he said. “No one will be as good as they are at
leveraging overhead, building and sustaining a supply chain, and
merchandising,” he said. “You cannot match them. You cannot undercut
Wal-Mart, unless Wal-Mart allows you to undercut.” WAL-MART FACT: The
Pentagon in Arlington, Va., home to the U. S. Department of Defense,
covers 6. 5 million square feet and is the workplace of 26, 000 people.
Wal-Mart’s retail space is the equivalent of 127 Pentagons. Delzell’s
specialty is merchandise strategy. Wal-Mart’s size, he said, is a huge
advantage across many categories, such as televisions, camping gear or
paper towels. It’s a disadvantage, he said, as the giant retailer tries
to match its home decor and clothing offerings to customer lifestyles
that vary across the country — products that relate to how people view
themselves and how they want to be viewed. A drill that works for $ 20
works anywhere, he said, but a casual shirt for $ 20 won’t be a hit in
every market. Clothes and home decor choices are based more on emotion
and matters of taste, said Patricia Edwards, a fund manager with Hauser
& Violich in Seattle. “A mower doesn’t necessarily say a lot about who
you are. Your home and your clothes do,” she said. Simley, the Wal-Mart
spokesman, countered that taste is “as individual as each customer, but
it’s true with most product categories, not just home and apparel.”
Wal-Mart’s struggles in those categories show up repeatedly in sales
reports. The company has embarked on a “customer segmentation” strategy,
seeking to tailor different mixes of products to different geographic
regions and income levels. Delzell finds those efforts are not specific
enough to make a difference. The company failed in its effort to develop
trend analysis at the regional level, he said. The people in the field
didn’t have the necessary training, he said, and buyers didn’t pay
attention to what the research showed. “Every effort they’ve made to
change their approach to that has failed,” he said. Edwards said
Wal-Mart’s store-of the-community push, aimed at refining product
offerings based on local preferences, is a step in the right direction
and credits the efforts of Eduardo Castro-Wright, head of the Wal-Mart
stores division. “I think he understands the problem, but it’s a
difficult thing to get,” she said. Added Delzell: “Nobody’s done it
really well.” Simley responded that Wal-Mart is about halfway into its
three-year store of-the-community initiative. And so far, “the
indications are the customers recognize and appreciate the efforts to
make the stores even more relevant to their needs.” Carol Spieckerman, a
Bentonville based consultant who works with Wal-Mart vendors, said
vendors need to take the initiative to get the right products to the
right places. Because Wal-Mart does not have regional buyers, she said,
the door is open for vendors to help determine the right products for
the right stores. “It’s sort of manage or be managed,” said Spieckerman,
a partner in newmarketbuilders. Matthews sees other pitfalls in
Wal-Mart’s size that are difficult for the company to overcome. In a
given market, he said, they might quickly drain the low-pay retail labor
pool, hiring workers who didn’t initially make the second or third cut
and, in some cases, hiring back people who quit or were fired. “That
really doesn’t happen,” Simley said. He pointed out the retailer gets
thousands of qualified applicants for just a few hundred jobs. Matthews
said it’s even harder trying to effect change throughout such a large
organization. Huge companies tend to resist change, he said, which means
they can’t attract change agents to the company. However, Simley said,
“We still live by Sam Walton’s credo, that everything around us is
always changing, and that to succeed, we have to stay out in front of
that change. Just walking through a store today, you can see evidence of
that.” One attempt at change last year turned sour for Wal-Mart: hiring
high-profile advertising executive Julie Roehm. She was gone by year’s
end, fired for alleged misconduct and violation of company policies. The
two sides are battling in court. WAL-MART FACT: Home Depot, Kroger,
Costco, Target and Sears / Kmart combined generated less sales revenue
last year than Wal-Mart. But, collectively, they made more money. Some
speculation in the retail world is that Wal-Mart needs to get smaller —
in format — to keep getting bigger. Dollar stores have found a sizable
customer base below Wal-Mart’s price levels, in a format that takes less
time to shop. Tesco PLC, the United Kingdom’s largest retailer, is
entering the U. S. market this year with small-scale stores in the West
that will offer fresh and prepared foods in addition to the convenience
of getting in and out quickly. “I think it’s real important for them
[Wal-Mart ] to have something credible in that general area,” said
Fader, the University of Pennsylvania marketing professor. Wal-Mart has
nothing as small as Tesco’s planned format in the United States. Its
international operations, however, include a wide variety of sizes, some
of them quite small by the company’s U. S. standards. Nine years ago,
Wal-Mart opened its first Neighborhood Market, a traditional-size
supermarket without all the general merchandise of a supercenter. Since
then, it has added only 117. The company plans to open 15 to 20
Neighborhood Markets this year. Simley said Wal-Mart doesn’t comment on
other companies such as Tesco, but added, “Our business is always
evolving, and we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to serve
a new and increasingly diverse customer.” Despite its enormous size, and
its saturation of some markets, Wal-Mart will be under pressure to grow
even more, Matthews said. “No publicly held company ever told Wall
Street, ‘ We’re big enough, ’” he said.
[back to top]
Mid-Michigan Wal-Mart
evacuated
By Gabe Gutierrez ,
WJRT
July 22nd, 2007
[back to top]
A gas leak forced hundreds of
customers and employees to evacuate a Mid-Michigan Wal-Mart on Sunday
afternoon.
It happened around 3:00 p.m. at the
Wal-Mart Supercenter on Saginaw Street in Grand Blanc Township.
Grand Blanc fire crews responded to a
gas leak near the back of the store in a stock room.
Witnesses say a forklift accidentally
smashed into a heater and ruptured a gas line. Management then evacuated
the building and employees had to wait outside for about an hour and a
half. Nobody was injured. But some employees tell us they were waiting
to be tested for carbon monoxide poisoning just in case. Those employees
said it was not the way they expected to spend their Sunday afternoon.
We tried to speak with Wal-Mart
management about the situation. They're keeping quiet, saying they need
to speak with the corporate office first.
Things were mostly back to normal
around 6:00 p.m. and customers were allowed to walk in the store.
[back to top]
USA : Wal-Mart
apparel top-brass resigns
By fiber2fashion.com
July 21st, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc revealed that
Executive Vice President for apparel merchandising, Claire Watts,
resigned on Thursday so as to “pursue other interests”.
This announcement came after the
Company’s shift from low-priced clothing to fashion wear, failed to
improve garment sales.
Spokeswoman said that Watts, who
joined Wal-Mart in 1997, will officially leave Bentonville, Ark.,
retailer next week.
Chief Merchant for Walmart.com, Dottie
Mattison, has now been promoted to Senior Vice President for women's
apparel, jewelry, shoes and accessories as well as product development.
Mattison will directly report to Chief Merchandising Officer, John
Fleming.
Experts believe that the low apparel
sales, which make up for Wal-Mart’s 10-15 percent share, are the main
cause of loss at same-store results, since last fall.
Many analysts further opine that the
recent changes in top management are part of Company’s efforts to revive
overall sales.
[back to top]
Not copying
Wal-Mart pays off for grocery chains
By GARY McWILLIAMS,
Kansas City Star
July 21st, 2007
[back to top]
“They can’t put cookie-cutter stores
out there anymore.” Sandra J. Skrovan, senior vice president at TNS
Retail Forward
After years of decline brought on by
fighting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on price, the nation’s grocery chains are
on the mend.
The supermarkets are winning back
shoppers by sharpening their differences with Wal-Mart’s supercenters,
stressing less-hectic stores with exotic or difficult-to-match products,
and greater convenience.
Last year, sales at supermarkets open
at least a year rose 4 percent, the biggest increase in five years,
according to retail consultants TNS Retail Forward. While the gains are
modest, the supermarkets got more good news recently when Wal-Mart
announced it would cut back on new supercenter openings for the next
several years.
Earlier this decade, the hidebound
supermarket business was expected to fall before Wal-Mart’s supercenter
rollout and the rise of membership clubs like Costco Wholesale Corp. and
high-end specialty chains like Whole Foods Market. Many chains did
collapse — 26 filed for bankruptcy this decade — and a wave of
consolidation swept the business. But the survivors rallied by
redesigning stores, introducing a more relaxed shopping experience, and
marrying low-priced staples with higher-margin breads, meats and wine.
Now, the stronger chains like TheKroger Co. and SuperValu Inc. are
taking market share from weaker, often regional, grocers.
Supermarkets have begun to attract new
investment. Hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management LP recently joined
two retailers in acquiring Albertsons, and Britain’s Tesco PLC is
expected to begin rolling out 100 U.S. stores in the Southwest this
year. TheGreat Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., once a symbol of the big
chains’ decline, recently acquired rival Pathmark Stores Inc. for $700
million.
Many of the chains are still learning
to sidestep Wal-Mart. They are cutting back on drugs and health and
beauty products, which are Wal-Mart strengths, to stress fresh produce,
higher-quality meat and easy-to-prepare foods. Subdued lighting and
high-end selections buttress the nonsupercenter experience.
Instead of aisles with common brands,
the supermarkets are adding tables providing ingredients for planned
meals, luring the customer who shops for dinner instead of stocking up
on groceries weekly, said Paul Weitzel, managing partner at grocery
consultants Willard Bishop LLC.
Safeway Inc. has converted about half
of its 1,755 stores into “Lifestyle” markets with wood floors, on-site
bakeries and high-end private-label brands. The third-largest food
retailer after Wal-Mart and Kroger, it expects to convert all its stores
by 2009.
Safeway has also invested in precise
temperature controls for its produce and other perishable foods as they
move from suppliers to stores. And it strives to find food its
competitors don’t offer, said Steven A. Burd, Safeway’s chairman. For
instance, it worked with growers to get individual-sized watermelons two
years before others. It also works with a single meat supplier to offer
its own brand of tenderness-tested beef.
Kroger has an outlet for every
consumer: urban no-frills stores that stock a limited set of groceries
at ultra-low prices, conventional supermarkets and larger stores with
housewares, and stores aimed at upper-crust shoppers that offer more
produce and prepared foods. David B. Dillon, Kroger’s chief executive
officer, estimated the chain gained share last year in 26 of the 32
areas where it competed against supercenters.
Becoming more competitive on price has
meant skimpier margins. Kroger’s gross margin, or profit after product
costs, slumped to 24.5 percent at the end of last year from 27.7 percent
at the end of fiscal 2001. Safeway’s gross margin was 28.8 percent last
year, down from 31.1 percent in 2002.
Wal-Mart hasn’t lost its zeal for the
food business. Last year it opened 276 supercenters, helping boost its
share of the U.S. grocery business by one percentage point, to 15.3
percent (19 percent including its Sam’s Club wholesale unit), according
to a JPMorgan estimate.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's Fashion Maven Departs As Trendy Merchandise Languishes
By Ylan Q. Mui,
Washington Post
July 21st, 2007
[back to top]
The Wal-Mart executive who tried to
dress up the no-frills discount retailer in skinny jeans and sateen
bedsheets has resigned, the company said yesterday, after shoppers
failed to respond to the trendy new merchandise.
Claire A. Watts, executive vice
president of apparel merchandising, will leave her post next week to
pursue "other career interests," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark said.
Watts joined the company in 1997 as divisional merchandise manager of
product development and became a vice president two years later.
Her departure highlights the troubles
that have befallen Wal-Mart's foray into fashion. The strategy was
intended to attract more affluent shoppers and encourage existing
customers to buy more than cheap toilet paper and laundry detergent. But
the company moved too quickly, suffering from distribution troubles and
poor response in the nation's heartland. Sales at stores open at least a
year, a key measure of health in retail, have been tepid, with apparel
and home sales dragging down performance.
Charles Grom, an analyst with J.P.
Morgan Securities, estimated that clothing accounts for 10 to 15 percent
of Wal-Mart's total sales. In a research note yesterday, he called
Watts's departure and the installation of her replacements "long
overdue."
"We think that the changes . . . are
steps in the right direction," he wrote.
Watts had been a rising star at
Wal-Mart. Under her tenure, the folksy retailer with headquarters in
Bentonville, Ark., opened an office in New York to stay abreast of
developments in fashion and design. She helped oversee the debut of the
chain's hip Metro 7 clothing line in fall 2005 that was advertised in a
glossy spread in Vogue magazine. Watts received the Sam M. Walton Hero
Award and the Sam M. Walton Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the highest
internal honor given to the company's senior management. She has been
named one of Fortune magazine's 50 most influential women in business.
"Claire is a talented merchant," Clark
said. "The company continues to move in the right direction, and much of
that credit goes to Claire."
But Wal-Mart's gamble on fashion
hasn't paid off. Last fall, chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. said
Wal-Mart had introduced its Metro 7 line too quickly. The clothes were
in 1,500 Wal-Mart stores across the country. Company officials said
Metro 7 was more suited to just 600 locations, mainly on the coasts.
In January, the retailer announced a
reorganization of top management as part of a three-year plan to boost
sales and profitability under Eduardo Castro-Wright, president of the
company's U.S. stores. The move stripped Watts of her responsibility for
home goods.
Clark said she could not provide
additional comments about the reason for Watts's departure or her
severance package. Watts's duties will be split between Mark Larsen, who
oversaw merchandise for babies, children and men, and Dottie Mattison,
who worked for Walmart.com.
Marshal Cohen, a senior analyst with
consumer research firm NPD Group, said Watts's departure did not mean
that fashion was dead at Wal-Mart. But he said the retailer needed to
refocus on the desires of its core customers rather than chase after
trendsetters.
"It's more than just one individual
leader can really do," he said. "It's going to take a whole cultural
change."
[back to top]
Hualian
denies Wal-Mart bid report
By Jiang Jingjing
China Daily
2007-07-21
[back to top]
Beijing Hualian, one of China's
biggest retail groups, has denied a published report that it is in talks
with hypermarket giant Wal-Mart on a possible takeover bid.
Britain's Daily Telegraph reported
that Wal-Mart has asked advisers at investment bank Credit Suisse to
draw up plans to buy all or part of the Beijing-based retailer.
The newspaper cited an anonymous
inside source that said the two parties have held preliminary talks and
both have been "looking hard" at the possible deal.
A Wal-Mart booth at an exhibition in
Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan Province. Sha Lang
But Beijing Hualian's spokeswoman Li
Yiping fimly denied the report. "We do not have such moves (underway
with Wal-Mart)," she told China Daily.
Dong Yuguo, spokesman for Wal-Mart
China said corporate policy does not allow him to comment on media
reports or market speculation.
One expert said it is unlikely that
Wal-Mart would seek local acquisitions at this stage. "It is too early
for Wal-Mart to do so in China," said Wang Yao, deputy secretary-general
of China General Chamber of Commerce.
Wang said the US firm is at the phase
of laying a solid foundation in China, so developing on its own is the
right strategy at the moment.
Wang also noted that management models
for local retailers are very different from international giants like
Wal-Mart, so mergers and acquisitions carry many potential risks.
Wal-Mart announced in February that it
would acquire 35 percent of Taiwanese chain operator Bounteous Company
Ltd (BCL), the owner of Trust-Mart. The deal also includes an option
that allows the US company to possibly become the dominant shareholder
under certain conditions.
Dong told China Daily that the
partnership with Trust-Mart has gone smoothly. "Trust-Mart is a very
good company. We have a lot to learn from each other."
BCL operates 101 hypermarkets in 34
Chinese cities, all still under the Trust-Mart name. Wal-Mart, which
entered the Chinese market in 1996, now has over 70 stores in the
country that employ more than 37,000 people
Beijing Hualian is partly owned by
Beijing municipal government and has some of its shares listed in
Shanghai. Analysts estimate the firm's value exceeds $1 billion.
The local company recently formed a
50-50 joint venture with Taiwan-based Shin Kong Mitsukoshi to open the
luxury department store Shin Kong Place in Beijing's central business
district.
[back to top]
Top Wal-Mart apparel merchant resigns as Wal-Mart struggles to
reinvigorate sales
The Associated Press
Published: July 20, 2007
[back to top]
NEW YORK — Claire Watts, a top
Wal-Mart apparel merchant, has resigned as the world's largest retailer
struggles to reinvigorate its fashion business. The executive had been
behind a failed makeover to trendy items from low-price basics.
Watts, executive vice president of
apparel merchandising at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., resigned Thursday to
"pursue other interests," according to Sarah Clark, a spokeswoman for
the world's largest retailer said Friday.
Watts will officially leave the
Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer next week, Clark said. Watts was not in
the office and was unavailable for comment.
As part of the changes, Wal-Mart
promoted Dottie Mattison, formerly chief merchant for Walmart.com, to
senior vice president over women's apparel, jewelry, shoes and
accessories as well as product development. Mattison, who had worked for
Gap Inc. for 12 years, will report directly to John Fleming, chief
merchandising officer. Mattison will be based out of the company's
fashion office in New York City.
Mark Larsen, general merchandising
manager of men's and children's apparel, who used to report to Watts,
will now report to Fleming.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart plots
bid for Chinese retail giant
By Mark Kleinman
20/07/2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's $1bn bid for Chinese retail
giant Wal-Mart facts Wal-Mart: a history Wal-Mart is examining a deal to
invest in one of China's biggest retail groups in a move that would
dramatically expand its presence in the world's most populous country,
The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Wal-Mart operates about 70 stores in
China
The Arkansas-based company has asked a
team of advisers at Credit Suisse, the investment bank, to draw up plans
to buy part or all of Beijing Hualian, a hypermarket operator which owns
scores of stores in the capital and other cities across China.
The two sides are believed to have
held some preliminary talks about a deal, although it was unclear what
stage these negotiations had reached.
One person familiar with the situation
said Wal-Mart may decide not to go ahead with an investment in Beijing
Hualian but added: "They have been looking hard at this."
Analysts speculated that Beijing
Hualian, which is part-owned by Beijing's municipal government and has
some of its shares listed in Shanghai, would be worth well over $1bn.
One of the company's most senior
executives, Yves Chen, quit earlier this year to run the Chinese
operations of the American retailer Home Depot.
If Wal-Mart does proceed with a formal
offer to invest in the Chinese group, it would greatly accelerate its
growth prospects there.
Wal-Mart operates about 70 of its own
hypermarkets in the country, although a deal signed in February to
acquire 35pc of the owner of Trust-Mart, a Taiwanese-founded chain, gave
it a stake in a further 100 outlets.
Other foreign retailers, including
Tesco and the French group Carrefour, have also invested heavily in
China in recent years.
A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company
had "made no announcement about any deal" and refused to comment
further. Beijing Hualian could not be reached for comment.
Wal-Mart's interest in Beijing Hualian
has also emerged at a time of rising tension between the US and China
over a host of trade issues, including the safety of Chinese exports and
the Asian country's massive trade surplus.
Wal-Mart has come under intense fire
from pressure groups which have branded it "anti-US" over its reliance
on Chinese-manufactured goods.
Information appearing on
telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and
must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full
copyright statement see Copyright
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to Double Stores
in China
Chain Store Age
Thursday, July 19, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores plans to more than
double its stores in China in the next five years to tap into the
growing personal wealth of the country's 1.3 billion people, according
to a report by Bloomberg. The expansion will help the company broaden
its reach beyond its current 84 stores across 46 Chinese cities into
smaller cities, where competition is less fierce, the report said.
Wal-Mart expects the growth to help it garner 20% of China's retail
market.
Wal-Mart has opened 12 stores in
mainland China so far this year, on track to beat 2006 openings of 15,
the company said. The retailer sped up its expansion earlier this year
by acquiring a 35% stake in China's Trust-Mart. Wal-Mart said at the
time that the move may lead to its taking ownership control of
Trust-Mart's more than 100 hypermarkets.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to sell
$298 back-to-school PC
By Jose Vilches,
TechSpot.com
Published: July 19, 2007
[back to top]
The back-to-school season is just
starting, and with it many PC vendors are looking to get a jump on the
lucrative shopping season. This Wednesday, retailing giant Wal-Mart
began selling a $298 system from Everex which sports Windows Vista Home
Basic, OpenOffice 2.2, and is reportedly bloatware-free.
The Everex Impact GC3502 features the
energy-efficient 1.5GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM, a VIA
Chrome9 HC IGP graphic card, Realtek High-Definition Audio, 10/100
Ethernet LAN, 6 USB ports, Microphone and headphone jack, as well as
VGA, Ethernet and RJ-11 ports. Keyboard, mouse and stereo speakers are
also included. It does not include a monitor, though.
Obviously, the system is not likely to
entice gamers and enthusiasts. However, budget-conscious shoppers
needing to manage their email, surf the Web, listen to music, and do
basic productivity tasks, will welcome the Everex’s PC.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart plans big
expansion in China
By Jean Loo and
Dune Lawrence
Bloomberg News
Thursday, July 19, 2007
[back to top]
SINGAPORE: Wal-Mart Stores, the
world's biggest retailer, plans to more than double its stores in China
in the next five years.
The expansion will help the
Bentonville, Arkansas-based company broaden its reach beyond its 84
stores across 46 Chinese cities. Wal-Mart expects to have a 20 percent
share of the country's retail market with the expansion, said Terrence
Cullen, the vice president of China operations.
"To date, no real market leader has
emerged and our eyes are on market leadership of some sort," Cullen said
in an interview Thursday in Singapore. "What we'll see is aggressive
organic growth, probably accelerating each year over the next few
years."
Wal-Mart is considering buying all or
part of Beijing Hualian Hypermarket, the Daily Telegraph in Britain
reported Thursday, citing unidentified people close to the talks.
Hualian officials could not be reached
for comment. Wal-Mart agreed to buy a stake in the Chinese retailer
Trust-Mart in February.
"The quickest way to do it is to buy
into local retailers. It all depends on what price they have to pay for
it," said Anthony Teoh, a Hong Kong-based analyst who covers retailers
at South China Finance & Management.
"When you're looking at the valuations
in the retail sector, foreigners have to pay pretty steep prices at the
moment."
Overseas retailers have been expanding
in China as the nation opens its domestic market to foreign competition.
Per-capita disposable income in towns and cities rose 12.1 percent last
year and China's retail sales increased 14 percent.
"Retail demand is growing," said Paul
Tang, chief economist at Bank of East Asia.
"Retailers are responding to the
Chinese government's 11th five-year plan to bolster consumer demand. The
overall economy growth is also quite good, and it all helps to increase
consumer confidence."
Wal-Mart faces rising competition as
growth in China draws more retailers. Carrefour, Europe's largest
retailer, this month increased its target for new stores in China, where
it plans to open 20 to 25 outlets a year, up from the previous forecast
of 20.
China's share of world consumer
spending may almost triple to 14.1 percent by 2015, from last year's 5.4
percent, according to Credit Suisse. That would surpass the share of
consumer spending in Britain, Germany and Japan, according to the
research.
China's 2006 retail sales grew 14
percent to $770 billion.
[back to top]
What's on sale at China's
Wal-Marts?
Forget about the
frozen food and bulk toilet paper. Wal-Mart shoppers here are more
likely to find live crabs, 'black chicken'... and a blow-dry.
advertisement
By Suzanne McGee
July 19, 2007
[back to top]
SHENZHEN -- In search of hairy crabs,
pork-floss buns and compact towels that will dry easily in the open air,
this southern boomtown's migrant workers and up-and-coming entrepreneurs
flock to Wal-Mart's (WMT.N) new Supercenter. No longer do they go from
one tiny storefront to the next, selecting vegetables at one and, at the
next, a duck hanging from a hook above the sidewalk. Instead, they are
discovering the concept of one-stop shopping. "The produce here is
clean; I know it doesn't have pesticides, and the quality is more
reliable," says one middle-aged shopper, browsing through stacks of
carefully wrapped organic Chinese greens. "Besides," the customer adds,
"it's a joy to shop here." This Supercenter opened its doors on the
outskirts of Shenzhen just a year ago. Today it is bustling with
customers. If Wal-Mart builds it, it seems, Chinese shoppers will come:
This is Wal-Mart's fourth store in Shenzhen and one of 78 outlets the
retailing giant operates in China, where sales growth hovers at nearly
30% annually, compared with a mere 2% or so in the United States,
according to analysts. Shawn Gray, vice president of operations for
Wal-Mart China, says the company is hunting for three more Supercenter
sites in Shenzhen alone. Chinese customers say Wal-Mart makes shopping
for daily necessities downright pleasant. Worried about getting your
goods home on a bicycle? No problem: Wal-Mart's shuttle buses travel up
to three miles to ferry customers and their shopping bags. Wondering
what to do with your grandchild while you stock up on groceries? There's
a supervised children's playground available for a nominal cost, right
next to the toy and book department. But customers say it's what's on
the shelves -- and the novelty of the shopping experience itself -- that
brings them back to the store, sometimes as often as daily. Here, a look
at what's in store. Makeup and makeovers: After spending decades in
look-alike padded jackets and boxy Mao suits, Chinese women have become
fashion addicts. But many are still trying to figure out what styles
suit them and which skin care and cosmetics products they should use. To
help them out, Wal-Mart's cosmetics counters here are staffed with a
team of "beauty technicians." "We tested taking them out, and our
(cosmetics) sales dropped 40%," says Gray. But Wal-Mart goes a step
further. Just beside its cosmetics counters are rows of beauty-salon
chairs in front of mirrors. For about $1.50, women can have their hair
washed and blown dry into a style of their choice. And after paying for
their purchases, they can arrange for additional services -- from
manicures and pedicures to hair extensions -- with an entrepreneurial
woman who offers her services through the store. "She has been a
fantastic partner since the day we opened," Gray enthuses. Portable
closets, cots and chairs: Chinese homes are relatively tiny -- 750
square feet would be considered large -- so space is at a premium.
That's why Wal-Mart stocks plenty of folding chairs. "Going into the
holiday season, (shoppers) will purchase a lot of these for visiting
family and friends," Gray says. Closet space is almost nonexistent, so
Wal-Mart offers zipper-front portable closets. And don't expect big
multipacks of paper towels -- most homes are too small to stash extras.
One of Wal-Mart's compact best sellers? A folding cot that's a favourite
with overworked executives who want to nap in their offices after lunch.
The folding cots are relatively expensive at $12, but Wal-Mart is
selling 40 a week. LCD TVs: China's workers earn far less than their
North American counterparts -- a salary of $300 a month makes you a
consumer, and $1,000 a month puts you in the middle class -- but they
are eager to spend on electronics, so Wal-Mart stocks dozens of the
latest models of LCD TVs. Outside the store's front door, a Chinese
manufacturer, Skyworth, has set up a festive tent, where salespeople use
microphones to hype the rebate offered to any local citizen turning in
an old-style TV, however decrepit, in exchange for a new Skyworth model.
"Black chicken" and instant "hot pots": In the ground-floor food
department, most of the chicken breasts are charcoal-coloured, the meat
coming from a Chinese breed. "It is good for ladies' skin," explains the
store's general manager, Stanley Liu. There is also more of this black
chicken for sale than beef; the Chinese haven't developed much taste for
beef, Liu explains, particularly in the south, where grazing land is
almost nonexistent. Nor are they keen on frozen products. Aside from a
few freezer cases stocked with dumplings and ice cream, virtually all
the food on offer here is fresh. The Chinese version of a frozen
lasagna? A package containing all the ingredients needed for a
made-from-scratch hot pot, a common Chinese dish -- from the fresh pork
and vegetables right down to the spice package. "Dump all that in the
boiling water, you'll have a nice hot pot or pork soup," explains Gray.
But shoppers are coming to understand organics, particularly since the
store began organizing bus tours to local organic farms. "It was so new,
it helped explain the concept of chemical-free and organic," Gray said.
Live shrimp and hairy crabs. Chinese shoppers don't want to buy dead
fish, even if impeccably displayed on beds of ice. They prefer to select
their fish and seafood while it's still alive. That's why Wal-Mart's
extensive fish section contains more fish tanks than display counters --
and small nets to bag your selection. Young shoppers are eager to help.
"We come here every day; he likes to help select the fish," says one
mother of her toddler son. The hairy crabs, a seasonal delicacy from
Zhejiang province, cost a whopping $35 per pound -- but still sell well,
Gray says. And a crowd surrounds the depleted shrimp tank, where
shoppers avidly seek out the most aggressive and fastest-moving shrimp
for their evening meal. Tasting tea. Coffee giant Starbucks has made
inroads in China, but at Wal-Mart, it's all about tea -- specifically,
green tea, which consumers can sample before buying. "In China, we have
a tea culture, and I get to learn about that while working here," says a
young woman dressed in traditional Chinese robes. She swishes water
through the tea leaves in an earthenware pot until the brew is just
right. The tea is then decanted into a glass (sanitized after each
customer has used it) for the customer to try. About two-thirds buy the
tea they try, the associate says. Pork floss and red-bean buns: Forget
raisin bread and doughnuts. In China, favourite bakery treats include
red-bean bread and pork-floss buns. Pork floss? It's basically dried and
shredded meat, Gray explains. "They take a (pastry) or a bun, split the
top and dip it in a kind of sweet mayonnaise, then dunk that into a
container of the pork floss." Wal-Mart's bakers, and butchers, work
behind glass windows, so shoppers can see them in action. Safety
lessons: Wal-Mart wants to give the Chinese consumer a total experience,
whether it's offering a circle of toddlers lessons in road safety or
good manners, or providing a picnic spot where customers can take their
just-purchased takeout dinners (which include two meat dishes, rice and
vegetable soup). The goal? To capture a growing share of a market that
exhibits more purchasing power with each passing year. "This is a great
market," explains Gray. "The dormitories will be torn down and replaced
with high-rise apartment buildings, and the income level of our
customers will keep rising."
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Brings
Customer Reviews Online
by Mike Sachoff
Thu, 07/19/2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart today said it is adding
customer reviews and ratings on its Web site.
The new feature will allow customers
to submit ratings and reviews of merchandise available online only as
well as products sold in stores.
"Reviews and ratings is the No. 1
customer-requested feature online at Walmart.com, and we're pleased to
offer this service to better help our community of customers shop smart
and make informed decisions about the products they purchase both in our
Wal-Mart stores and online," said Cathy Halligan, Walmart.com's chief
marketing officer.
Wal-Mart had a test of customer
reviews and ratings in June to receive customer feedback and gauge
overall results. Customer reviews more than doubled the company's
expectations during the test phase and they received the most reviews in
the categories of electronics, home and garden, media and baby.
"We know close to 75 percent of
Wal-Mart's 130 million customers are online which presents a significant
opportunity for our online reviews and ratings platform to connect our
customers to one another, and also help them further engage,
communicate, share opinions, and learn more about products available at
Wal-Mart," added Halligan. "It's all part of our continued commitment to
be the premier multi-channel retailer."
Wal-Mart says that customers can
submit a review by viewing a product online or by email invitation sent
a few weeks after they have placed and received an order. The product
reviews are published within five days of submission.
[back to top]
Bharti-Wal-Mart formal pact soon
N. Anand
The Hindu
19/07/2007
[back to top]
CHENNAI: Bharti Enterprises is all set
to sign a formal agreement with the U.S. largest retailer, Wal-Mart
Stores Inc.
Talking to The Hindu on Tuesday,
Bharti Enterprises, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Sunil Bharti Mittal, said
work was under progress and they were in the process of recruiting
employees and identifying land. A formal agreement with Wal -Mart with
regard to franchising and branding would be signed soon.
Recently, Bharti Enterprises Joint
Managing Director, Rajan Bharti Mittal, had said that apart from
providing choice and quality to consumers at affordable prices, the
efficient supply chain management and ‘on time’ availability of goods
would help fight inflation. Bharti’s retail chain will provide ready
outlets to the relatively ‘unknown’ brands of small manufacturers, which
are sold as private labels.
“We are now studying the supply chain
management. Land has not been picked up. We will open a chain of stores
early next year to carry out cash and carry business. Foreign direct
investment in retail is not allowed in the front-end,” said Mr. Sunil
Mittal.
On the life insurance front, Bharti
has tied-up AXA. Bharti AXA Insurance Company would start cross selling
financial and wealth management products to Airtel customers in the next
few months.
Talks are also on with AXA to get into
the general insurance sector that would be kick-started during this
quarter.
Even though, the group has a suite of
financial products, Mr. Sunil Mittal ruled out the possibility of
entering the banking sector, at least for the time being.
Bharti had joined hands with the EL
Rothschild Group to export fresh fruits and vegetables exclusively to
markets in Europe and the U.S.
© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's
purchase cut hurts Chinese suppliers
chinadaily.com.cn
2007-07-18
[back to top]
Although retail giant Wal-Mart made no
comments on a report that it had cut US$6 billion worth of purchase
orders in China, several Chinese suppliers reported receiving fewer
orders from the company this year, the National Business Daily said on
Wednesday.
A manager with the Boshan Linaer
Garments Co in Shandong Province complained that Wal-Mart, their biggest
client, began cutting autumn orders as early as last year. Now they have
also cut spring orders for next year.
According to him, the reason could be
slow sales or simply a shift to other countries due to the appreciating
renminbi.
Other companies such as Weifang Zuo
Bang Garment Co and Langsha Sock Industry Co have also been hurt by
Wal-Mart order cancellations. "We are working hard to explore new
clients," said the manager of a T-shirt factory that had supplied
Wal-Mart for several years.
In the past years, China has become an
important source of cheap products for Wal-Mart. The retail behemoth has
purchased nearly a thousand products types in China each year, ranging
from dresses, shoes, electronic devices and toys to daily necessities.
Last year US$18 billion worth of Chinese products were procured by
Wal-Mart, almost one tenth of the country's total export value to the
United States.
According to Wu Jianguo, a specialist
in business research at the Shanghai Business School, Wal-Mart will not
eliminate China from its list of global purchase bases as long as China
remains a global processing powerhouse and the company's sales keep
growing.
However, for Chinese suppliers,
reliance on Wal-Mart should be considered risky. Instead they should
upgrade their products constantly and promote domestic sales to
diversify their client base, said Wu.
[back to top]
Asda Apologises To Harry Potter Publishers Over Price Slur
Namnews
[back to top]
Asda yesterday apologised to the
publishers of the new Harry Potter book amid a row which had threatened
to keep the hotly-awaited work off its shelves. In a press release
earlier this week, Asda had accused publishers Bloomsbury of "attempting
to hold children to ransom" by increasing the recommended sale price of
the seventh and final Potter book - due out on Saturday - to £17.99. The
row, which Bloomsbury said centred on unpaid bills and had nothing to do
with the pricing policy, saw Bloomsbury cancel delivery of Asda’s
500,000 copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".
But now Asda has apologised with
spokeswoman saying, “Asda apologise unreservedly to Bloomsbury for its
press release dated July 15 and withdraw this statement and we look
forward to a good relationship with Bloomsbury going forward including
selling the latest Harry Potter book from 0001 am BST on Saturday July
21 and many other Bloomsbury books in the future." Minna Fry, marketing
director of Bloomsbury, said, "We are pleased that this situation has
been resolved and look forward to working with Asda in the future."
Asda had pledged to sell the book for
£8.87 but has not revealed the price copies will be sold at in the wake
of the row. They had pointed out that the first book in the series,
"Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone," had an recommended retail
price of £11.99 in 1997.
[back to top]
Tesco & Asda check abuse claims in B'desh
By indiatimes.com
July 17th, 2007
[back to top]
LONDON: Supermarket firms Tesco and
Asda have said they were looking into allegations of worker abuse at
garment factories used by their suppliers in Bangladesh. The retailers’
comments came after a Guardian investigation claimed that workers making
clothes were paid as little as 4 pence an hour. Tesco said it had done
all it could to ensure “high standards and good conditions” in the
country. Asda said any abuse was “unacceptable” and it may audit its
factories. The textile industry is a large employer in Bangladesh. In
its report, the Guardian claims that garment workers are regularly
forced to work 80 hours a week in factories where conditions are often
violent, and where staff do not have access to trade unions. Allegations
of abuse of workers in South Asia’s textile industry are nothing new. We
have done all we can to ensure that high standards and good conditions
are maintained Charities such as War on Want have campaigned for years
to improve the pay and conditions for garment workers in Bangladesh and
last year wrote a report based on interviews with 60 workers from six
garment factories. The group claimed that retailers could only sell
their clothes at very low prices by pressuring suppliers in developing
economies to keep costs down. As a result, suppliers in countries such
as Bangladesh have had to drive down wages and extend working hours, as
there is stiff competition for the retailers’ business from other
developing nations such as China. Asda told the Guardian: “We find abuse
of any kind unacceptable.” The retailer blamed the problem on the fact
that one of their approved suppliers was outsourcing its work to another
factory without its knowledge and against its wishes. Tesco said it had
taken steps to improve working conditions. “We have stuck by Bangladesh,
continued to invest in modern factories and done all we can to ensure
that high standards and good conditions are maintained,” the UK’s
largest supermarket firm said in a statement. The company added that in
many ways it would be easier for them to stop sourcing garments “in
countries that have economic and social problems, which are beyond the
capabilities of any organisation working alone to fix”. However, the
company added that it would not be “right for the people of Bangladesh
or what our customers would expect us to do”. Tesco said it had just
completed unannounced audits at all of its 48 sites in Bangladesh.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to Test Bible
Action Figures
By MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press
07.17.07 [back to top]
Wal-Mart said Tuesday it will test
sales in some stores of biblical action figures whose makers say they
are aimed at Christian parents who prefer their children play with
Samson, David or Noah rather than with a comic book character or Bratz
doll.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news
- people ) spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said the toys made by
One2believe, a Valencia, Calif., company, will be offered in 425 of
Wal-Mart's 3,376 discount stores and Supercenters.
One2believe Chief Executive David
Socha said his products were part of a "battle for the toy box" with
dolls and figures that he said carry negative messages.
"If you're very religious, it's a
battle for your children's minds and what they're playing with and
pretending. There are remakes out there of Satan and evil things," Socha
said.
Wal-Mart's O'Brien said the
Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer believes there is demand for
faith-based toys.
The toy line will be on some Wal-Mart
shelves starting in August, mainly in the Midwest and South but also in
California and as far northeast as Pennsylvania, O'Brien said.
"It is a test. It's not a national
rollout," O'Brien said.
The toys, based on biblical stories,
include a 3-inch figure of Daniel in the lion's den, a 12-inch talking
Jesus doll and 13-inch Samson action figure.
Wal-Mart has always carried some faith
products, mainly stationery, books and music, but this is the first line
of toys with a faith theme, O'Brien said.
"I think there is an interest in
faith-based toys and we are testing it in our stores," O'Brien said.
It is a leap in scale for One2believe,
which so far has mainly sold its figures directly to churches and
ministries and through its Web site, Socha said.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved
[back to top]
Harry Potter & The
Dark Lord Waldemart
Dear Friend,
[back to top]
If He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named ran a
company, it would probably look a lot like Wal-Mart.
His stores would treat employees like
lowly house elves. They would discriminate against minorities like
giants and werewolves. And they would run every mom 'n pop shop like
Ollivanders and Honeydukes out of business.
In fact, Wal-Mart is just the sort of
company Harry Potter would stand up to. And that's why we've created a
new web video featuring Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the rest of heroes
from Hogwarts.
Check out Harry Potter & the Dark Lord
Waldemart:
http://waldemartwatch.com
In a few weeks, the seventh and final
installment of the Harry Potter series will be released, and Wal-Mart
stands to sell millions of copies.
But in order to drive customers into
their stores, Wal-Mart is selling the books dirt cheap -- 50% below the
suggested retail price. Wal-Mart's prices are so cheap that they're
actually losing money on each sale.
The business move is having a
devastating effect on book stores across the country. Here's what
BusinessWeek Magazine had to say about the "twisted economics" of Harry
Potter:
"It's like being in the trenches with
the bullets flying over you," says Sonia Benster, owner of The
Children's Bookshop in Huddersfield, England.
Independent booksellers can't even
begin to compete on that scale. While many plan to fight back with
special midnight parties -- in the belief that it's no fun to wear a
wizard hat in Wal-Mart -- others are just opting out of the
frenzy..."It's sad that what little profit the industry can make off
Harry Potter is being stripped away," says [Alexander Book Co.'s Bonnie]
Stuppin. "If I ran my business that way, I wouldn't be here."
Visit WaldemartWatch.com and take the
vow not to buy Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows at Wal-Mart:
http://waldemartwatch.com
Andy Barron, Wal-Mart's senior vice
president and general merchandise manager, claims that when it comes to
Harry Potter, his stores are "committed to the best price and plenty of
copies."
But there's a lot more to selling
products than low prices and stocked shelves. Wal-Mart has an obligation
as the world's largest retailer to set the highest possible standard for
corporate responsibility in the world.
As Professor Dumbledore said in Harry
Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, "it is our choices... that show what we
truly are, far more than our abilities."
Watch Harry Potter & the Dark Lord
Waldemart, and make the choice to wait in line somewhere else on July
21st:
http://waldemartwatch.com
Yours Sincerely,
David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch
Paid for by WalmartWatch.com,
a campaign of Five Stones and
The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Truck Fleet
Rolls Fuel Savings
By MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press
07.17.07 [back to top]
BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Chief
Executive Lee Scott laid out ambitious environmental goals in late 2005
as the world's largest retailer sought to burnish its reputation against
mounting criticism.
Nearing the two-year mark, Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. is still compiling a major report on how far it has come
with the program overall, including reducing waste, using more renewable
energy and stocking more green products.
But one division says it is already
well under way to meet its goals. Wal-Mart's fleet of about 7,200
semitractor-trailer trucks is already about 15 percent more fuel
efficient and the company knows what changes it needs to make to meet a
target of 25 percent by late next year.
The annual savings in carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas, would be equal to taking 67,744 cars off the road.
"We're real proud of where we've
gotten to already," said Tim Yatsko, senior vice president of
transportation for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Industry experts and environmentalists
say Wal-Mart is ahead of other trucking operations. The Sierra Club, an
ally of Wal-Mart's union-backed critics, says the retailer's demand for
vehicles could prompt truck makers to bring more efficient models to
market faster.
"They are pushing beyond what the
trucking industry has already decided to do. Because of their size, I
think they will create economies of scale for more efficient trucks,"
said Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming
program.
Wal-Mart's fleet regularly ranks among
the top 10 private fleets in corporate America, alongside company-owned
lines such as Pepsi, Tyson Foods and Sysco Corp. Its trucks will drive
about 900 million miles this year ferrying goods to about 4,000 U.S.
stores.
Becker said he shares union criticism
of Wal-Mart over its labor practices but that Wal-Mart deserves
recognition for its fuel effort. The Sierra Club is a member of the
union-funded group Wal-Mart Watch that attacks the retailer over issues
including wages and benefits.
Great Dane Trailers, which is
developing a more aerodynamic trailer for Wal-Mart, says the retailer is
more involved than any other carrier in developing fuel efficient
trucks.
"Wal-Mart is doing more than any other
fleet I know of," said Charles Fetz, vice president of research and
development at Great Dane.
Analyst Chaz G. Jones from Morgan,
Keegan & Co said he is not aware of any other trucking operator pushing
as hard as Wal-Mart on fuel efficiency. He noted that company-owned
truck lines have more incentive to save fuel because they cannot easily
impose a surcharge on customers for higher diesel prices, as many
for-hire carriers do. Wal-Mart needs to keep fuel costs capped to avoid
raising prices on its shelves.
The targets set by Scott in December
2005 were a 25 percent improvement in three years and a 100 percent
increase by 2015.
The federal Environmental Protection
Agency estimates that Wal-Mart's goal of 25 percent will reduce its
fleet's emissions of carbon dioxide by about 345,000 tons a year.
Doubling fuel efficiency will cut out over 690,000 tons a year.
That latter target would cut carbon
emissions by the same amount as getting rid of 135,489 passenger cars or
about one 225-megawatt power plant, according to the Alliance to Save
Energy, an industry group.
The Sierra Club's Becker says those
savings are "nothing to sneeze at" for a single fleet, considering that
new fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles under debate in
Congress would cut 285 million tons of CO2 annually in 2020 from the
much larger number of cars, light trucks and SUVs.
Wal-Mart's Yatsko said the fleet is
already running about 15 percent more efficiently at an average of about
7 miles per gallon compared to a 2005 base of about 6 mpg.
Cutting the average mpg by one gallon
saves Wal-Mart between $35 million and $50 million a year, Yatsko said.
The 15 percent gain has come mainly
from three changes: A fuel additive mix, more fuel-efficient tires and
small diesel generators called Alternate Power Units added to tractors
to provide power for things like heating and air conditioning in the
cab, allowing the big truck engine to be turned off rather than idling
when the truck is parked.
Yatsko says Wal-Mart knows where the
remainder will come from to meet the 25 percent target by late 2008.
New trucks that are already coming to
market will yield about 8 percent more efficiency due to more
aerodynamic design and lighter components. Another few percentage points
will come from tire innovations that Yatsko said he is not ready to make
public just yet.
Yatsko said that the 25 percent gain
will apply to most of the fleet but not to all of it by late 2008.
Wal-Mart will need to switch out its older trucks over time but expects
to have at least half the fleet up to date with the most efficient
trucks by the end of 2008 and the rest completed by 2010.
As the retailer continues to look for
fuel gains in components, driving practices, tires, fuel and other
areas, the total effect could be a savings of 28 or 30 percent from the
2005 base by the time the entire fleet is updated, Yatsko said.
That leaves the 100-percent goal.
Yatsko says the biggest piece of the
solution will come from future hybrid diesel-electric engines. Wal-Mart
is pitching in $2 million a year for research and development by two
teams of national truck manufactures - International Truck with
ArvinMeritor Inc. and Peterbilt with Eaton - and has agreed to buy the
prototypes.
New hybrid engines will deliver about
a 50 percent efficiency increase on top of the 25 percent set for next
year, Yatsko said.
Wal-Mart is also working with Great
Dane on prototype trailers that would cut fuel use with the help of
aerodynamic designs, including adding a cover or skirting down the sides
at the bottom of the truck and crimping the back end of the trailer so
that the sides and top turn in.
The effect of that back end design
could add 5-6 percent to fuel efficiency by cutting wind drag, Yatsko
said.
All of this work has to pay for
itself, Yatsko said. Changes and additions to the fleet have to provide
a return on investment or they cannot be sustained, he said.
"I definitely think we're leading the
industry," Yatsko said.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
New Horry
County development to include Wal-Mart
By K Grainger,
WPDE News
July 17th, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart plans to build another store
between Conway and Myrtle Beach. This new superstore isn't the only
retail store planned. County planning officials say a home improvement
center and strip mall will be included. The development is happening on
Highway 501 between Myrtle Trace and Gardner Lacy Roads on 100 acres of
highway property. County planners said Wal-Mart has submitted formal
plans, and the home improvement center, yet to be named, has just
completed a traffic study. Also in the works could be another strip
center adjacent to the property. Nearby communities are concerned about
what this could mean for traffic, not only on 501, but also in their
neighborhood. Charlotte Blacker has lived in the Myrtle Trace community
for 19 years. She said of all the places she's lived, this is her
favorite. She enjoys her neighbors and how private the community is.
She's worried about how many people may travel through her community if
Wal-Mart builds on Highway 501. "So there'll be a lot of traffic most
likely cutting through here, and the community itself really isn't set
up for that," added Blacker. Drivers on Highway 501 are not too thrilled
about the idea either. Worried they could sit in traffic even more.
That's exactly what Dottie Panella was doing around 1 p.m. Monday
afternoon when she said, "Well I'm staring at it, because I know I don't
have to go that way. I have to go straight across. I won't take 501. I
avoid it at all costs." "I think it's great for the communities here,
but I don't know about how they're going to like the traffic on 501.
It's pretty rough now," added Karen Ulrich. Plans call for access to the
development off Highway 501 and Myrtle Ridge Drive. The County Planning
Department believes Wal-Mart could be ready to build by sometime next
month.
[back to top]
Board O Ks? shopping
complex, Wal-Mart
By KRISTIN WILSON-PIKE ,
The Patriot-News
July 17th, 2007
[back to top]
The Newberry Twp. supervisors last
night unanimously granted conditional-use approval for a proposed
47-acre shopping complex that would include a Wal-Mart supercenter. The
board approved the use with conditions that the developers meet with the
township's fire and police departments, as well as the recreation board.
While the hearing attracted a standing-room-only crowd, residents'
comments focused mostly on potential traffic impact and changes to
roads. There was little controversy about the proposed use. The shopping
complex, called Newberry Point, would be built near Interstate 83
between Pleasant View and Cartref roads. It would include an
185,000-square-foot Wal-Mart supercenter, a 43,200-square-foot strip
mall with room for eight to 10 retail stores, and five lots that would
be sold for independent development. Rite Aid has committed to one of
the lots, development attorney Tom Scott said. Residents were most
concerned about how the development would effect already congested
traffic coming off I-83 onto Cartref and Pleasant View roads. Plans show
the intersection of Cartref and Pleasant View would be eliminated,
redirecting Pleasant View through the shopping complex. Although there
would be a dedicated lane for through traffic on the new road, two
stoplights would add time and hassle for residents who live along
Pleasant View Road, several residents said. "I can no longer get to my
home without going through this mess," said Linda Bluur. "I don't care
if I'm two minutes from a Wal-Mart. That's not where my priorities are."
Jay Mc Kiernan?, of the township's recreation board, suggested that
sidewalks, bike paths and a community center be conditions of approval
for the shopping complex. His proposal sparked considerable debate as
supervisors disagreed whether it made sense to build sidewalks that
would not connect to anything. Residents were also at odds over whether
they wanted sidewalks and bike paths. The recreation board was asked to
work with the developer to come up with recreational uses that made
sense. The developers of Newberry Point will next come forward with a
preliminary land development plan that must receive approval from the
township supervisors. Before any construction can begin, developers need
both preliminary and final land development approval.
[back to top]
Are shutters closing in India for foreign
retailers?
By Rina Chandran ,
Reuters
July 17th, 2007
[back to top]
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Will the foreign
retail gold rush in India be over before it has begun? The country has
topped a list of the most attractive emerging markets for retailers'
investment for the third year, according to consultancy A.T. Kearney,
but the clock is ticking for foreign retailers to establish a base in
one of the world's fastest growing economies. A.T. Kearney, which
compiles the Global Retail Development Index, has said foreign companies
may have only two years to grab the opportunity in India before local
competition wins the battle. While foreign giants like Tesco and
Carrefour sit on the fence until regulation is clarified, Indian
companies, such as Reliance Industries and the Tata group have expanded
quickly, grabbing prime retail spots, quickly building supply chains and
hiring all the talent. "The window of opportunity for foreign retailers
in India is open today, tomorrow and next year," said Hemant Kalbag,
chief executive at A.T. Kearney India. "From then on, even though the
market is nowhere near peaking, it'll be a diminishing opportunity," he
said. And foreign players will also find it tough to build economies of
scale quickly, given soaring property prices, the lack of a supply
chain, regional differences and a shortage of talented staff. "India is
still very attractive, but already, the low-hanging fruit is being
grabbed by local retailers," said Unmesh Sharma at Macquarie Research.
The main concern to industry giants, such as the world's biggest
retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and India's Pantaloon Retail, is that the
government may not relax foreign investment limits or may even increase
retailing restrictions.
TO CAP IT ALL
The opening up of India's retail
industry, valued at nearly $350 billion and forecast to double in size
by 2015, has sparked political concerns and angry protests from small
shop owners, who fear massive job losses. Foreign single-brand retailers
are allowed 51 percent in a joint venture with an Indian partner, while
multiple-brand retailers are limited to operating though cash-and-carry
or franchise deals. Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal has said
there are delays to signing an agreement with Wal-Mart on a
cash-and-carry venture because of the restrictions. Britain's Tesco has
criticised the "frenzy" about entering India and said it would only
launch subject to a change in laws, while Carrefour has shelved its
plans until regulation is clarified, shifting its focus instead to
Russia, which ranks No. 2 after India on the A.T. Kearney index. Global
retailers have scoured the globe for greater international revenues to
counter softer sales in developed markets but success is elusive. But
timing -- identifying markets on the cusp of embracing modern retail --
and building a presence before competition is critical to success, A.T.
Kearney said. "Two out of three retailers don't succeed outside the home
market and at least 10 percent withdraw, particularly in Asia, which has
unique requirements in terms of customer understanding and
infrastructure issues," Kalbag said. Wal-Mart quit South Korea and is
struggling in Japan, while Carrefour abandoned South Korea and Japan,
and Tesco left Taiwan.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Many Asian consumers prefer to buy
smaller amounts of food and groceries more often, while low car
ownership in countries like India leave many unable to travel long
distances to shop at hypermarkets. The Indian grocery scene is dominated
by small family owned stores that are less than 500 sq. ft. on average
and which offer home delivery and credit. Latecomers to India will
probably look for acquisitions or venture partners to get up to speed,
but may find buyouts pricey, analysts say. Shares in Indian market
leader Pantaloon Retail trade at 47 times forecast earnings, with
Shopper's Stop trading on 43 times earnings -- much higher multiples
than their Asian or Western peers. Wal-Mart trades on a multiple of
around 16 times earnings. "Any acquisition will not be cheap," Sharma
said. But some industry players believe foreign retailers still have
time to establish a foothold in the market. "I don't think we are even
close to the window closing," said Andrew Levermore, chief executive,
Hyper City? Retail India Ltd. "There are at least another five years
before we even start to see a solid countrywide offering of modern
retail. Consolidation will take 10 years after that. Full maturity is 20
years away."
[back to top]
Diamond Foods Opens
Office for Wal-Mart
Associated Press
07.16.07
[back to top]
STOCKTON, Calif. - Diamond Foods Inc.,
which produces nuts and snacks, said Monday it opened a sales office in
Bentonville, Ark., that will work exclusively with Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,
the world's largest retailer.
Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people )
is based in Bentonville. Jeff Bladdick, a former vice president of sales
for Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, will lead the office.
Diamond has been a Wal-Mart supplier
for 15 years.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Brown is
urged to act over 4p-an-hour sweatshop pay
By CLAIRE SMITH,
news.scotsman.com
July 16th, 2007
[back to top]
GORDON Brown, the Prime Minister, has
been challenged to prove his anti-poverty credentials by forcing
supermarkets and clothing chains to improve conditions in their
factories. The call follows claims from campaigners that the drive to
produce cut-price clothing for the shelves of supermarkets and chain
stores is creating unacceptable conditions for workers in the developing
world. An investigation into factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which
produce garments for Primark, Tesco and Asda, discovered staff who
worked for 80 hours a week for wages of as little as 4p an hour. The
discovery was particularly embarrassing for Tesco, whose chief executive
Terry Leahy was asked by Mr Brown last month to become a special adviser
to the government on business matters. Paul Collins, of War on Want,
said: "Voluntary self-regulation has not worked. Gordon Brown should
take action to stop future exploitation of workers overseas who are
making clothes for sale in the UK and who are working 80 hours a week
and have no right to form a union. "These companies are driving down
prices and pushing up profits and their workers are paying the real
price in terrible pay and conditions." The investigation into working
practices in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, uncovered the conditions
of workers in factories producing clothes for major high-street stores.
Employees reported working for 84 hours a week, and said they sometimes
worked through the night and felt "threatened and frightened" at work.
Employees in the factories said they were not allowed to join a union,
had witnessed physical abuse and seen fellow workers sacked for taking
time off to take relatives to hospital. Tesco, Primark and Asda are all
signatories to the Ethical Trading Initiative, a voluntary code of
conduct which sets out basic rights for employees, including a working
week of no more that 48 hours, voluntary overtime not exceeding 12 hours
a week, and payment of a "living wage". Yesterday, Asda said it would
investigate the claims that workers producing clothes for its George
clothing range were toiling in inadequate conditions. The company will
"re-audit" factories in Asia, it said. A spokesman said: "We find abuse
of any kind unacceptable. As an organisation we are committed to
sourcing in Bangladesh and are helping to improve workers' rights -
something that we have seen happen over the past five years." A
spokesman for Primark admitted that the company was aware of the
problem. "Labour conditions in the Bangladeshi garment industry are an
issue of considerable concern for Primark." The company spokesman said
it was up to the Bangladeshi government to take action to ensure
conditions improved for its workforce. Meanwhile, Tesco claimed the
examples given misrepresented the company's policy on ethical trading. A
spokesman said: "Tesco puts ethical trading at the heart of its
operations and so it's hugely disappointing that some sections of the
media choose to misrepresent our position. "It is in everyone's interest
that we continue buying from Bangladesh to raise working and living
standards and we have a strong ethical trading programme to help achieve
this." John Coventry, of Action Aid, which has campaigned to highlight
the impact UK supermarkets have on the lives of workers overseas, said
it was time for the UK government to act. He said there was clearly a
need for more regulation to ensure the UK's appetite for cheap goods did
not have negative consequences in other countries.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart checks
Bangladeshi worker abuses
By news.com.au ,
Agence France-Presse
July 16th, 2007
[back to top]
LOW-cost British clothing retailer
Asda, owned by US giant Wal-Mart, has launched an investigation into
allegations that its production facilities in Bangladesh were abusing
the rights of their workers, The Guardian reported today.
The newspaper, which interviewed
workers from seven different factories in the country, said that the
factories, which also supplied retailers Tesco and Primark, forced
workers to work up to 84-hours a week for low wages under difficult
conditions.
The three factories make up about 43
per cent of Britain's value-clothing market.
Workers from the factories reportedly
said they were refused access to trade unions and claimed that four
workers had been fired within the past month for trying to organise a
union.
The Guardian said that workers at the
factories had wages so low that, despite working up to 84 hours a week,
they were struggling to provide enough for their families.
A spokesman for Asda said that the
retailer would re-audit all of its facilities in Bangladesh, telling the
paper: "We find abuse of any kind unacceptable."
"It appears that one of our approved
factories, which are audited up to three times a year, has subcontracted
this work to another factory without our knowledge and against our
wishes."
Primark said that it had already
audited all of its Bangladeshi suppliers within the previous six months
and had "agreed a programme of remediation" with those falling short of
its code of conduct.
Tesco, meanwhile, said that it could
not act on the allegations made in The Guardian because the newspaper
did not specify in which factories the abuses occurred. A spokesman
added that the retailer had recently conducted unannounced audits of all
its Bangladeshi production facilities.
The Guardian quoted a factory owner in
Bangladesh, who supplies only the United States and Germany, as saying
that buyers left him with no choice but to keep wages low: "Buyers who
come to Bangladesh tell us, 'We are businessmen, we want to make money.
If we see cheaper prices in China, we will go there'."
[back to top]
The
wrong gas at Wal-Mart
By Linda Paige,
WZZM13 NEWS
July 16th, 2007
[back to top]
Fremont - A gas station in a small
West Michigan town faces a big bill to repair cars damaged by their
product.
This, after drivers who thought they
were gassing up with regular, were actually getting diesel.
It happened in Fremont at the Wal-Mart
gas station.
Wal-Mart customer, Vern Nyson, had
problems starting his car last weekend, "Saturday we just got back from
Muskegon and I was low on gas and I stopped into Walmart, Murphy oil and
filled it up, came home and washed the car and went to move it and it
had problems. It would start up and quit startup and quit several
times."
Words echoed by many whose cars
suddenly stopped running.
Some customers who only put in a few
gallons may not know they have diesel flowing through their fuel lines.
Nyson says, "I called this morning and
made arrangements to have my car brought in to Dur Speet where I bought
it one month ago."
"Were going to have a busy day," says
Don Clark, one of the Service Managers.
Tom Schuiteman, Part Owner Deur Speet
says, "At this point we have approximately 12 to 13 vehicles."
Murphy Oil sent a letter to the
dealerships and repair shops authorizing them to fix the cars and bill
the company.
"So far they've been very good about
making sure the customers are taken care of and giving us the ability to
fix them," says Schuiteman.
Don Clark, Assistant Service Manager
says, "We're draining the fuel tanks, flushing the fuel lines, replacing
the fuel lines where necessary, and getting them full with fresh fuel."
Schuiteman says, "The customers we've
talked to some are frustrated with the experience, obviously. Some enjoy
driving a nice rental car. We're trying to expedite the process."
An attendant at the gas station tells
WZZM 13 that the affected cars were fueled on Saturday between 3PM and
5PM.
[back to top]
Potter publisher halts
Asda order
By bbc,
Reuters
July 16th, 2007
[back to top]
Bloomsbury blamed "invoicing issues"
for the cancellation The publisher of the final Harry Potter book has
cancelled an order to supply 500,000 copies to Asda supermarkets.
Bloomsbury said it had taken the
decision because it had not been paid by the chain.
But Asda claimed the publisher was
unhappy that it had criticised the book's price tag of £17.99.
It has assured UK customers the issue
will be resolved in time for the book launch on Saturday, although
Bloomsbury said "dialogue has not opened yet".
'Very aggressive' Asda spokesman Ed
Watson told BBC Radio Five Live the chain - owned by US giant Wal-Mart -
was not aware that the deal had been cancelled, and said the chain's
criticisms of Bloomsbury's pricing policy was behind the decision.
He added: "It just seems funny that
after we expose the potty Potter price hike, Bloomsbury are trying
everything they can to stop kids getting hold of Harry Potter at a price
they can afford."
Bloomsbury marketing director Minna
Fry said the order had been cancelled due to "invoicing issues", but
acknowledged the firm had been annoyed by Asda's comments.
She said: "Asda have had a problem
with our pricing of Harry Potter for a while now, and they sent out a
very aggressive press release saying that we were ripping off children.
"We think at 608 pages, £17.99 is
extremely good value."
Many bookshops are planning to open at
midnight to satisfy demand for the final book, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows, which will bring to an end JK Rowling's tales of a
teenage wizard's adventures.
Special stamps Meanwhile, the Royal
Mail has issued commemorative stamps to celebrate the young wizard's
success.
One of the Harry Potter stamp sets One
set of heat-resistant stamps has the Hogwarts School crests There are
seven first-class stamps, each featuring the sleeve artwork from a
different Harry Potter book.
And there is also a separate sheet
with five stamps featuring the crests of Hogwarts School and its four
houses - Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.
The Royal Mail said the stamps have
"some heat-resistant ink that will reveal exciting secrets if you touch
them".
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's makeover: Tega Cay supercenter's design sets it apart from
other stores
Karen Bair
July 15, 2007
[back to top]
Jul. 15--The Tega Cay Wal-Mart few
people wanted is setting the trend for Stonecrest, whose shops in front
of the supercenter will mirror the Wal-Mart's village design.
"The town council wanted it to look
and feel like a little town," said Scott Hallihan, managing partner for
Stonecrest's developer. "We took Wal-Mart's design and made our
buildings synergistic with theirs. Pedestrian-oriented. Wide sidewalks,
fountains, plants."
Stonecrest stores will resemble
village shops both along S.C. 160 and on the side facing Wal-Mart.
"We spent a lot of money to design the
building," he said.
Many Tega Cay residents, envisioning a
big, gray box and sprawling parking lot, protested when the supercenter
was proposed. The town council established strict architectural
standards and traffic patterns to protect their wooded, residential,
recreational community.
Think kiosks, fountains, trees,
flagpoles, a lanai, places where men and children can lounge while moms
shop.
"We also aren't getting the usual
discount retailers that follow Wal-Mart," Hallihan said. "It's
mid-grade. Not boutique and not discount. That Wal-Mart is not your
typical Wal-Mart Supercenter. We feel it's a nice community, and we want
to put in shops as nice as possible."
Last week, Stonecrest's developers --
Metropolitan Development Group of Raleigh, N.C. -- were negotiating with
a bank and a restaurant.
"It will be an upscale, casual
restaurant," Hallihan said.
Other retailers that have been
acquired include Sport Clips men's haircutting, a pizza chain, a game
shop, a nail salon, a furniture/mattress store, a women's clothing
store, a Chinese restaurant and a sandwich shop.
The 26,000 feet of retail shops on 5
acres at Stonecrest Boulevard and S.C. 160 is expected to be complete in
mid-January, with stores opening in mid to late February. Some
multi-family housing and more commercial development also is planned for
the 140 acres at Stonecrest.
"We didn't have space for a fountain
in this phase," Hallihan said, "but I want to do a fountain in future
phases."
Envy of the Southeast
Tega Cay's Wal-Mart, expected to open
by mid-2008, is becoming the envy of other towns that have a Wal-Mart in
their future, a company representative said.
"People all over the Southeast are
holding up the Tega Cay designs and saying, "Can we have this?" said
Tara Stewart, the company's spokesperson in the Carolinas. "The Tega Cay
store is totally unique."
There are also "a number of interior
changes," Stewart said.
"Skylights," she said. "We spent too
much time and money on the outside not to pay attention to the inside."
Wal-Mart also plans to put a Subway,
PCA Portrait Studio, Smart Style Hair Salon and a Wood Forest Bank in
the store.
Although wood and a variety of colors
and textures outside will create the facade of village shops, the
Wal-Mart will have just two main entrances. Two fountains, one at each
end, and two gazebos accompanied by additional seating will adorn the
front. This Wal-Mart also will feature a lanai with seating. The parking
area will be dotted with trees and flowered planters.
According to Tega Cay Mayor Bob Runde,
the flags of the United States, South Carolina and Tega Cay will fly
from three flagpoles, and a Tega Cay police station will be housed
inside.
Truckers dare not enter from I-77 via
any route but Dam Road.
"We can fine them heavily, and we fine
them more each time it happens," Runde said.
The amenities will not affect Wal-Mart
prices, although the company's store managers do select merchandise
geared to their clientele, Stewart said.
"Our buying power is extensive," she
added. "The cost of a building doesn't affect the cost of a gallon of
milk. It's apples and oranges."
If and when the Newport Wal-Mart is
built, it also will have a design unique to that community.
"We began the community concept a few
years ago," Stewart said. "In Belmont (N.C.), the store has a top like
Belmont Abbey. The Charleston store has a Charleston green and Palmetto
trees. The Los Angeles store is very art deco. In Abbeville, the store
resembles mountain log cabins. We don't put in a big, gray box anymore."
[back to top]
Group continues Wal-Mart fight: Battle focuses on permit for store's
oil-change bay
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Sunday, July 15, 2007
[back to top]
Jul. 15--HARTFORD -- The opponents of
a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the city's west side are still fighting,
taking their case to a three-judge state appeals panel hoping to get
their "day in court."
Meanwhile, construction of the
185,000-square-foot department store on 22 acres continues, as do the
legal expenses for the city and the opposition group, Hartford Citizens
for Responsible Government.
Hartford Citizens for Responsible
Government is asking a state appeals court to overturn Washington County
Circuit Judge David C. Resheske's decision to not hear the group's
appeal of a city Plan Commission decision last August to allow Wal-Mart
to include an oil-change bay without a conditional use permit.
HCRG appealed that decision to the
city's Zoning Board of Appeals in November, which ruled in favor of the
Plan Commission.
By law, HCRG had until the end of the
day on Jan. 2 to appeal that decision to circuit court.
According to court testimony, HCRG
member Jan Hatch delivered the appeals paperwork to the Washington
County Clerk of Courts office about 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 2, just as the
office was closing.
Hatch handed the paperwork to a clerk
there but was told it wouldn't be filed until the next day, Jan. 3.
Resheske ruled that HCRG had missed
the deadline.
Plymouth attorney Elizabeth Rich said
the issue is whether the paperwork was deposited at the courthouse on
time.
"We're alleging (in the appeal) that
the legal standard is that if you deposit it with the clerk, then it is
legally filed," Rich said.
If the appeals court agrees with HCRG,
then the case will be sent back to circuit court.
"Only at that time will we be able to
get into the merits of the case," Rich said. "We're looking for our day
in court."
"The clock doesn't lie," Mayor Scott
Henke said. "They needed to get it there on time and they didn't do
that. It's their right to continue to appeal. But I think it's really
just frivolous at this point, in my opinion."
When completed, the project is
expected to add $14 million to the city's tax base, generating about
$280,000 in tax revenue annually.
Wal-Mart will take up 22 of the site's
44 acres. Other commercial development, roadways and a bike trail, paid
for by Wal-Mart, will account for the rest.
Highway 60 is in the process of being
widened to four lanes. Traffic lights will be installed at Independence
Ave. and Wacker Drive.
Supercenters are larger than ordinary
Wal-Mart retail stores. They include a grocery store, as well as a
larger automotive department and service center.
Challenging the decision
In her appeal of the zoning board's
decision, Hatch called the board's ruling "arbitrary and capricious" and
said it "was not supported by the evidence on the record."
At the appeals board hearing in
November, an attorney representing the group argued that the automotive
section required the permit because automotive service is not explicitly
listed as a permitted use for that area.
Lawyers for the city and for Wal-Mart
argued that the department store was a permitted use and that each of
its departments was thereby also permitted, as long as they are under
the same roof as the rest of the store.
The proposed Wal-Mart automotive
section would take about 6,700 of the store's 185,000 square feet.
The appeals board sided with the city
and Wal-Mart.
The project has been a lightning rod
for controversy ever since it first was announced.
Disputed from beginning
In March 2006, aldermen voted 7-2 to
annex almost 44 acres of farmland in the Town of Hartford on the north
side of Highway 60. They also voted to rezone the property for
commercial use and approved a developer's agreement with Wal-Mart.
About 32 people spoke at a public
hearing that night, with 25 opposing the project, saying it would add to
the city's traffic congestion and hurt downtown businesses.
HCRG forced recall elections against
two aldermen who voted for annexation.
The first recall was held in October
when 3rd District Ald. Kathleen Isleb defeated challenger Randy Geoffroy
327-171. The second was in November when Hatch ran against 1st District
Ald. Jacki Lokken. Lokken beat Hatch 434-91.
Cost of challenge
The recalls and legal wrangling so far
have cost the city about $45,000, Henke estimated.
Meanwhile, construction of the
Wal-Mart continues. It is expected to be completed by May or June, Henke
said.
Money also is a concern to HCRG, Rich
said, saying the group will not seek a court injunction to stop
construction pending the outcome of the appeal.
"The group just doesn't have the funds
to seek a temporary restraining order," Rich said.
Copyright (c) 2007, Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel
[back to top]
Big holes to fill
when Wal-Mart moves out
Omaha World-Herald
Sunday, July 15, 2007
[back to top]
Jul. 15--Hanging on a lamppost across
from the empty store, the sign reads "Wal-Mart Security Cameras in Use."
Well, maybe not.
The empty storefront in the shopping
center on 84th Street in La Vista still bears the outline of the
Wal-Mart logo, visible, like a stencil, across its blue facade. The
store closed in October 2006 when a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in
Papillion's new Market Pointe at 72nd Street and Giles Road.
In that La Vista shopping plaza and
others like it, the closing of a Wal-Mart store -- often because a new,
larger Wal-Mart Supercenter opened nearby -- leaves a void.
In the Omaha area alone, two Wal-Marts
have closed. And because of the size -- the La Vista Wal-Mart space had
more than 100,000 square feet -- it can be hard to find another
occupant.
Wal-Mart Realty's Web site last week
listed nine former Wal-Marts available for lease in Nebraska, although
company spokesman Ryan Horn said several of them were partially occupied
or in the process of being leased.
Catha Selk moved her hair salon,
formerly four doors over from La Vista's empty Wal-Mart, to Market
Pointe, opening last week.
"Most of us here have a clientele
base, but we've got a few newer girls who rely on walk-ins, and we've
seen a dramatic drop in the walk-ins," said Selk, who took over the
business on June 1 after managing it for several years.
Walk-in traffic had increased
dramatically in only the first two days in the new location, she said,
with people coming in from Panera Bread and the Wal-Mart Supercenter.
La Vista Mayor Doug Kindig said the
area along 84th Street used to be known as the golden mile.
"First, obviously, there's the loss of
sales tax dollars," said Kindig. "But second, just the idea that you
have a deserted section of your town. . . . You don't want to have a
dead part of your city."
Wal-Mart still is paying rent on the
space, Kindig said, but city officials don't have a lot of options or
prospects for the property at this time.
In Omaha, Ambassadors Worship Center
bought a former Wal-Mart at 103rd and Fort Streets for $3.7 million.
Churches are not an uncommon use for
former store locations, said company spokesman Horn.
"We have a number of churches that
have bought Wal-Mart stores. . . . We've had some cities purchase stores
and use them as courthouses or city offices. We've seen that happen a
number of times. There have been a number of very creative uses," he
said.
Retail, however, is by far the most
common new usage, Horn said.
In Columbus, Menards took over a
Wal-Mart property. But a second former Wal-Mart has been empty for two
years, according to City Administrator Joseph Mangiamelli.
"That is a concern -- that we don't
have that occupied with a new retailer or some alternative use,"
Mangiamelli said.
The chamber of commerce is working
with the owners to market the site, he said.
"The building is leased by Wal-Mart
for a number of years in the future yet, so there isn't that urgency,
because the owner has that income coming in," Mangiamelli said. "But it
is on the market, and it's better to have it occupied than vacant."
Meanwhile, Menards plans to move from
the first Wal-Mart site, Mangiamelli said, so that location will be
vacant again as well.
Kirk Hanson of DKC Development
Ventures LLC, which is overseeing construction of Menards' new building,
is working, with help from the city, to find a new use for the site.
"It does take a creative mind-set, and
we're still going through some plans on what we can do," Hanson said.
"Do you cut it up and try to get smaller local-type tenants in there?
How many big boxes can go to Columbus? So your pool can be limited."
Although "cutting up" a big-box store
doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive, Hanson said, using the space
effectively is a concern.
"You're still buying or developing the
whole property. How do you pull value out of every square foot that you
have?"
The former Wal-Mart space in La Vista
is listed for rent at www.wal-martrealty.com, which also lists available
space in Hastings, Columbus and Scottsbluff.
The purpose of Wal-Mart Realty is to
"find productive uses" for these empty buildings, Horn said. "Our
philosophy is that these are solid buildings that can be re-used and are
of great value to other businesses, other members of the community."
Like city officials and mall owners,
Wal-Mart wants to find good, productive uses for its former facilities,
Horn said. "Whether we rent them or own them, it doesn't matter. We do
everything we can to get a good use for those buildings to help those
communities that were so good to us."
Everyone, including Wal-Mart
officials, is working hard to get the La Vista space rented, even though
the company told La Vista officials its lease runs until January 2011,
Kindig said.
"I've talked to developers and they
say, 'Oh, that's just around the corner,'" Kindig said. "My comment to
that is, short term for developers is three to five years, but short
term to elected officials is three to five days."
State regulations limiting the types
of incentives the city can offer potential lessees are frustrating,
Kindig said.
"Until we can get some state
legislation that allows us to do more, we're kind of restricted," he
said. "TIF, tax-increment financing, is very restrictive for retail, and
it's something the state has to start looking at."
For the time being, Kindig said, La
Vista may have to put up with the empty store.
"I wish there was a quick fix, but we
see it as more of a long-range problem."
Copyright (c) 2007, Omaha
World-Herald,
[back to top]
Wal-Mart fights
Kauai ban on 'big-box' stores
By Andrew Gomes
Honolulu Advertiser
Saturday, July 14, 2007
[back to top]
A recent Kaua'i County ban on new
"big-box" stores shouldn't apply to a planned expansion of Wal-Mart's
existing store to a supercenter with a full-line grocery store,
according to the retailer.
Wal-Mart yesterday announced it
believes its project was approved before the ban because the county
approved a masterplan years ago for its 119,000-square-foot Lihu'e store
that included future phases to enlarge the store up to 185,000 square
feet.
The company said it intends to argue
its position at an Aug. 14 public hearing before the Kaua'i Planning
Commission considering its application to build onto its store.
The County Council in May passed an
ordinance prohibiting development of any retail or wholesale
establishment bigger than 75,000 square feet.
Councilman Jay Furfaro said he was
surprised by Wal-Mart's position, especially since the company did not
raise the issue before the ordinance was passed.
"You can't reach back and say, 'We're
grandfathered,' " Furfaro said. "They have not received their final
permit (for expansion), so it should be subject to the ordinance."
Wal-Mart in a statement said the ban
shouldn't apply to a project that was already approved.
"Fairness seems to require that the
county stand behind its earlier approval of the expansion to accommodate
a full line of groceries," Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said in a
statement. "We owe it to our customers to try to move forward —
respectfully and within the law — to provide the products and services
they tell us they want and need."
The company cited a March survey by
SMS Research that found 56 percent of Kaua'i voters supported the
expansion plan compared with 38 percent in opposition.
The superstore ban was proposed by
Mayor Bryan Baptiste and drew unanimous support from the county's seven
council members, some of whom cited a need to preserve Kaua'i's rural
character and protect local stores from retail giant competition. Kaua'i
already has Costco and Kmart stores.
Some residents testified in support of
the ban, though others argued against it for reasons including cheaper
prices and the idea that limiting store size would promote urban sprawl.
© COPYRIGHT 2007 The Honolulu
Advertiser
[back to top]
Wal-Mart won't sue over big- box law: Says it won't push to get partial
repeal on city ballot
Rob O'Dell
The Arizona Daily Star
Saturday, July 14, 2007 [back to top]
Jul. 14--Wal-Mart announced Friday
that it will not sue Tucson to force a partial repeal of the city's
big-box ordinance onto the November ballot
Company representative Delia Garcia
sent a letter to Mayor Bob Walkup and the rest of the City Council
stating that Wal-Mart wasn't pursuing legal action to put its "Consumer
Choice Initiative" on the ballot.
City Clerk Kathy Detrick rejected
Wal-Mart's 22,000 signatures last week because City Attorney Mike Rankin
said Arizona law prevents citizens from using the initiative process to
change zoning laws or modify them.
"Engaging in a lawsuit with the city
of Tucson wasn't the right alternative in this case," Garcia said.
However, Garcia insisted the decision
for Wal-Mart to abandon its initiative wasn't bad news for the company
because 22,000 Tucson voters supported the initiative, which if approved
would have repealed the portion of the city's big-box ordinance
restricting food and beverage sales to no more than 10 percent of a
store's total space.
Had the petitions been accepted, the
company needed 11,615 valid signatures from registered city voters to
get the initiative on the ballot.
Garcia said the 22,000 voters who
signed could spur the council to "take action on their behalf."
"The mayor and council has the ability
to change the ordinance themselves," Garcia said.
Although Wal-Mart didn't sue, Garcia
said the company felt it had a good case to make in court and would have
prevailed had it sued.
Garcia said Wal-Mart just decided
against it because a lawsuit wasn't "the right move. Publicity wasn't a
factor," Garcia said.
She said the initiative was never a
publicity stunt to put political pressure on the council. "We were
really serious about it," Garcia said.
In her letter to the council, Garcia
repeatedly pressed the company's talking points, that Wal-Mart saves
consumers money and that residents value the convenience and
affordability of Wal-Mart's big-box stores that feature one-stop
shopping.
Council members said Wal-Mart's
decision was the right one.
"I think that's appropriate," Walkup
said. "I'm pleased to hear it."
Walkup thinks the city has gotten past
the polarizing big-box debate and the council's pragmatism on big boxes
was shown by the April vote to waive the big-box ordinance for a
potential Wal-Mart at East 36th Street and South Kino Parkway for
developer Eastbourne Investments Ltd. "The big boxes are being
well-served by council," he said.
He said the council will approve a
development if it's in the right part of town and the big box serves the
area well. By contrast, Walkup said, "There are some places where a big
box of any kind does not fit the community. Every application will
receive a fair hearing."
Councilwoman Nina Trasoff said the
big-box ordinance was "a zoning decision the council made. You can't do
rezonings by initiative," she said.
She said she thinks it's possible
Wal-Mart knew the law from the beginning and was trying to make a power
play with the initiative, which she said was unfortunate because the
council just showed flexibility and allowed the big box for Eastbourne.
Wal-Mart opponent Chris Tanz said she
was glad to learn the city wouldn't have to fight an expensive legal
battle against Wal-Mart, and that Wal-Mart opponents wouldn't have to
spend the time, energy and money to beat it at the ballot box.
"Engaging in a lawsuit with the city
of Tucson wasn't the right alternative in this case."
Delia Garcia
Wal-Mart company representative
Copyright (c) 2007, The Arizona Daily
Star
[back to top]
Wal-Mart, Moody's and GE Show That Consumers Are Living on Borrowed Time
By TradingMarkets Research
Friday July 13
[back to top]
After softness on Tuesday and
Wednesday, the major U.S. indices jumped 2% on Thursday to record
levels. The market is mixed on Friday due to disappointing retail sales,
but the S&P 500 should finish the week with a gain of about 1.1%. The
catalyst for this week's big move was bullish retail data on Thursday
and news of a $38-billion bid from Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE:RTP - News) for
Alcan Inc. (NYSE:AL - News). Granted, there are signs that the river of
deal flow is slowing. But it certainly hasn't stopped flowing with news
on Friday that an activist investor has taken a large position in Target
(NYSE:TGT - News). This may or may not result in a private equity play
on the retail giant, but it has already boosted Target shares to within
1% of their 52-week high. Nevertheless, the outlook is not rosy for all
things retail. On Friday morning the Commerce Department reported a 0.9%
drop in retail sales. Wall Street had expected flat sales, so the data
are putting a damper on investor enthusiasm. In fact, I think that
investor concerns about growth are weighing on Wal-Mart shares, which
rose only modestly on Thursday despite a big market rally and the
announcement of strong sales for June. I believe investors are concerned
about two big clouds on the horizon for consumer spending: Oil prices
and real estate.
Gas Prices Pinch Wallets
Crude oil prices remain stubbornly
high at almost $73 per barrel, and national gasoline prices finished
June at over $3.00 per gallon. This is a big red flag for retail sales.
High gas prices during summer driving season are leaving consumers with
less money to spend at the mall. For June, investors had feared that
retail sales would slow to a pace of 1.5% to 2.0%. Fortunately, the news
on Thursday was better than expected: A survey of large U.S. retailers
showed June growth of 2.4%, including a 2.4% gain in sales at industry
giant Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT - News). So for now it seems that the
overextended U.S. consumer will live to shop another day.
Subprime Saga Continues
The stock market is also shrugging off
ominous signs about the mortgage market. Earlier this week Standard and
Poor's and Moody's Corp. (NYSE:MCO - News) downgraded hundreds of
subprime bonds. Critics say that the bond rating firms are locking the
doors after the subprime horses have left the barn. Indeed, Friday
brought more bad news in real estate as General Electric (NYSE:GE -
News) announced that it will sell its subprime unit. This business lost
money in the second quarter, and rising delinquencies across the
subprime landscape make further losses likely.
PowerRatings for Stocks In the News
What is the outlook for these stocks?
The PowerRatings (for Investors) of these stocks vary widely:
General Electric has the highest
PowerRating (for Investors) with a rating of 9, and the other
attractively rated stocks are Wal-Mart and Target, two retailers. A
rating of 10 is highest, and our data from 1995 through 2006 show that
stocks with high PowerRatings have historically outperformed over the
next twelve months. So for long-term investors the short-term challenges
at GE, Target, and Wal-Mart could prove to be an opportunity.
The Credit Cycle Is Not Dead
As I discussed last week, the key to
the outlook for U.S. equities is the credit cycle. High global liquidity
has led to over $300 billion of deals during the first half of 2007, a
record pace. And real estate has been the key driver of consumer credit
during the current expansion in the U.S. economy. Eventually, subprime
problems will hurt investor sentiment and bond spreads, and the credit
cycle will turn from a tailwind into a headwind.
Why hasn't this happened already? With
rising gas prices and falling housing activity, what has supported
consumer spending over the last six months? Job growth. Non-farm
payrolls have continued to expand, and the unemployment rate remains
low. This is exactly what you would expect at the end of a long economic
expansion. There is still lots of liquidity in the system, and this is
driving strong demand and strong economic growth. Unfortunately, this
eventually leads to wage pressures and deeply embedded inflation.
Credit problems take a long time to
fully emerge. Problems spread from weak borrowers to strong borrowers,
and from complex derivative products to the mainstream bond market. As
this happens, sentiment about credit starts to turn sour, and bond
spreads rise for all forms of risky credit.
As for real estate, it takes a long
time for residential markets to adjust to lower prices. People hate
taking losses on their homes, so they take them off the market instead.
This makes real estate prices "sticky downward," which is how Keynes
described wages (people don't like to take pay pay cuts, either). When
people take homes off the market, it is difficult to get an accurate
picture of housing prices, so the magnitude of the depth of the real
estate recession is not fully evident.
The combination of these forces is
going to make the downturn in the credit cycle a protracted, messy
affair. For stock investors, it is important to remember that one week's
rally does not mean that the laws of economics have been rewritten. Easy
money has been the engine driving the U.S. economy, and the engine is
now stalling. Stock prices are likely to follow suit, so it's more
important than ever to emphasize stocks with attractive PowerRatings.
Rob Martorana, CFA, is Director of
Content for PowerRatings.net. Rob was most recently at TheStreet.com as
the Director of Content for Professional Products. Rob has spent 22
years on Wall Street, and was a portfolio manager and head of U.S.
equity research at Barclays Private Bank. Robert also managed small-cap
stocks at Schroder Capital Management International, was an equity
analyst at Vontobel USA, and was an editor and senior industry analyst
for The Value Line Investment Survey.
[back to top]
New program
boosting Wal-Mart's online fortunes
Marc L. Songini
Computerworld
July 13, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. this week
announced that its three-month-old program that lets customers order
products online and pick them up at its brick-and-mortar stores has been
spread to 3,300 stores in the U.S.
The Site-to-Store program was launched
in March with 750 stores.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail
giant said the program is key to its effort to utilize as many sales
channels as possible.
"One of the goals of Wal-Mart.com is
to be the premier multichannel retailer," stated a Wal-Mart spokesman,
in an e-mail. "By that, I mean we want to make it easier for customers
to shop Wal-Mart, regardless of which channel they choose to do so --
online, in stores or a combination of the two -- as is the case with
Site-to-Store."
Unlike traditional online sales
programs, Site-to-Store does not charge customers for shipping ordered
products to Wal-Mart stores.
Ken Perkins, an analyst at Retail
Metrics LLC, a consulting firm in Swampscott, Mass., predicted that with
Wal-Mart's success, more retailers are likely to adopt programs that let
users order online and pick up their products at stores.
Rob Garf, an analyst at Boston-based
AMR Research Inc., added that the new program is another indication that
Wal-Mart has picked up its online business after a slow start.
[back to top]
Whither, Whether, Wal-Mart?
Seth Jayson
Motley Fool
July 12, 2007 [back to top]
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). It's big. It's
bad. (Well, some people say so.) And it's vitally important to America,
or at least American financial journalists, who like to try and use
every financial pronouncement from the Bentonville behemoth as a
bellwether for the entire economy.
Today's happy-happy-joy-joy retail
news is headlining the surprise gain in Wal-Mart's same-store sales. A
coupla percent gain, 2.4%, to be precise, wouldn't be news at a lot of
other outfits, but when you're as big as Wal-Mart, little things become
big things.
But what does it really mean beyond
Wal-Mart?
I've long had a suspicion that
Wal-Mart isn't a good barometer of overall economic demand from
consumers, as some imply. Instead, I see it as something of a contrary
indicator -- it sure seems to have operated as one over the past few
years, at least. As consumers have opened up their wallets to drive
record results and focused retailers like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), or
hipper discount peer Target (NYSE: TGT), Wal-Mart had languished.
Now that gas prices are going through
the roof and the home-loan ATM is shutting down, does the return to
prominence at Wal-Mart signal something good about the U.S. economy? Are
consumers more resilient and spendy than we thought?
My first thought is "no way." In my
vast experience as a cheapskate, I've found that people seem more likely
to shop at Wal-Mart when they feel pinched financially, and they're
willing to put up with the crammed, zoo-like stores just to save a few
bucks. People who feel affluent, I think, head further upscale, whether
that's Target, or a trip to the mall to blow a few bucks at Urban
Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN). If they're not feeling up to those apparel
price points, there's always Gap's (NYSE: GPS) Old Navy. Foodies feeling
flush can dump the whole paycheck at Whole Foods (Nasdaq: WFMI).
Wal-Mart's latest results highlighted
success in groceries, which would seem to lend some support to the
pressured consumer hypothesis. Honestly, who goes to Wal-Mart for food,
other than those who feel the need to make a single trip to a single
store? But strangely enough, if we want to go with a "sky is falling"
thesis, there's a fly in our ointment. Electronics and other
discretionary gadgets also did well, though that seems to be based on a
bump from the arrival of computers from Dell (Nasdaq: DELL).
In other words, I think good news for
Wal-Mart signals bad news for the economy, and probably for many other
retailers. It's been a heck of a party, but if people are swapping
caviar for Cheez Whiz, I think the good times may be winding down.
Or maybe, just maybe, this is too much
navel-staring for a single short sales call. Sometimes a cigar is just a
cigar, and if you get it from Wal-Mart, it's going to be a cheap one.
Perhaps a decent month's comps for Wal-Mart may be just as mundane.
©1995-2006 The Motley Fool. All rights
reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart settles drug
death claim
The Associated Press
July 12, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has settled a
wrongful death lawsuit claiming a pharmacist at a Frederick store sold a
too-strong insulin drug to a diabetic man who died after taking it, the
company's lawyer said Thursday.
Terms of the settlement reached during
a mediation session Wednesday in Baltimore are confidential, attorney
Christopher R. Dunn said. He said the case was settled amicably, with no
admission of liability or fault by anyone.
John Simley, a spokesman for
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, said: "This was the best way to
resolve the matter."
An attorney for the family of Keith
Scofield, who died in January 2006, didn't immediately return a
telephone call from The Associated Press.
Scofield used over-the-counter
medications to treat his Type 2 diabetes and did not require
prescription-strength insulin, according to the lawsuit filed in May in
U.S. District Court in Baltimore by Scofield's mother Josephine Regis,
of Sterling, Va., and other family members.
On Dec. 13, 2005, Scofield visited a
Wal-Mart pharmacy in Frederick and ordered Humulin R (u-100), an
over-the-counter insulin medication, the lawsuit states. Instead, he was
given Humulin R (u-500), a drug available by prescription only that
contains five times the insulin of the requested medication, according
to the complaint.
Scofield injected the drug on Dec. 20,
2005, lapsed into a diabetic coma and died on Jan. 2, 2006, the lawsuit
states.
Wal-Mart shares rose $1.15 to $48.83
Thursday
[back to top]
Gettelfinger wants help vs. Wal-Mart
By SVEN GUSTAFSON ,
businessweek.com
July 12th, 2007
[back to top]
United Auto Workers President Ron
Gettelfinger used the solidarity between labor and civil rights groups
to urge NAACP delegates Wednesday to fight against labor practices at
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and for universal health care.
Gettelfinger said the union and the
civil rights organization should use their long history of pursuing
common interests to help workers, who are bearing an increasing share of
their employer-provided health care benefits.
He singled out Wal-Mart in particular,
saying the retail giant pays low wages and denies affordable health care
benefits to many hourly workers, forcing a high percentage of its
employees onto government health care assistance programs.
That's causing taxpayers to pick up
the tab for employees of a company that posted a record $11.2 billion
profit last fiscal year, he said.
"When we look at some of labor's major
concerns -- the loss of manufacturing jobs, the health care mess, unfair
trade agreements and the deterioration of workers' rights -- it's a
straightforward conclusion that what's wrong with America is also what's
wrong with Wal-Mart," Gettelfinger said. Dan Fogleman, a spokesman for
Bentonville, Ark., retailer, cited the company's work seeking ways to
increase affordable health care as a founding member of a business-labor
coalition and its in-store clinics and $4 generic medicines for
employees. He said full-time hourly workers average $10.51 an hour and
often participate in company benefit plans.
"Clearly, the facts don't bear out the
allegations," Fogleman said.
Gettelfinger's remarks came less than
two weeks before the UAW enters into contract negotiations with the
Detroit Three automakers.
The cost of health care benefits,
which domestic automaker say hurts their ability to compete against
their Japanese competitors, is expected to be a key issue.
Gettelfinger did not discuss the
upcoming negotiations in his remarks, and he told reporters after his
speech that he would not negotiate in the media.
Negotiations start July 20 with Ford
Motor Co. and Chrysler Group and July 23 with General Motors Corp.
"We're not going into this negotiation
in a concessionary mode, I'll say that," he said.
In 2005, the UAW granted health care
concessions to Ford and GM, but it refused to grant the same deal to
Chrysler because of its stronger financial condition at the time. But
Gettelfinger has said a reversal of fortunes at Chrysler, which lost
$618 million in 2006, means the union needs to find ways to help the
automaker.
He said Wednesday that the union has
had ongoing discussions with Chrysler, but the two sides were not close
to a deal.
Gettelfinger also called the nation's
health care system "too expensive and too exclusive," citing rising
costs and the growing numbers of uninsured. The UAW, which supports a
single-payer health care system, also supports making interim fixes
including expanding state children's health care systems and lowering
the Medicare eligibility to age 55, he said.
[back to top]
Speaker: Retailer has
creep element
By DAVID IRVIN ,
nwanews.com
July 12th, 2007 [back to top]
Mike Troy spoke in Rogers on Wednesday
about the negative press image of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. a day after a
union-backed critic of the world’s largest retailer compared the company
to Harry Potter’s nemesis Lord Voldemort.
As the senior editor of the trade
publication Retailing Today, Troy said he has seen a decade’s worth of
slings and arrows aimed at the Bentonville company and a growing media
bias against it.
At a luncheon Wednesday sponsored by
the Bentonville / Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce at the John Q. Hammons
Center in Rogers, he discussed his theory of the “negativity loop” and
why Wal-Mart has such trouble making nice with the media.
“There’s a certain aspect in which it
creeps people out” how large and powerful Wal-Mart is, Troy told a group
of supplier representatives. Troy said Wal-Mart’s media relations
problems stem from inadequate staffing of its media relations department
in the 1990s.
He said “rampant” store growth opened
the retailer to criticism from the national and local media, and the
increasing scale of the corporation allowed for more opportunity for
things to go wrong.
With more than 1. 8 million employees,
there are bound to be some complaints that find their way to the media,
he said. “With that many people working, the opportunity for things to
go wrong just explodes,” he told the group of about 35.
What with the efforts of wellfunded
opposition groups — as when Wal-Mart Watch compared the retailer to the
Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort — and their criticism’s rapid
distribution through the Internet, Wal-Mart finds itself in a thorny
media environment. The “Dark Lord Waldemart” campaign came complete with
a new Web site and anti-Wal-Mart videos that spread across sites like
www. youtube. com.
Besides Wal-Mart Watch, a group called
Wake Up Wal Mart?. com funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers
International Union also opposes Wal-Mart health-care and wage practices
through vigorous media campaigns.
Part of the success of these groups is
their fast response time to media inquiries, Troy said.
Asked by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
for a response to Troy’s remarks, Wake Up Wal Mart?. com responded by
e-mail after about 10 minutes.
“Wal-Mart has no one to blame but
themselves for their terrible public image, and the reality is their
image will change when they actually change for the better,” Laura
Tatum, a spokesman for Wake Up Wal Mart. com, wrote in the e-mail.
Wal-Mart declined to comment about
Troy’s comment Wednesday.
Tony Hawk, the director of business
development at the Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics at John
Brown University in Siloam Springs, said negative press coverage hurts
those committed workers at the home office in Bentonville.
“I have an incredible regard for them
and love the culture there and hated to see everything get slanted so
negatively,” Hawk said after Troy’s presentation, adding that he worked
as a supplier in the Wal-Mart headquarters for nine years. “It hit
people in the heart. People believe so much in the company inside the
organization that when those kinds of negative things come up, it just
kind of cuts at them.”
Troy said Wal-Mart has beefed up its
public-relations staff and is more proactive today than it was 10 years
ago in releasing information to the media from the company’s
perspective. Besides his post at Retailing Today in Tampa, Fla., Troy is
also editor of Connecting Northwest Arkansas, a supplier magazine that
covers Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.
[back to top]
A
Whole New Wal-Mart
Tom Van Riper
07.12.07
[back to top]
Bentonville, Ark., retail giant
Wal-Mart had some good news Thursday. The company said it outpaced
expected sales growth with a 2.4% gain over June last year. Google it's
not, but it is better than the company's recent results.
In May, the company reported a tepid
1.1% same-store sales increase. Anemic, yes, but better than the 3.5%
decline they racked up in April, a month that battered several
retailers, thanks to cold weather and an early Easter holiday. Those
problems didn't seem to hurt Wal-Mart's main rivals. Same-store sales
grew 7% at Costco and 5.8% at Target over May 2006.
Last November the company suffered its
first drop in same-store sales in 10 years. Shares of the aging
discounter are essentially unchanged from where they were five years
ago, meaning that an investor who bought the stock in July 2002 has made
an approximate 1% return, the rate of Wal-Mart's dividend yield.
While overall revenue grew 10.4% last
year to $349 billion, sluggish same-store sales helped limit profit
growth to less than 1%. Wal-Mart shares are up 3.6% in 2007, less than
half the 8% climb of the S&P 500.
With the company's core rural
consumers saturated with stores, union-pandering urban politicians
making it tough to impossible to open big city locations, and overseas
missteps in key markets like Germany and South Korea, there's reason to
believe Wal-Mart's growth phase is near its end.
But don't bet on it. Retail experts
say the company is already on the right track to resuscitating growth.
The secret: simple retailing, few drastic moves. Refurbish stores, don't
give up on all high-end merchandise and stick to down market growth
overseas. That's how Wal-Mart can break out of the sales doldrums and
squeeze more profits out of stores.
A 50-state face-lift is the place to
start. Brighter lighting, improved displays and wider aisles of
refurbished stores are succeeding in keeping shoppers in the store
longer, according to America's Research Group president Britt Beemer. He
estimates that customers patronizing remodeled stores are staying 10 to
15 minutes longer than they used to. "Consumers have given very positive
feedback. I have to believe this will increase the company's average
ticket," says Beemer.
The company says it expects to
complete the upgrade of 1,800 stores, mostly supercenters, by October. A
spokeswoman says that so far, remodeled stores have yielded sales
increases of between 0.5% and 1.5%.
Squeezing more profits out of new and
improved domestic stores will help. The bigger potential prize comes
from overseas, which provides Wal-Mart with 20% of its annual sales.
Analysts think the company can grow that number significantly, provided
it sticks to markets that cater to their bargain basement niche, at
least for now.
"They should have success where there
is a significant population of poor people, says Mark Husson, a retail
analyst at HSBC, who cited Argentina and Mexico as natural markets to
keep investing in.
China is also important to future
growth, naturally, with some growing towns perfectly set up for a big
box on their outskirts. Focusing on those markets should help Wal-Mart
get past the mistakes that forced it to fold its tent in South Korea,
where poor real estate choices gave it bad locations, and in Germany,
where it misread the local norms for shopping hours and labor laws.
The company now gets about half its
overseas business in the U.K., where it is now No. 2 in grocery sales.
But rival Tesco, which has the kind of market clout there that Wal-Mart
has across the Atlantic, claims much better profit margins, thanks to
its ability to wrangle discounts from suppliers.
Back on the home front, some critics
are already writing off Wal-Mart's foray into upscale goods as a
failure. A store can't be all things to all people, right? Not
necessarily, says Beemer, who thinks the concept of nicer items goes
hand in hand with brighter, remodeled stores. But the key is to stick to
bath towels, linens and other home products, and leave the high-fashion
clothing to others.
About half of America goes into
Wal-Mart in a year, and they're not all down market, Beemer says,
adding: "They can still bring in better goods, and sell them at lower
prices."
[back to top]
Stores Post Lackluster
Sales in June
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO
Associated Press
07.12.07
[back to top]
The nation's consumers, uninspired by
this season's fashions and rattled by high gas prices and the weakening
home market, shopped gingerly last month, extending the misery of
retailers who have struggled with a spending slowdown since February.
As merchants reported their June sales
results Thursday, the disappointments cut across many segments of the
industry including Macy's (nyse: M - news - people ) Inc. and trendy
apparel chain Bebe Stores (nasdaq: BEBE - news - people ) Inc. One
notable exception was Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news - people ),
which posted results that beat Wall Street expectations.
"Retail sales are generally soft as we
expected. Consumers look like they are holding back on discretionary
purchases particularly in apparel," said Ken Perkins, president of
RetailMetrics LLC, a research company in Swampscott, Mass. He added that
shoppers are "facing a long list of headwinds as they head into the rest
of the summer."
Wal-Mart, the world's largest
retailer, had a 2.4 percent gain in same-store sales, beating the 0.8
percent predicted by analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Same-store
sales are sales at stores open at least a year. The results excluded
sales from fuel.
Costco Wholesale Corp. (nasdaq: COST -
news - people ) reported a 6 percent gain in same-store sales, in line
with the 6.1 percent estimate.
Macy's suffered a 2.7 percent drop in
same-stores sales, worse than the 0.8 percent decline expected.
Limited Brands (nyse: LTD - news -
people ) had a 3.0 percent gain, slightly better than the 2.9 percent
forecast from Wall Street.
Among teen retailers, Bebe posted a
5.4 percent drop in same-store sales, worse than the 2.2 percent
projected decline. But Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. (nasdaq: PSUN
- news - people ) posted a 4.5 percent same-store sales increase, better
than the 3.2 percent estimate.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
San Diego City
Council Defeats Wal-Mart Ban
Chain Store Age
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
[back to top]
In a surprise victory for Wal-Mart
Stores, San Diego's City Council on Tuesday failed to override the
mayor's veto of a ban on some big-box stores in the city. Councilwoman
Donna Frye reversed sides after supporting the ban three times since
September, resulting in a 4-4 deadlock that fell one vote short of
putting the measure into law.
Frye said she was uneasy with a
blanket ban and would work for a new law that requires tougher scrutiny
of new Superstores.
The measure would have prohibited
stores of more than 90,000 sq. ft. that use 10% of space to sell
groceries and other merchandise that is not subject to sales tax. It
took aim at Wal-Mart Supercenter stores, which average 185,000 sq. ft.
and sell groceries. Costco Wholesale Corp. and other membership-style
retailers would have been exempt.
Supporters of the ban argued that
Wal-Mart puts smaller competitors out of business, pays workers poorly,
and contributes to traffic congestion and pollution. Opponents said the
mega-retailer provides jobs, low prices and more choices for consumers.
[back to top]
RUSSIA: Property
developer to back Wal-Mart
Progressive Newsletter
The Russian property development
company Macromir stated that it will support Wal-Mart’s market entry in
Russia. According to local media in Russia, Macromir said yesterday that
it has been in partnership talks with Wal-Mart since May. If the
companies reach an agreement, then either Wal-Mart will lease facilities
in shopping complexes, which Macromir has already started building, or
the Russian company will do construction especially for Wal-Mart.
Macromir is a real estate investment and management company which was
established in 2002 by Andrei Rogachev, a founder of the Pyaterochka
retail chain and shareholder of X5 Retail Group. Rogachev holds a
majority stake in Macromir, which is expected to be listed on the London
Stock Exchange by late 2008 or 2009. Market participants, however, doubt
that Wal-Mart has already made a final decision to enter the Russian
market, because otherwise the chain would be holding talks with several
companies at the same time, the RBC Daily newspaper wrote today. A
source close to the negotiations explained that the discussion is about
Wal-Mart arriving on the Russian market in the hypermarket format, which
means that the stores will have an area of around 20,000 square meters
Duluth up in arms against
Wal-Mart
By EILEEN DRENNEN,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution via nexis
July 11th, 2007
[back to top]
Plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter
are stirring controversy in Duluth.
Nearly 1,200 people have signed an
online petition opposing the retail giant's plans to build a store on
27.5 acres on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, between Chattahoochee
Drive and Sugarloaf Parkway. Worried residents from surrounding
neighborhoods are calling and sending e-mails to Duluth City Hall and
each other.
They will get a chance to voice
concerns to Wal-Mart at a public meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Red
Clay Theater on Duluth's Main Street.
Glen Wilkins, senior manager of public
affairs for Wal-Mart, said he looks forward to answering questions and
setting the record straight about his employer's history and plans. He
said he's heard from a number of residents who support the proposal for
a third Wal-Mart in the area.
There are two within five miles of the
proposed site --- one on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth and another in
Suwanee.
"We're trying to relieve pressure on
the other stores," said Wilkins. "We're following the rooftops and we're
following the customers. Growth has been created, and we're responding
to that growth."
Homeowner Len Boyer has lived in
Canterbury Woods --- just across Peachtree Industrial from the proposed
site --- for nine years. The operations manager for a general
contractor, Boyer said he's obviously not opposed to development.
It's the scale of the proposed store,
he said, that concerns him. The store would have 176,305 square feet.
As chairman of his subdivision's "Stop
Wal-Mart" committee, he created a Web site ---
www.smartgrowthgwinnett.com --- to chronicle the opposition and inform
neighbors.
"I would love to see something go in
there that fits" the area, he said. "As a homeowner and someone who
works in development, I don't see how big box retail fits the letter of
Duluth's zoning ordinances."
The proposed site is zoned for such
businesses, but the retailer has asked the city of Duluth for exceptions
to its zoning code, such as permission to have landscaping closer to the
store and to construct a roof that's flat, rather than pitched.
Wal-Mart had planned to make its case
June 27 at a meeting of the Duluth Zoning Board of Appeals.
Due to the protests, the retailer
asked for its requests to be deferred for a month. It will make its
presentation to the board on July 25.
In a memo posted on the city's Web
site on July 6, the mayor and City Council sought to make sure that
everyone understood the legal realities surrounding the proposed
development --- namely, that the Peachtree Industrial land is already
zoned for commercial development.
That means "a Wal-Mart store or any
other similar retail development is allowed . . . " and that "Georgia
law does not allow the city to prohibit the use as long as the project
is developed in accordance with City of Duluth standards.
"As such," the memo concluded, "this
matter will not come before the Mayor and Council."
Even so, resident Marline
Santiago-Cook expressed her concerns at a council meeting Monday. She
lives in the Castlemaine subdivision, across Peachtree Industrial from
the proposed site. A few of her neighbors from nearby subdivisions were
in the audience as well.
She told the mayor and council she
knew they wouldn't have the ultimate say in the matter but said she just
wanted to go on the record as someone who loved the city and the area.
"We're not anti-growth and
development," she said. "We just think it's too big for that location,
and that something like the Forum in Norcross would be a better fit."
[back to top]
Recession in retail
sector has started
Wal-Mart starts
catching shoplifters to survive the nasty slowdown
Thomas Gomez
Jul. 11, 2007
[back to top]
The retail sector has started
tumbling. The retailers are all coming out with lower guidance. The car
sells are in real trouble. Many dealerships will close in the next two
years. The car prices will also tumble as people refuse to buy new cars
with higher insurance and gasoline costs.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. this week
tightened its rules on prosecuting young shoplifters, lowering the age
at which it will prosecute and authorizing store managers to call the
police if a parent doesn''t appear within an hour to retrieve a child.
The policies, which went into effect
Monday, now include prosecuting first-time shoplifters as young as 16
years old, compared with the previous limit of 18. The company also will
prosecute younger shoplifters whose parents don''t quickly respond to a
store's call, and children repeatedly caught stealing.
These cost control measures are early
signs of recession in the retail sector.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to Prosecute
Teen Shoplifters
By MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press
07.11.07
[back to top]
Wal-Mart is recommending its stores
prosecute shoplifters at a younger age, tightening guidelines for store
managers as it seeks to put a cap on rising theft that has eroded its
profit.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news
- people ) said Wednesday it issued new guidelines to its U.S. stores
this week lowering the age at which it recommends they prosecute
first-time shoplifters to 16 from 18.
The change comes two months after
Wal-Mart said an increase in shoplifting, employee theft and other
inventory loss was among factors hurting profitability in the first
quarter. A year ago, Wal-Mart relaxed its policy by recommending stores
only prosecute first-time offenders when the items stolen are worth $25
or more, a guideline that remains in force.
Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said
the latest guidelines were not a response to the company's May statement
of concern about theft. Instead, he said, they were the result of
suggestions from stores around the country going back to the start of
the year.
"The fact is, it (the anti-theft
policy) is always evolving, it's always moving," Simley said.
Simley said prosecuting at the age of
16 was in line with most other retailers.
The policy applies to first-time
shoplifters. The guidelines are a suggestion and store managers have
leeway to prosecute anyone accused of theft, Simley said.
The new policy shortens the time a
store will wait for parents before calling police on a child suspected
of shoplifting. The wait time is now one hour versus 90 minutes under
previous rules.
Wal-Mart also will prosecute repeat
offenders regardless of age, Simley said.
Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and
CEO of Wal-Mart's U.S. store division, put the spotlight on theft in a
mid-May conference call with analysts. He said first-quarter profit
margins were dragged down by problems including higher shrinkage, or
losses due to shoplifting, employee theft, paperwork errors and supplier
fraud. He said the problems could be worsening.
Wal-Mart has declined to detail the
theft problem or how much it has grown. Simley said the company still
has a lower overall loss rate to theft than the industry average.
Theft cost retailers $41.6 billion
last year, according to an annual survey by the National Retail
Federation and the University of Florida. They found the theft rate as a
percentage of sales ticked upward slightly to 1.61 percent of sales in
2006 from 1.60 percent in 2005.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Shares of Big-Format Stores
Fall
Associated Press
07.10.07
[back to top]
Shares of the nation's big-format
stores, including department stores and discounters, fell Tuesday amid
disappointing profit outlooks from two key retailers.
The Home Depot Inc. (nyse: HD - news -
people ), the world's largest home improvement store chain, on Tuesday
cited continued weakness in the housing market and the sale of its
wholesale distribution business as it issued a bleaker-than-expected
financial outlook for the year. And Sears Holdings Corp. (nasdaq: SHLD -
news - people ) surprised Wall Street Tuesday, warning its
second-quarter earnings will likely fall well below projections because
of more disappointing sales at its Sears and Kmart stores.
Meanwhile, the nation's merchants are
slated to announce sluggish same-store sales results Thursday as
consumers continue to be rattled by high gasoline prices and a weak
housing market. Same-store sales are sales at stores open at least a
year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health.
Here is how the stocks of some key
big-format stores fared Tuesday:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news
- people ), down 92 cents at $47.58
J.C. Penney Co. (nyse: JCP - news -
people ), down $1.37 at $71.15
Target Corp. (nyse: TGT - news -
people ), down $1.91 at $64.81
Sears Holding Corp., down $17.20 at
$154.21
Costco (nasdaq: COST - news - people )
Holding Corp., down 85 cents at $60.51
Macy's Inc., down $1.52 at $40.13
Home Depot Inc., up 2 cents at $40.25
Copyright 2007 Associated Press.
[back to top]
Wal*Mart Selects Knowledge Networks as Online Research Partner to Help
Manufacturers Target Key Shopper Segments More Effectively
KN receives access
to retailer's proprietary Segmentation Lens due to nationally
representative panel, expertise
PRNewswire
[back to top]
MENLO PARK, Calif., July 10
/PRNewswire/ -- Wal*Mart has endorsed Knowledge Networks as the online
panel research company to conduct custom studies using the retailer's
proprietary Segmentation Lens. Through Knowledge Networks' services,
manufacturers selling to Wal*Mart have the ability to understand how the
retailer's target segments -- Brand Aspirationals and Price Value and
Price Sensitive Affluent shoppers -- respond to strategies and tactics,
and thus the opportunity to target key consumers with greater accuracy.
These groups will become the backbone
of Wal*Mart's customer strategy moving forward; both Wal*Mart and its
manufacturer suppliers will grow by looking at every piece of research
through the eyes of these key segments. Knowledge Networks has coded its
entire online KnowledgePanel(SM) according to the Wal*Mart segments,
meaning that the segments have already been identified and can be easily
studied
[back to top]
San
Diego City Council defeats Wal-Mart superstore ban
Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
[back to top]
In a surprise victory for Wal-Mart
Stores Inc., the City Council on Tuesday failed to override the mayor's
veto of a ban on some big-box stores in the nation's eighth-largest
city.
Councilwoman Donna Frye reversed sides
after supporting the ban three times since September, resulting in a 4-4
deadlock that fell one vote short of putting the measure into law.
Frye said she was uneasy with a
blanket ban and would work for a new law that requires tougher scrutiny
of new superstores.
"I do not like the idea of having
giant superstores, but I also believe there is a way to deal with this
issue that will be inherently better for our city," said Frye, who
narrowly lost a write-in bid for mayor in 2004.
Mayor Jerry Sanders called the council
vote an "enormous victory for San Diego consumers."
"Government should not tell consumers
where they can and can't shop," he said.
The measure would have prohibited
stores of more than 90,000 square feet that use 10 percent of space to
sell groceries and other merchandise that is not subject to sales tax.
It took aim at Wal-Mart Supercenter stores, which average 185,000 square
feet and sell groceries. Costco Wholesale Corp. and other
membership-style retailers would have been exempt.
Supporters of the ban argued that
Wal-Mart puts smaller competitors out of business, pays workers poorly,
and contributes to traffic congestion and pollution. Opponents said the
mega-retailer provides jobs, low prices and more choices for consumers.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer
has about 2,000 Supercenter stores, including 27 in California, but none
in the San Diego area. The retailer has 18 regular Wal-Mart stores in
the San Diego area, including four within limits of the city of 1.3
million people.
Wal-Mart, which was considering a
petition drive to overturn the measure if it became law, welcomed the
decision.
"The ordinance was so anti-competitive
and so anti-consumer," said Amy Hill, a company spokeswoman.
[back to top]
Lawmakers want Wal-Mart
tax probe
By DAVID MILES,
santafenewmexican.com
July 10th, 2007
[back to top]
Loophole allows multistate
corporations to avoid state income taxes.
Twenty state legislators Tuesday sent
a letter to Gov. Bill Richardson asking him to investigate Wal-Mart’s
tax records in New Mexico to make sure the corporate giant is paying its
fair share of state taxes.
The letter cited a Wall Street Journal
article that detailed how Wal-Mart nationally has saved millions of
dollars in taxes by having a subsidiary pay rent to a real-estate
investment trust — or REIT — owned by another subsidiary, which receives
tax-free dividends from the REIT.
“If Wal-Mart has used the captive REIT
structure to avoid state income taxes, the state has the power and duty
to make Wal-Mart return this money and pay what it owes,” legislators
said in their letter.
A Richardson spokesman declined to
comment on the letter, saying he had not seen it. Efforts to reach a
Wal-Mart spokesman Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Lawmakers signing the letter included
several legislative leaders, such as Senate President Pro Tem Ben
Altamirano, D- Silver City, and House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé. Other
local legislators who signed the letter included Reps. Luciano “Lucky”
Varela and Peter Wirth, both Santa Fe Democrats.
The letter comes after three failed
attempts by Wirth to shepherd a bill through the Legislature to close
what he says is an “$80 million loophole” that allows multistate
corporations like Wal-Mart to avoid paying New Mexico corporate-income
taxes.
Wirth’s proposal would have required
such corporations to file a combined tax return with their subsidiaries
to reflect the total income of the entire corporation.
Wirth on Tuesday said his proposal and
the REIT issue address similar types of loopholes used by corporations.
“I think it’s a fundamental fairness issue,” he said. “When you have
loopholes that are being used by out-of-state businesses, it is New
Mexico businesses that are being hurt.”
Although Wirth’s bill repeatedly ran
into opposition from several business groups during this year’s 60-day
legislative session, he said the proposal is starting to pick up steam.
“There’s kind of a sense of outrage that the system is not fair to New
Mexico businesses,” he said.
Wirth said he plans to take a closer
look at tax issues surrounding multistate corporations such as Wal-Mart
before deciding whether to resurrect his proposal next year.
His bill that died at the end of the
2007 session would have generated an additional $80 million a year in
corporate-income tax revenue for the state, according to a fiscal impact
report on the bill. However, the measure also would have included an
estimated $60 million in tax cuts for corporations, making the state’s
net revenue gain $20 million a year.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart report delayed
By Ian Thompson
[back to top]
SUISUN CITY - It will be August when
Suisun City residents get their first look at the draft report on how
building a Wal-Mart Supercenter in eastern Suisun will affect the area.
Suisun City's Planning Department
hoped to release the draft environmental Impact report on the proposed
store this month but have pushed back the date. "We are now looking at
first week of August," Suisun City Planning Director Heather McCollister
said.
Wal-Mart wants to build a
230,000-square-foot supercenter just west of Walters Road and north of
Highway 12.
The retail giant is also on the verge
of building another supercenter in Fairfield but has been stalled by a
lawsuit filed last by the Fairfield Neighbors Promoting Smart Growth
group.
Suisun City planners are taking their
time with the draft to ensure every aspect of the project is examined in
a document that is expected to be 3 inches thick.
Once the draft is released for
comment, the city plans to hold several neighborhood meetings to discuss
the document and collect comments from residents. Wal-Mart's opponents
have already been busy. Groups such as the Suisun Alliance and the
Suisun Citizens League have already fired salvos, saying the project
saying it will increase crime and traffic, destroy local small
businesses and that its proximity to Travis Air Force Base will encroach
on the base and endanger its existence.
[back to top]
Indian
retailers to protest against Wal-Mart entry
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 [back to top]
MUMBAI, India: Millions of operators
of small shops plan to protest next month against larger local companies
and foreign firms like Wal-Mart who are venturing into the country's
booming retail sector, union leaders said Tuesday.
"We will tell Wal-Mart and all other
big Indian corporations like Reliance and Bharti to get out. They must
not take away this business from small workers," said Rajendra Thacker,
general secretary of the Mumbai Mahanagar Vyapari Seva Parishad, or Save
Mumbai Business Group.
Demonstrations and street rallies have
been planned for Aug. 9 in all major cities and towns, including Mumbai,
New Delhi, Chennai and Calcutta, Thacker told reporters.
Wal-Mart is close to entering the
country's protected retail business through a joint venture with local
conglomerate Bharti Enterprises Ltd. Indian laws bar foreign multi-brand
retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from setting up shop on their own.
India's top business group Reliance
Industries Ltd. already has opened more than 50 stores across the
country, mainly selling groceries, vegetables and grains.
The entry of large corporations into
the retail sector has sparked protests in India where the estimated
US$280 billion (€215 billion) market is dominated by more than 12
million mom-and-pop shops. Sales through company-owned big-box stores —
also called organized retailing — currently account for less than 5
percent of the market.
While Wal-Mart's Vice Chairman Michael
Duke's February visit to India sparked protests from some political
parties, Reliance stores in central and eastern India were recently
attacked by political activists and traders.
Vinod Shetty of India FDI Watch warned
the protests would grow with small retailers also planning
demonstrations outside big malls and stores. "If you take away their
business, they will come into your offices, they will come into your
homes," he said.
India FDI Watch is a grouping of labor
unions, trade associations, environmentalists, non-governmental
organizations and academics seeking to prevent foreign direct investment
in India's retail sector.
The Indian government has not raised
any objection to foreign joint ventures, but officials have said they
would scrutinize agreements once finalized.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart 'Site to
Store' in 3,300 stores
The Associated Press
July 10, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's
largest retailer, said Tuesday it completed the rollout of its "Site to
Store" shipping service in 3,300 stores across the country.
The program allows customers to order
products from its Web site, most of which are not available in stores,
and have them shipped for free to a local Wal-Mart store.
Since the rollout of the program began
in March, about one-third of all Walmart.com sales have been placed
through the "Site to Store" service.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart is deaf to
its best advisers
By Ritson, Mark
nexis
July 10th, 2007
[back to top]
In many ways Wal-Mart is a massive
success story - especially in the US, where the retailer started.
Two-thirds of Americans visit a
Wal-Mart on a monthly basis; more than 138m visit its stores in an
average week. As its chief marketing officer, John Fleming, succinctly
put it: 'Wal-Mart is the only retailer in the world without a traffic
problem.'
Look beyond such mind-boggling
figures, though, and a very different picture emerges. A sorry share
price and missed profit targets suggest all is not well.
Until recently, this has heen mostly
conjecture, bul last week a leaked internal-positioning ivpnrt laid hare
the sorry state of the Wal-Mart brand and the challenges it must
overcome.
The report, prepared last year for the
retailer's senior managers by its ad agency, GSD&M, lays out a company
with big brand issues. It concludes that Wal-Mart's obsessive emphasis
on lowering prices has led it to forget its original brand values and
left it as little more than a commodity business. 'Shopping at Wal-Mart
used to mean saving money and being patriotic, being a member of the
community, being part of the "American Dream",' said the report. 'Today,
it just means saving money. All value - no values.' It confirms this by
referring to brand-tracking data showing a gradual decline in consumers'
trust and respect for Wal-Mart.
The report also spells out the
difficult competitive environment in which Wal Mart? operates. The store
is 'not the smart choice in categories where saving money and time are
not the be-all, end-all drivers'. Its value position is preventing it
from succeeding in the higher-margin categories such as electronics,
apparel, grocery and pharmacy, where specialists including Best Buy and
Kohls are deemed superior. Wal-Mart is also threatened in its own
category by Target, which, the report concludes, has been 'incredibly
successful at re-selling the bar of what people expect from a discount
store'.
A rapidly commodifying brand that has
lost touch with its heritage, facing apparently superior competition on
all sides - it is a chief executive's nightmare. But the report also
details the results of market research and goes on to recommend a
10-step plan to revitalise Wal-Mart.
It's possibly the most ambitious and
important marketing plan of the past 20 years, a textbook piece of
marketing strategy, the kind of work we rarely see in the UK, but have
come to expect from ton-tier US marketers, who are - how can I say this?
- generally better than their UK peers.
First, there is research that includes
both ethnographic and protective work, leading to a major quantitative
study of 2700 shoppers and their buying process, purchase drivers and
trigger points. Next, behavioural segmen talion that presents rigorous
but also actionable segments, and reviews each in light of their
different aspirations and buying behaviours.
Finally there is a clear and concise
call to arms with strategies to reconnect with these segments,
reposition the Wal-Mart brand with its core values, and address the
threat posed by Target in particular. 'If Target is about design and
style - ultimately superficial attributes - Wal Mart can be about
meaning and substance,' the report says.'Rather than objectifying our
products and putting them on pedestals, Wal-Mart can celebrate our
products in the context of people's lives.'
There are only two things wrong with
the report. First, it has been leaked to the media, which is why I am
writing about it and why you and, presumably, Wal-Mart competitors are
reading about it.
Second, Wal-Mart was so impressed with
the report that it fired GSD&M at the end of 2006, ending a 20-year
relationship.
30 seconds on... GSD&M report on
Wal-Mart Wal-Mart's former ad agency GSD&M conducted a report on the
retailer last year as it sought to retain its business.
The agency, based in Austin, lexas.
conducted consumer interviews across the US and took some of the
respondents shopping.
Among the problems the agency listed
in the report was the 'hillbilly' stereotype of the US retailer's
shoppers.
It also cited Wal-Mart's public
relations troubles, including a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of
1.6m existing and former female employees who allege discrimination in
terms of pay and promotion because of their gender.
The report also claims that as the
retailer branches out into electronics and clothing, its One-stop
shopping format becomes a time-consuming irrelevant obstacle It
continues: ?"copie don't buy electronics, home decor and apparel in zero
time.'
Wal-Mart's obsessive emphasis on
lowering prices has led it to forget its original brand values
[back to top]
Walmex Net Profits Up
7 Percent in 2Q
Associated Press
07.09.07
[back to top]
Wal-Mart de Mexico SA, the country's
largest retailer, reported a 7 percent increase in second-quarter net
profit after inflation, even as same-store sales grew less than 1
percent due in part to a slowdown in consumption.
The company reported net profit of
almost 3 billion pesos ($280 million) during the period, compared with
nearly 2.8 billion pesos ($260 million) in the same quarter last year.
Walmex - as the Mexican unit of
Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news - people ) is
known - reported a 9 percent increase in total sales after inflation, to
51 billion pesos ($4.7 billion).
Same-store sales refers to sales at
stores opened at least a year.
Second-quarter sales were affected by
a slowdown in the Mexican and U.S. economies, as well as an absence of
positive factors the company took advantage of in 2006, including the
presidential elections and the World Cup, Walmex president and CEO
Eduardo Solorzano said in a statement.
As a result, Solorzano said, Walmex
implemented an "aggressive" cost-reduction program in all areas except
consumer service, which held the increase in operating expenses to 6
percent over the same period last year.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Why so nervous about
robots, Wal-Mart?
by Alorie Gilbert
[back to top]
Wal-Mart-bashing appears to be a
national sport these days, with legions of Wal-Mart critics growing
faster than the retail empire can build new stores. In particular, the
company's labor practices are a lightning rod for criticism. So it's no
wonder that the company has struck a rather defensive note regarding a
rumored interest in robotic labor. I got a dose of Wal-Mart's defensive
posture first-hand last week when reporting a feature story News.com
published today on the future of inventory-checking robots. After an
executive at Frontline Robotics informed me that Wal-Mart is eyeing
robot technology, I called Wal-Mart for confirmation.
Wal-Mart representative Christi
Gallagher, the company's spokeswoman on supply chain and technology
issues, took my call. She also happens to be the media point person on
labor relations and employment litigation.
As soon as I mentioned robots,
Gallagher seemed eager to end the call. "We are not looking into robots
in any way, shape or form," she said abruptly. I tried probing for more,
but she had nothing further to offer.
The response was curious because, when
a public relations person is faced out-of-the-blue with questions on a
random topic like robots, he or she would typically pause, jot down some
notes, and say something along the lines of, "Gosh, I have no idea about
that, but I'll check into it for you."
And I am apparently not the first to
hit a Wal-Mart nerve with a robot story. As I noted in today's story,
the company's attorneys took a particular interest in an eWeek report in
May about a robot Wal-Mart is apparently testing in a Utah store. The
robot, developed at Utah State University, is designed to guide visually
impaired shoppers and locate products for them.
Wal-Mart's lawyers called the
university after it learned of the story, and a university
representative then retracted earlier statements about Wal-Mart's
interest in investing in further development of the robots.
So why is Wal-Mart so touchy about
robots? My hunch is that Wal-Mart's interest in robots goes far beyond
helping the visually impaired shop. I think it's intrigued by the notion
of using robots in its warehouses, distribution centers and stores to
monitor and check inventory -- a job mostly done by people today, as one
Frontline Robotics executive noted.
"After hours, robots could run around
stores in a systematic pattern and take a complete inventory of all the
shelves," said Rob Richards, chief operating officer of Frontline. "We
have people now that do that."
But to my mind, robot-talk is the
least of Wal-Mart's labor woes, which include accusations of sexual
discrimination, low pay, poor benefits, worker safety violations and
child labor law violations. The company has also been embroiled in
widespread overtime pay disputes and is in trouble with the Department
of Labor over employing illegal immigrants.
So, Wal-Mart, relax about robots!
[back to top]
Wal-Mart, P&G Lead a Parade
IHT
In-Store Marketing Institute
[back to top]
Procter & Gamble joined with Wal-Mart
on July 1 to turn Parade magazine into a veritable co-equity FSI
program.
The marketing powerhouses ran multiple
full-page ads promoting the availability of various P&G brands at
Wal-Mart. Published by Parade Publications, New York, Parade is
delivered to 32 million households weekly as an insert in 380 Sunday
newspapers. The publication has a total audience of 73.6 million,
according to data from MRI, New York.
An ad for Prilosec OTC touted the
brand's NASCAR sponsorship and invited readers to "get relief at
Wal-Mart ... and get an exclusive Legendary NASCAR Moments DVD.” An ad
for CoverGirl featuring celebrity spokesperson Rihanna advised, “You're
3 steps away from a great new summer look at Wal-Mart.” And an ad (in
some markets) for Charmin compared the brand’s Ultra Strong and Ultra
Soft varieties, encouraging shoppers to “Go to Wal-Mart and choose the
one that's best for you.”
In stores, these and other P&G brands
(such as Bounty, Tide and Gain) received endcap placement along Action
Alley and within packaged goods aisles.
The effort coincided with the latest
edition of P&G's brandSaver stand-alone FSI program, which also was
distributed through July 1 newspapers. (See Related Articles.) Valassis,
Livonia, MI, handles that program for P&G.
Wal-Mart is a regular advertiser in
Parade, often securing the inside cover for spreads of seasonal
merchandise. The July 1 issue also contained a center spread advertising
outdoor grills, along with Kingsford charcoal and Sam’s Choice beef
patties. Elsewhere in the issue, Sam's Club ran a full-page ad pitching
backyard grills and patio furniture.
In Parade's June 17 issue, Sam's Club
and P&G teamed for a back-page ad promoting Prilosec, Pantene, Crest,
Gillette Fusion, Head & Shoulders and Always. The ad included a free
guest pass to the club.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's problem is
one of attitude
Our view: Its move
to circumvent city's big-box law via petition drive, public vote, was
cynical and can only earn it more ill will
The Arizona Daily Star
Sunday, July 08, 2007
[back to top]
Jul. 8--Wal-Mart will do nothing to
enhance its reputation if it pursues a legal challenge to Tucson's
so-called big-box ordinance.
The ordinance is part of the city's
zoning code and says big-box stores -- stores larger than 100,000 square
feet -- can use no more than 10 percent of the store's space for food
and beverage sales.
The law was designed to keep out Wal-Marts
in part because of the impact they have on smaller businesses, but also
because unions and their supporters object to Wal-Mart's employment
practices.
Despite the ordinance, Wal-Mart has
done well in the suburban areas contiguous to Tucson, and in March the
City Council also granted a waiver to Eastbourne Investments Ltd. for a
major development that will probably include a Wal-Mart near South Park
Avenue and East 36th Street.
Shortly after that waiver was
approved, Wal-Mart announced a petition drive in the hope of repealing,
through a ballot initiative, the part of the big-box ordinance that
contains the 10 percent provision.
It was an arrogant and cynical move
and served mainly to reaffirm the beliefs of Wal-Mart's harshest
critics.
As Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal
put it, "They want what they want, when they want it. It's more of an
attitude problem than a legal problem."
However, it also a legal problem.
Wal-Mart collected the required number
of signatures for its ballot initiative and went to deliver them to City
Clerk Kathy Detrick. Acting on the advice of City Attorney Mike Rankin,
Detrick rejected the petitions.
Rankin says state law clearly holds
that the initiative process cannot be used to change zoning laws. There
are at least three cases where the Arizona Supreme Court has made this
explicit.
In the most recent case, from 1997,
the court noted, "The State Zoning Enabling Act expressly delegates
zoning powers to other levels of government, including the governing
body of an incorporated city. . . . Zoning ordinances cannot be passed
by initiative without circumventing the constitutionally required notice
and hearing."
The same ruling states, "To protect
property owners' constitutional rights within the comprehensive
legislative scheme governing zoning, this court has held that
initiatives cannot be used to legislate zoning."
The court said ". . . we do not review
the substantive validity of any proposed zoning ordinance but only
prohibit altogether the use of initiative to enact zoning laws."
As of Friday, Wal-Mart hadn't decided
whether it would mount a legal challenge to the city's rejection of its
initiative petitions. Based on the rulings from the state Supreme Court,
it appears such a challenge would be a waste of time in Arizona.
Wal-Mart would probably be wiser to
invest its time and money in improving its image with those who see it
as a "my way or the highway" kind of business.
Local politicians certainly went the
extra mile in trying to clear the way for a possible Wal-Mart as part of
the Eastbourne project. In that case, most members of the City Council
agreed with the wishes of the adjacent neighborhood, which supported
inclusion of a Wal-Mart, and dictated that a waiver of the big-box
ordinance was in order.
Consumers seem to either love or hate
Wal-Mart, depending to some extent on their level of political
awareness.
Those who pay no attention to politics
or ideology see the place only for the convenience it offers. Liberals
tend to see the company as a retail brute intent on keeping wages and
benefits down and locking out unions.
If Wal-Mart hopes to ever see another
waiver of the big-box ordinance in Tucson, it needs friends among the
Democrats who dominate the City Council and who object to it on
principle.
Attempting to circumvent the City
Council's power by launching what is clearly an illegal challenge is a
good way to kill the possibility of ever winning another waiver of the
big-box ordinance.
[back to top]
The Wal-Mart Weekly: Sourcing almost everything from China
By Brian White,
blogginstocks.com
July 6th, 2007
[back to top]
Welcome to the 18th installment of The
Wal-Mart Weekly, a weekly column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit,
facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes
down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.
Last week I discussed how Wal-Mart
Stores (NYSE: WMT) seems to have quite a bit of stock in its clothes and
shoes departments, but does not seem to have the selection one would
expect for departments that take up a lot of floor space. Filling a
niche need at Wal-Mart in these two areas is not happening, but it sure
has plenty of stock for boring clothes and shoes!
So, from the lack of innovative
merchandising in those two areas last week, I'll move on to something
completely unrelated this week: the sourcing of so much retail inventory
from China. There is a reason for "Always Low Prices" these days at
Wal-Mart, and it's due to one country alone.
Take a wild guess on which country.
Let's dig in.
The prime reason for growth Wal-Mart's
torrid growth in the last 15 years has coincided with much sourcing from
mainland China throughout almost all its product categories. One thing
that Sam Walton trumpeted loudly for as long as he was heading Wal-Mart
was the phrase "Buy American."
Walton passed away in 1992 and shortly
thereafter, the retailer began expanding store counts like crazy as well
as converting regular stores into Supercenters and building new
Supercenters. Sam's Clubs began expanding too, and before you knew it,
Wal-Mart was poised to become the largest retailer in the world right
before the new century began.
What caused all this growth? What did
Wal-Mart do right to attain such a huge amount of sales that kept on
growing year after year? Many pundits point the finger right at the
retailer's strategy to procure as much as possible from China while
wringing out as much cost as possible from other suppliers, many of whom
were based in the U.S. Every manufacturer had a choice: give Wal-Mart a
decent portion (or a huge one) of your business and watch your company
roll in cash -- which turned out to be a 'temporary high' for many -- or
don't sell to Wal-Mart and see your competitors take sales just due to
store exposure. This became the decision of the day for years as
Wal-Mart grew in its retailing power.
Consumers choose Wal-Mart, not the
other way around.
What kept Wal-Mart buying from many
Chinese suppliers when it came to auto parts to shoes to clothes to
leafblowers was the lower price the retailer could get as opposed to
American suppliers.
Of course, Wal-Mart passed those cost
savings on to customers, who took notice and bought more and more goods
every year as the retailer grew. Did anything make all those American
consumers choose Wal-Mart? Low, low prices.
And every year, they seemed to get
lower. As expected, American consumers -- many of whom want everything
as cheaply as possible -- just kept on buying.
What happened? All that consumer
enthusiasm and pocket change fueled an unstoppable Wal-Mart expansion
that continues to this day. As more and more customers kept on buying
Chinese-made goods, Wal-Mart kept building stores to service that need
until it was that country's sixth-largest trading partner. And, as far
as I know, Wal-Mart is not an individual country just yet, although its
trade volume with China makes it look like one on paper.
Is the end of Chinese trade coming for
Wal-Mart?
After a good dozen years of consumers
buying more and more stuff for their homes, apartments, cars and kids
(and themselves), millions of consumers started seeing American jobs get
shipped oversea. The American companies that still sourced to Wal-Mart
shipped everything they could to China in terms of production instead of
letting companies from that country get all the retailer's business. End
result: a large majority of Wal-Mart's goods now are made in China and
sold to the retailer by Chinese suppliers themselves (with different
levels of quality and brand names) or by American suppliers who have
been forced to compete on cost by sending manufacturing of their goods
to China as well.
Will Wal-Mart try to get back to
buying from a more varied supplier base soon, which most likely would
mean higher prices? I doubt this will happen without more consumer
backlash. Buying from other countries would most likely mean higher
prices than Wal-Mart currently offers, which can be a death knell in the
retailing industry. Hint: Target also sources quite a bit of product
from China, but merchandises it in such a way that consumers are
responding more to Target than to Wal-Mart.
So there it is -- consumer wishes for
every-low prices cause Wal-Mart to source more and more from China and
the American retailing economy ends up in an odd circle. That circle is
the American need for constant bargains (at the expense of a neighbor's
job, perhaps) along with Wal-Mart's need to grow like crazy and become
the largest retail company the world has ever know. Is there any going
back? I sincerely doubt it.
If Wal-Mart ever changed its slogan
from "Always Low Prices" to one like "Always the Best" (read: quality),
then we would all know something was up.
See you the same time and same place
next week for another installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly. Until then,
have a great weekend.
[back to top]
Reliance, Beating Wal-Mart to India, Lures Shoppers, Investors
By Saikat Chatterjee
Bloomberg
July 5, 2007
[back to top]
A Suhiksha retail store in New Delhi
-- Ram Pukar doesn't need Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to make him worry about
his fate as a fruit salesman in a New Delhi suburb. Homegrown stores
owned by Reliance Industries Ltd. have already cut his profit in half.
India's biggest company by market
value is ``trying to drive us out of business by offering cheap rates,''
said Pukar, who sells mangoes and pomegranates from his cart a kilometer
from where a Reliance Fresh convenience store recently opened.
Investors concerned that Reliance
Chairman Mukesh Ambani's lack of retail experience will be a handicap
should think again. The Mumbai-based company is investing $6 billion in
the stores, supported by record profits from operating the world's
third- largest oil refinery. The stores are opening as India's retail
sales surge, rising as much as 35 percent a year driven by a burgeoning
middle class.
The supermarket chain's sales will
reach $25 billion by 2011, Reliance forecasts, more than its total
revenue last year. The growth, combined with profits from oil, will
drive Reliance shares to 2,060 rupees ($51) in the next 12 months,
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts said in a June 18 note. That would be
a 21 percent gain from yesterday's closing price.
``They have entered a virgin area,
very, very early, which is growing at a phenomenal pace,'' said Chakri
Lokapriya, who manages $470 million in shares, including Reliance, at
BNP Paribas Asset Management U.K. Ltd. in London.
Reliance shares are up 34 percent
already this year, giving the company a market value of $59 billion. The
company's net profit reached 109 billion rupees in the year ended March
31.
Competition
Reliance is getting into the market
before Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, because the Indian
government doesn't currently allow foreign companies to open supermarket
chains in the country. Carrefour SA and Tesco Plc, Europe's biggest food
retailers, have also expressed interest in entering the market. Retail
outlets owned by foreign companies that sell only a single brand of
products are permitted.
The Indian government has commissioned
a study about the impact of large retailers on the nation's economy
before making a decision on allowing foreign investment in retail. The
results are expected to be released within months.
Wal-Mart is instead exploring a
wholesaling joint venture with India's Bharti Group, controlled by
billionaire Sunil Mittal. Wal-Mart aims to sell goods to retailers,
including the small store owners, to help them ``lower costs and
increase profits,'' wrote Kevin Gardner, a spokesman for the
Bentonville, Arkansas-based company, responding to questions in an
e-mail.
The jockeying comes as economic growth
in India is creating a large middle class. By 2010, there will be 65
million middle- income households, up from about 40 million last year,
according to McKinsey & Co. estimates.
Jostling for Space
``The economy is growing by more than
9 percent and even if Reliance takes between 20 percent to 25 percent
market share of the organized retailing, they will still have a very
huge business,'' said Suhas Naik, who manages the equivalent of $100
million in stocks, including Reliance Industries, at IL&FS Ltd. in
Mumbai.
For now, most produce shopping takes
place on street corners where pushcart vendors jostle with each other
for space. The vendors shout out what they have on offer to lure
customers --who then elbow each other to pick the best vegetables from
wicker baskets lying on the ground. Such outlets control 96 percent of
the country's retail market, according to New Delhi-based consulting
firm Technopak Advisors Pvt.
Reliance and other retailers, such as
Pantaloon Retail India Ltd., want to change all that. Reliance's stores
sell vegetables, fruits and even flowers used for offerings to Hindu
deities under one roof. The stores also sell staples such as sugar and
rice for less than the neighborhood stores.
Avoiding the Heat
Reliance, which opened its first store
Nov. 3, is reaping its home-court advantage to grab more shoppers like
Kavita Gupta. Gupta enjoys the unaccustomed pleasure of shopping in an
air- conditioned store.
``The shopping experience has become
much better, I can avoid the heat outside and can get most of the stuff
I need under one roof,'' Gupta, 37, said.
Other companies are following suit:
Bharti Group and Aditya Birla Group are among other companies that are
starting nationwide retail chains. Reliance spokesman Tushar Pania
declined to comment on the company's plans.
`Total Starvation'
Street vendors and some politicians
are fighting the trend. The Indian government's communist allies oppose
any opening to overseas retailers on the grounds that it will displace
small retailers and hurt the livelihoods of those who work there.
India's Congress Party, which leads
the ruling coalition, wants to have safeguards in place before it allows
foreign investors greater access to the nation's retail industry, which
accounts for about 7 percent of the Indian workforce.
Others have taken a more violent
approach. A group of protesters belonging to the Indian Justice Party
stoned a Reliance store in New Delhi last month.
``We feel that big companies shouldn't
enter the retail business be it Indian or foreign,'' said Udit Raj,
chairman of the party, in an interview in New Delhi. ``Small vendors are
facing total starvation.''
Reliance Fresh outlets in Ranchi, in
eastern India, and Indore in central India have been attacked by
traders. On May 27, vegetable vendors held a one-day strike to protest
the opening of Reliance Fresh stores. Traders also went on protest
marches in the western city of Ahmedabad against retail chains, the
Press Trust of India reported.
As for Pukar, he's not optimistic that
either the country's cart vendors or the nation's consumers will win. He
said, ``once we are gone, Reliance will raise the prices.''
[back to top]
Woman
Files Beef Lawsuit Against Tyson & Wal-Mart
By Janie Gabbett,
The Cattle Network
July 5th, 2007
[back to top]
A Muskogee, Okla., woman is filing a
lawsuit against Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods Inc. alleging hamburger meat
she purchased made her sick, according to a local media report.
KOTV in Tulsa said Melinda Pierce
filed the complaint after she had bought some Tyson hamburger meat at
the Muskogee, Okla., Wal-Mart on June 4, ate it and fell.
Last month, Tyson foods voluntarily
recalled packages of ground beef made in its Sherman, Texas, plant on
June 2nd and sent to Wal-Mart stores in 12 states, including Oklahoma.
Tyson foods spokesman Gary Mickelson
told Meatingplace.com the company has not been contacted nor have they
seen the lawsuit. "If she contacts us, we certainly will be glad to look
into it," he said.
Wal-Mart told KOTV it has not seen the
lawsuit, but that food safety is a priority.
[back to top]
Newberry Twp. officials: Strong support for proposed Wal-Mart
Supercenter, strip mall project
By CHARLES SCHILLINGER,
The York Dispatch
July 5th, 2007
[back to top]
A project that includes a Wal-Mart
Supercenter and other stores is headed to the Newberry Township
supervisors for conditional use approval.
Plans are still in preliminary phases,
so there aren't many details yet.
However, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, Jim
Davis, confirmed a store is planned for the township.
The store would be part of a strip
mall off Pleasant View Drive and Old Trail Road, near Interstate 83.
Along with a Wal-Mart and adjoining
stores, the mall would include several free-standing commercial
buildings that typically house banks and restaurants.
If approved by the township, the
Wal-Mart store would become the sixth to land in York County. Two other
plans are still in play in Windsor and Carroll townships.
Both of those stores have met with
opposition. But as of now, that hasn't been the case in Newberry
Township.
Supervisor Chairman George Knoll said
he's seen no opposition forming to date, and added he supports retail
businesses moving to the township.
"If you live here, either you drive 18
miles Advertisement one way, or 12 miles the other way to get to a
store," Knoll said, of the township that sits between Harrisburg and
York. "With gas $3 a gallon or close to that, this is an opportunity for
people in the township to get what they need and not travel all over the
countryside."
'Oh, boy': Township manager Donald
Keener said even with recent publicity, the office has not received much
interest in the municipal process or in preventing Wal-Mart from
building in Newberry Township.
"The general feeling I've gotten is
that most everybody has been, 'Oh, boy, great, we're getting a Wal-Mart,
a shopping center close to home,'" Keener said. "I'm sure there's other
people that feel differently out there, but that's what I've heard more
than anything else."
Davis said it's well known there are
citizens' groups that don't like Wal-Mart and other big chain stores.
But sometimes, it works out that the company and community are in
agreement about the need.
"Sometimes, the fear of the unknown
takes over, and citizens don't give Wal-Mart or other retailers a chance
to present their case," he said. "Then there's some who greet Wal-Mart
with open arms, and they realize the positive effects on the economy and
tax revenues."
As plans are still new, there's been
no determination as to the size of the store, but Davis said Wal-Mart
Supercenters typically employ between 250 and 500 people. A Supercenter
is a Wal-Mart that sells grocery products; there is no set size for
Wal-Mart Supercenters.
[back to top]
Public process
betters Northcross Wal-Mart
The Austin American-Statesman.
July 5th, 2007
[back to top]
In certain Austin precincts, the
hottest issue going is Wal-Mart's plan to build a Supercenter in the
aging Northcross Mall on Anderson Lane.
Lincoln Property Co., which owns the
moribund mall, is renovating the east end of the facility for new
tenants. The west side will be demolished to make room for the first of
Wal-Mart's two-story urban Supercenters, which includes a garden
section.
Some North Austin residents, who
organized as Responsible Growth for Northcross, oppose Lincoln
Property's plan and the Wal-Mart. Last week, the group sued Lincoln
Property and the City of Austin, arguing that the city's approval of the
site violates city regulations.
The lawsuit notwithstanding, the
public process worked to change the project for the better. Concerned
neighbors and involved city officials persuaded Wal-Mart to radically
alter its plans for the Northcross store.
Original plans were for a
225,000-square-foot store, operating 24 hours a day, with a gas station
and a tire and lubrication station on site. The plan approved last month
is for a store of 192,000 square feet that will close from 1 to 5 a.m.
most of the year. The gas station and lube center are gone, too.
Assistant City Manager Laura Huffman
said the company also plans other changes to enhance the property. They
include an attractive façade, outward-facing stores and a more
pedestrian-friendly look.
None of that had to be done, Huffman
explained, because Lincoln Property came to the city with a fully
entitled site plan that needed no variances or exceptions. After
neighbors raised an alarm, however, Lincoln and Wal-Mart went back to
the drawing board and presented a plan with changes to appease the
neighbors. That plan went through the city approval process, too.
A traffic study completed after the
project was scaled back found that traffic shouldn't overburden the
streets and intersections. It predicts about 20,000 cars a day in and
out of the mall, compared with 8,000 a day now.
As the lawsuit attests, however, not
all the neighbors are pleased with the changes or believe that traffic
won't be a problem. Some will not be mollified no matter what Wal-Mart
does because it's an international corporation with entrenched
opponents. Others want a much smaller development at Northcross than
Lincoln proposes.
But there are probably just as many
residents who will be pleased with the project when it's completed.
Lincoln and Wal-Mart plan a major upgrade for the failing mall,
including new restaurants, a fitness center and a pharmacy, among other
amenities.
An attractive Northcross Mall should
fit in with the neighborhood around Anderson Lane and Burnet Road, even
improve it. Obviously, not everyone will be won over by the renovation,
a scaled-back Wal-Mart and the process that begat them. But Wal-Mart and
Lincoln listened to neighborhood concerns and designed a smaller,
friendlier Wal-Mart and additional improvements in the renovation. The
wrangling also resulted in major changes in the way the city examines
major developments.
Because of the uproar over the
Northcross Wal-Mart, the City Council now requires that any development
of more than 100,000 square feet go through a special permitting and
public hearing process. The council also widened the area in which
residents must be notified about large projects to a mile.
Out of all this, Northcross gets a
face-lift, Wal-Mart gets a more central location, shoppers get more
choices and the city gets higher sales and property taxes. In short, the
process worked to the benefit of most — though not all — involved.
[back to top]
Retail giant seeks a sweeter deal to put a Supercenter in Newtown
By CATHY ZOLLO,
Herald Tribune
July 5th, 2007
[back to top]
SARASOTA -- Wal-Mart is asking the
city of Sarasota to sweeten the deal to put a Supercenter in Newtown.
A memo from Wal-Mart real estate
manager David Roetto outlined how the city could urge Wal-Mart to move
forward with the project, which has been stalled for several months
while the retail giant re-evaluates it.
His proposal includes:
More city money for the environmental
cleanup that is needed on the land selected for the store, which was
once a city-run garbage dump.
A promise from the city to hold $3
million in real estate contracts along U.S. 301 until after the store is
complete to make the project look better on paper.
Less going to the community from the
$1.6 million in rebates Wal-Mart would get for developing in an
enterprise zone and for cleaning up the site.
The retailer had promised to donate
all the money to local organizations.
Wal-Mart is scheduled to make a
presentation to commissioners either this month or in August, but
commissioners were split on whether to proceed with talks.
At least two of them are moving beyond
Wal-Mart entirely.
"It's unfortunate for the community
because obviously there is a lot of support," said Commissioner Kelly
Kirschner, who plans to contact Trader Joe's, a discount grocery chain
that favors organic products.
Wal-Mart officials declined to comment
on recent happenings with the Newtown deal.
The retailer raised hopes for almost
two years that it would plant one of its stores in northern Sarasota and
revitalize the community around it.
The plan would have turned a polluted
former dump and some nearby property into a magnet for enterprise.
But beginning in April, the retailer
began signaling that all was not well with the deal, and that profit
numbers did not meet the company's expectations.
That is when Wal-Mart came back to the
city asking for more.
Commissioner Fredd Atkins, who
represents the district where the proposed store would sit, also said he
wanted to start looking for a different taker for the site.
Roetto's letter does not ask the city
to do anything about the upcoming minimum wage referendum, but Wal-Mart
is concerned about it nonetheless, said John Hawthorne, the city's
Newtown Redevelopment Director.
In response to thousands of petition
signatures, city commissioners in March approved putting a citywide
minimum wage referendum on the November ballot. It lets voters decide if
Sarasota businesses with 50 or more employees that receive at least
$100,000 in city subsidies will be required to pay an hourly rate more
than $3 above the state minimum wage.
If it passes, it guarantees for up to
five years at least $9.93 an hour for workers at those companies. That
is the poverty level for a family of four, according to the federal
government.
Also at the top of Wal-Mart's list of
concerns is the potential cost to clean up lead, arsenic and pesticides
on the 18-acre site at the corner of U.S. 301 and Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. Way.
The city had already promised that its
$4.9 million profit from selling the land to Wal-Mart will pay for the
cleanup, and the city committed another $2.8 million -- a total of $7.7
million -- should the cost exceed the city's initial outlay.
As a cushion, the retail giant wants
the city to sell part of the land that will hold a retention pond to the
Florida Department of Transportation.
The state agency would then be
responsible for building the pond and paying for its cleanup.
The project is at the bottom of a list
of 40 similar ones in terms of how profitable Wal-Mart thinks it will
be, according to internal city documents.
[back to top]
Sam's Club Taps Finance Chief
By KRIS HUDSON,
Wall Street Journal
July 5th, 2007
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club
membership-warehouse division named Liz Kirkwood its top financial
officer. Ms. Kirkwood succeeds Sam Dunn as senior vice president of
finance. Mr. Dunn left last month to serve as chief administrative
officer of Wal-Mart's Japanese division, Seiyu Ltd. He had been Sam's
Club's finance chief since 2002. Ms. Kirkwood, 41 years old, joined
Wal-Mart's international operations as finance director in 2002. In
2005, she was named vice president of finance and accounting, risk,
benefits and administration for Wal-Mart at its Bentonville, Ark.,
headquarters. Prior to moving to Sam's Club, she served as vice
president in Wal-Mart's Global People Division. Sam's Club operates 580
clubs in the U.S. and posted $41.6 billion in sales last year.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Critics Leave Group
Associated Press News
July 5, 2007
[back to top]
The most aggressive of two
union-backed groups campaigning since 2005 against Wal-Mart Stores
Inc.'s business practices will lose its two top figures to the
Democratic presidential race.
WakeUpWalMart's director Paul Blank
and spokesman Chris Kofinis are expected to join the campaign of former
U.S. Sen. John Edwards, Edwards' advisers said Thursday. A deal is not
yet final but is expected to be completed in the next few days, they
said.
Kofinis also said the deal was not
done but added that WakeUpWalMart.com will continue and will become more
aggressive in attacking the world's largest retailer over issues such
wages, health care and global outsourcing.
Some analysts said the departure may
be a signal of a weakening in the two-year-old union effort to pressure
Wal-Mart from the outside after failing to unionize its stores.
WakeUpWalMart.com is one of two
political campaign-style groups launched in 2005 by unions in an effort
to harness public opinion to shame Wal-Mart to improve wages and
benefits. The other is Wal-Mart Watch.
Wal-Mart maintains that its pay and
benefits are competitive. Since the union campaigns started, the company
has beefed up its public relations efforts, hiring more in-house staff
as well as outside firm Edelman while launching a range of initiatives
from lower-priced health insurance to environmental programs.
"We wish them well," Wal-Mart
spokesman Dave Tovar said about Blank and Kofinis. "As always, our focus
is on serving our customers and helping them save money so they can live
better."
WakeUpWalMart.com, funded by the
United Food and Commercial Workers, is widely seen as the more
aggressive of the two groups. It has run television ad campaigns, held a
national protest bus tour last year and garnered public support from
Democratic presidential hopefuls including U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and
Edwards, a former vice presidential candidate.
"WakeUpWalMart were always a little
more aggressive. Blank and Kofinis were the opposition" for Wal-Mart's
public relations efforts, said independent filmmaker Ron Galloway.
Galloway was formerly a member of a pro-Wal-Mart advocacy group called
Working Families for Wal-Mart that was organized on the retailer's
behalf by Edelman.
Galloway said he had always expected
Blank and Kofinis to move back to presidential politics after their
stint with the union's anti-Wal-Mart effort.
Blank was political director for
Howard Dean's 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, and Kofinis is a
former political science professor who helped draft retired U.S. Army
Gen. Wesley Clark into the same race.
Corporate reputation expert Steven
Silvers said the move may signal that the union campaigns are reaching
an end, with little new ground to cover after criticizing Wal-Mart for
two years.
"At some point an activist group has
to ask itself if it's preaching to the choir," said Silvers, from the
Denver-based consulting company GBSM Inc.
"What they're doing is going from
rhetoric to relevance," Silvers said. He said Blank and Kofinis can have
more impact on Wal-Mart from the national platform of the presidential
race.
Whether the union groups' publicity
campaigns are driving shoppers away from Wal-Mart is a matter of debate.
They claim they are persuading people not to shop at Wal-Mart, while
Wal-Mart says a poll it commissioned found virtually no impact.
A March report by Banc of America
Securities said union campaigns are beginning to hurt Wal-Mart's
operations, but said the degree of impact was difficult to quantify.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Lawsuit: Ground beef had E.
coli
By DAVID IRVIN,
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
July 4th, 2007
[back to top]
A Muskogee, Okla., woman filed a
federal lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc. on
Monday, claiming that beef she purchased in early June gave her E. coli
poisoning.
In her filing in U. S. District Court
in the Eastern District of 0, 000 pounds of beef sold to Wal-Mart in 12
states — including Oklahoma — on E. coli concerns. The recalled ground
beef was not labeled as Tyson product, according to information on the
U. S. Department of Agriculture Web site.
However, Pierce believes the beef she
purchased from Wal-Mart was from Tyson because of similarities between
the product she purchased and descriptions of the packaging provided by
Tyson in recall notices, the filing said.
At the time of the recall, Tyson said
there had been no reports of illness, and on Tuesday both Tyson and
Wal-Mart reiterated their commitments to food safety. “We did not know
of this claim until Monday when we were contacted by a Tulsa TV
station,” Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said in an e-mailed response.
“We’ve since received a copy of the lawsuit and intend to investigate
this matter.” Pierce said she has suffered pain, nausea and distress of
her liver, kidneys and intestines, and has remained in the hospital
since June 8, according to the filing. Pierce is suing the two Arkansas
companies for negligence in handling and inspecting the meat and for
failing to protect the public in the recall, the filing said.
John Simley, a spokesman for Wal-Mart,
said the recalled meat was immediately removed from its meat cases in
early June and a computer block was placed on the product so it couldn’t
be sold. Simley also said the Bentonville retailer had not been served
the lawsuit yet and he wasn’t aware of any other complaints of illness
because of the recalled meat. He declined to comment on the suit.
The June 8 recall was comparatively
small compared with other E. coli recalls occurring across the country
at that time, including a 5. 7 million pound recall in Western states by
United Food Group. There have been eight E. coli-related beef recalls in
the United States already this year, though government officials
recognize no trend or connection between them. A spokesman for the
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service could not be reached by phone
for comment on Tuesday to confirm the illness. Pierce’s husband, Jim, is
also seeking damages for disrupting “marital relations” with his wife,
the filing said.
[back to top]
Woman Kicked Out
of Wal-Mart After 911 Call
AP
July 4th, 2007
[back to top]
A Wichita woman is told she can never
come back to a Wal-Mart where she summoned police after hearing a young
girl who was getting her ears pierced crying and screaming.
Marilyn Johnson said she was issued a
warning for tresspassing and then thrown out of the Wal-Mart after the
incident Sunday.
Johnson said she called 9-1-1 after
trying to talk to the girl's mother and the employee who was doing the
ear piercing. She said the girl who she thought was about five years old
was "crying her eyes out."
The 53-year-old Johnson said the women
did not respond to her and continued trying to pierce the girl's ears.
Johnson said she reported what she suspected was child abuse.
But Wichita police said the girl's
mother and the employee were not breaking any laws.
Kansas law requires written and
notarized consent from a parent or legal guardian before someone under
18 can get a body piercing or tattoo. The law does not say whether
piercings or tattoos can be forcibly administered.
[back to top]
S.E.E. Change? S.E.E.
Change Go Slow
Andrew T. Gillies,
Forbes
07.03.07
[back to top]
Two years ago, big business unveiled a
splashy environmental campaign. Here's how things are going.
As interest in all things green has
surged, business groups in Washington have jumped cheerfully in. But as
one association's initiative illustrates, these high-profile efforts
aren't without risks.
In September, 2005, chief executives
from Dow Chemical, Sun Microsystems, Xerox and three others joined then
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at an event near the White House to
tout a new initiative called S.E.E. Change.
Sponsored by the Business Roundtable,
an advocacy group representing 150 bosses of big companies, the
initiative set out to burnish business "as a force for good" in matters
of society and environment. Along with the event, the Roundtable took
out full-page ads in several big newspapers and won widespread press
coverage, including an item on Forbes.com.
In Pictures: A Gallery Of Green Spin
The progress so far? S.E.E. Change (which stands for Society,
Environment and Economy) has added 10 new members to a founding roster
of 18 companies who committed to showcasing and tracking their
sustainability efforts. Not an insignificant increase, but a long way
from the S.E.E. objective of getting all 150 Business Roundtable
companies on board.
"It's an aspirational goal," says
Marian Hopkins, director of public policy for the Business Roundtable.
"[S.E.E. Change participants] can be great advocates to other member
companies."
Let's hope. As it's set up now, S.E.E
Change has little organization heft. Part of the Roundtable's task force
on environment issues, S.E.E Change has no separate budget or staff.
"The main movers and shakers are the companies themselves," explains
Hopkins.
On its own, that moving and shaking
looks laudable enough. Eastman Kodak, for example, is looking to cut
greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by the end of next year. Eli Lilly has
pledged to reduce its purchases of hazardous materials by one-third by
2010 (from a baseline year of 2003).
But leaving companies to decide their
targets and benchmarks won't placate certain folks in an energized
environmental community. "Voluntary standards are just that: voluntary,"
says Erich Pica, director of domestic policy efforts with Friends of the
Earth. "If they're serious about this, let's start setting minimal
standards, and let's start moving them forward through the regulatory
process."
If regulators do become more active,
S.E.E. Change seems unlikely to appease them. Despite an emphasis on
measurement, the initiative has no uniform metrics. As presented at the
initiative's Web site, goals differ widely in substance and time
horizon.
And with no standardized measure of
progress, visitors to the S.E.E. Change site have to do an awful lot of
clicking to find information on how goals are being met. S.E.E. Change
profiles for each company vary in specifics listed. Most are flattering
to the company, and only one, Caterpillar, gives much detail on its
annual progress on S.E.E. Change goals.
Hopkins defends S.E.E. Change on the
issue of metrics. "We worked really hard on that in the beginning," she
says, noting that the Roundtable found it impossible to come up with one
measure applicable to such a diverse group of businesses. Indeed, as we
noted in our September 2005 story, one rationale for forming S.E.E.
Change was to underscore the futility of broad benchmarks. Moreover,
adds Hopkins, diversity of undertakings should be construed as a
strength, not a weakness.
Another possible pitfall:
consequences. S.E.E. Change faces no consequences for falling short of
commitments. Hopkins argues that mere lack of exposure suffices. "The
consequences are in the fact that the information is not up there for
the world to see," she says.
Maybe. But an initiative without teeth
may serve to tick off enviros and their friends in Congress,
particularly if companies do miss their targets with no repercussions.
Consider also the simmering frustration with corporate "greenwash"--the
perception that a company overstates its environmental bona fides for
public relations purposes.
"It may be that those who are arguing
regulatory approaches say, 'Look, this just proves these guys can't or
won't improve on their own,'" says Roger Ballentine, former Clinton
Administration official and head of business consulting firm Green
Strategies.
On the other hand, Ballentine, who has
counseled clients such as Wal-Mart and SAIC on environmental matters,
says companies can claim they'll face consequences in the stock market,
as shareholder activists and others pay more attention to these matters.
And, at the very least, sometimes
something is better than nothing. Says Ballentine: "Anytime companies
acknowledge that sustainability and these kinds of issues require
high-level attention, that's a good thing."
For now, S.E.E Change hasn't hurt its
member companies' performance in the marketplace. Annualized over the
last two years, shares of publicly-held S.E.E. Change member companies
have averaged at 16% total return, just ahead of the S&P 500's 15%.
S.E.E. Change Member Annualized Total
Return (Two Years)
American Electric Power 17%
Caterpillar 31%
Citigroup 11%
Coca-Cola 12%
Convergys 37%
E.I. Du Pont De Nemours 8%
Eastman Kodak 6%
Eaton 27%
Eli Lilly 3%
Fannie Mae 11%
FPL Group 26%
General Electric 5%
General Motors 2%
HSBC Holdings 12%
ITT 22%
McGraw-Hill 31%
Office Depot 24%
Pfizer 0%
Procter & Gamble 9%
Siemens 39%
Sun Microsystems 16%
Weyerhaeuser 15%
Xerox 15%
Prices as of June 18, 2007. Source: FT
Interactive Data, via FactSet Research Systems.
[back to top]
Russian property developer poised to bring Wal-Mart to Russia
RBC,
03.07.2007
[back to top]
The Russian property development
company Macromir, which is being fostered by Andrei Rogachev, a founder
of the Pyaterochka retail chain and shareholder of X5 Retail Group,
intends to bring the global retail leader Wal-Mart to Russia. Macromir
reported on Monday that it has been in partnership talks with the
US-based retailer since May. If the companies reach an agreement, then
either Wal-Mart will lease facilities in shopping complexes, which
Macromir has already started building, or the Russian company will do
construction especially for Wal-Mart. Market participants, however,
doubt that Wal-Mart has already made a final decision to enter the
Russian market, because otherwise the chain would be holding talks with
several companies at the same time, the RBC Daily newspaper wrote today.
A source close to the negotiations
explained that the discussion is about Wal-Mart arriving on the Russian
market in the hypermarket format, which means that the stores will have
an area of around 20,000 square meters.
[back to top]
Attorney: Wal-Mart
Collected On Deaths
By ELAINE SILVESTRINI,
The Tampa Tribune
July 3rd, 2007
[back to top]
TAMPA - When Karen Armatrout died in
1997, her employer, Wal-Mart, collected thousands of dollars on a life
insurance policy the retail giant had taken out without telling her,
according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
Armatrout was one of about 350,000
employees Wal-Mart secretly insured nationwide, said Texas attorney
Michael D. Myers, who estimated the company collected on 75 to 100
policies involving Florida employees who died.
Myers is seeking to make the Armatrout
lawsuit a class-action case on behalf of the estates of all the Florida
employees who died while unwittingly insured by Wal-Mart.
"Creepy's a good word for it," Myers
said. "If you ask the executives that decided to buy these policies and
the insurance companies that sold them, they would say this was designed
to create tax benefits for the company, which would use the benefits for
benevolent purposes such as buying employee medical benefits.
"If you asked me, I would say they did
it to make more money."
Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said he
could not comment because the company has not been served with the
lawsuit.
The company settled two lawsuits with
employees represented by Myers in Texas and Oklahoma, one for about $10
million and one for about $5 million. He said Karen Armatrout came to
his attention when Wal-Mart mistakenly gave her husband's phone number
to an Oklahoman who called the retailer inquiring about the settlement.
Myers said he also has filed a lawsuit
against Wal-Mart in Louisiana.
Payouts Up To $80,000 Richard
Armatrout, who is retired, does not want to speak publicly about his
case, Myers said. Armatrout did not respond to a message left by the
Tribune.
Karen Armatrout was 50 when she died
of cancer, said Myers, who said she had worked several years in the
pharmacy of the store on West Waters Avenue.
Myers said the policy payouts ranged
from $50,000 to $80,000, depending on the person's age and gender. They
were taken out on all full-time Wal-Mart employees who, in December
1993, were between ages 18 and 70 and participated in the medical
benefits plan.
He said the company stopped taking out
the policies in 1995 but continued to receive payouts on employees who
died, even those who had left Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart, which said it canceled its
policies in early 2000 because it was losing money on the arrangement,
says the program was intended to reduce its income taxes to help pay
rising employee health care costs. Workers were notified and given the
opportunity to opt out, the company said. The Armatrout lawsuit says the
policies were all written in Georgia, where the laws allowed such
policies to be obtained.
The lawsuit says Wal-Mart used
confidential information it received from employees for use in their
employment, such as Social Security numbers and dates of birth, to
obtain the life insurance policies.
Myers said this corporate practice is
not uncommon. He estimates that up to 25 percent of Fortune 500
companies have taken out such policies on employees. The vast majority
of the time, the employees didn't know, Myers said.
The practice evolved over time, Myers
said. Corporations started by taking out large life insurance policies
on key executives, getting tax breaks when they paid the premiums and
collecting the payouts.
IRS Not Pleased, Attorney Says The
amounts of those policies grew to the point that Congress limited how
much a company could insure an individual for, Myers said.
Insurance companies then suggested
buying lots of small policies on companies' work forces, the attorney
said. He said the Internal Revenue Service has labeled the practice a
sham and has successfully litigated the issue against several
corporations.
Myers said his law firm has sued
corporations for the practice, including Winn-Dixie and Fina Oil and
Chemical. The latest case is its first in Florida.
The practice spread beyond top
executives in the 1980s when the industry successfully lobbied states to
allow employers to claim an "insurable interest" in the lives of
rank-and-file workers.
Many employers seized on the practice
because they could borrow against the policies, and the interest paid
was tax-deductible.
Congress closed that loophole in 1996,
but COLI - corporate owned life insurance - remained a popular
investment strategy.
The chief appeal was that interest
accrues over time on the money in such policies. When a worker dies, the
employer collects without paying taxes on the gain.
In 2001, premiums on such policies
swelled to $2.8 billion from $1.5 billion the year before, according to
a report by CAST Management Consultants of Los Angeles.
[back to top]
AMA urges probe of
in-store clinics
By Bruce Japsen,
Chicago Tribune
July 2nd, 2007
[back to top]
In an attempt to ratchet up scrutiny
on the proliferation of in-store clinics being opened by retail giants,
the American Medical Association said last week that it will ask state
and federal agencies to launch widespread investigations into the
fast-growing patient-care model.
The AMA's policymaking House of
Delegates, meeting in Chicago, said lack of regulation at retail clinics
might be fostering liability concerns, health risks and potential
conflicts of interest between the clinics' nurse practitioners who order
prescriptions and the pharmacies that fill them. Often, the clinic is
near the pharmacy counter in those retail stores. The AMA, the nation's
largest doctor group, is reacting to moves by retailers such as Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. and Deerfield-based Walgreen Co. that will effectively bring
several thousand retail clinics to U.S. consumers in the coming years.
One retail clinic operator run by giant CVS/Caremark Corp. was concerned
enough about the AMA's clout on the issue that it deployed an executive
here to defend its interests.
AMA action on such topics means the
group and its affiliated state societies will push for increased
regulation and attempt to slow the growth of the clinics. One clinic
operator said last week the AMA's move would do just that and have an
adverse effect by slowing a new concept that increases patient access to
medical care and offers patients a convenient option.
"Our primary focus is patient safety
and patient care, and the retail clinics have a different mission of
selling products and prescriptions," said Dr. Rodney Osborn, a Peoria
anesthesiologist who is president of the Illinois State Medical Society,
an AMA delegation among the most outspoken on scrutiny of retail
clinics. "We want these clinics to be accountable."
Even before the AMA's commitment to
advocate for increased regulation, several state medical societies have
been using their clout to push for new laws where retail clinics first
popped up. In California, for example, store-based clinics are required
to be a part of a medical corporation owned by a physician as part of
regulations that doctors say have curtailed the spread of retail clinics
there.
But retail clinic operators said last
week that the AMA's move is more of a protectionist measure to put the
interests of physicians ahead of patients.
By following the AMA's lead, "medical
societies would actually be taking actions that would decrease access to
care by putting more regulatory hurdles and burdens on the [retail]
facilities," said Dr. Rebecca Hafner, an AMA member and medical director
of strategic alliances for MinuteClinic, a subsidiary of CVS/Caremark,
which operates nearly 200 retail clinics. "The net result of this is
that it will make it harder for companies to open clinics."
Most clinics are open seven days a
week with no appointment needed. They treat patients with routine
maladies and are under physicians' supervision, though doctors usually
are not on site. Most clinics are for ailments such as ear and sinus
infections, strep throat and athlete's foot.
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