Word: marte
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...store in Secaucus, N.J., 470 miles (750 km) east of Elyria, CEO Scott is looking sternly at a serving platter priced at $24.99 as if it didn't get the memo. Around the pricey platter, lower-cost merchandise has sold briskly, and Scott is seeing evidence that Wal-Mart's attempt to move up the fashion/design/price ladder still has a way to go. It's not clear whether shoppers simply won't buy higher-priced stuff at Wal-Mart or, as happened in apparel, it's the wrong stuff on the shelves. "It just doesn't work," he is muttering...
...smarter, Wal-Mart's U.S. organization is experiencing a gravitational shift. Wal-Mart has always been run from Bentonville, the defiantly hick-town global home office in Benton County, Ark. Each Tuesday, for decades, an armada of planes would fling regional bosses to the far parts of the empire. They would return Friday and report Saturday morning at the big weekly meeting that has been held since Mr. Sam was in charge. Numbers would be counted; plans would be made; orders would be cut. In the field, store managers wouldn't change their socks unless the home office gave...
...Mart wants to tailor about 10% of each store's merchandise to the neighborhood--a long-unrealized goal. Given the company's appetite for goods, its buyers' primary focuses have been price and logistics: How do you get millions of 20-lb. (8 kg) bags of dog food delivered to 3,500 stores efficiently? They're good at that. They're not so good at figuring out what to do when shoppers in Dallas don't buy the giant bags of dog food that they've become so expert at supplying. What if doggie apparel is just as sellable...
...food/dog-sweater example frames Wal-Mart's tactical quandary. The company's cultlike focus on supply-chain logistics grinds away at costs but doesn't allow it to know the neighbors. The new strategy tries to make that connection--editing for the area, offering a point of distinction. "It's going to tell the customer that we understand what they need," says Castro-Wright. "We not only understand what you need, we respect your point of view. We want to be your store of choice because we understand you better than anyone else in the marketplace...
...trying to relate better to shoppers, Wal-Mart has bumped up training to improve what it calls customer engagement. In its redesigned consumer-electronics section, for instance, the company has discovered that it can sell pricier merchandise like flat-panel televisions and GPS equipment, but customers need a little hand-holding before laying down $1,500 for a set. It's happening just as consumer-electronics giant Circuit City has laid off 9% of its sales force and replaced it with less experienced, less expensive hires. Wal-Mart says same-store sales were up 4.6% in electronics in the past...