Word: wal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...years the supermarket industry viewed its 1% net profit margin as a badge of its efficiency. In reality, the opposite was true: the grocers earned so little because they weren't that good at managing the supply chain. Wal-Mart exploited that weakness with devastating effect on the grocers, and it has forced food suppliers to become more efficient too. For starters, the leviathan has changed the way grocery stores deal with their vendors, as everyone seeks to copy its Retail Link system, which provides real-time sales data to manufacturers. Wal-Mart also helped persuade the pack to subscribe...
...least on par with his peers'. He also maintains that his tough stance on labor negotiations--which resulted in a strike in Southern California that cost the region's big three chains some $350 million in earnings last quarter--won enough concessions to stay competitive, even after Wal-Mart unleashes its Supercenters in the area. The next step, experts agree, is to continue narrowing the price gap with the world's largest retailer and find a way to justify the remaining premium. Here's what supermarkets need to do to avoid the ultimate checkout...
...After Wal-Mart launched its Supercenter format in 1991, it took the company three years to reach $1 billion in annual U.S. grocery sales. But a mere decade later, it is topping $100 billion a year, which is almost as much as the sales of the next three biggest chains combined. "To a certain extent, Wal-Mart's strength is more of a reflection of the lack of difference among stores," says Willard Bishop, a supermarket consultant in Barrington, Ill. Conventional grocers are starting to get the message--differentiate or die--which is why some are jazzing...
...mood seems to work. "There's something about this place that isn't in-your-face stimulating," says Cathy Beerbower, 45, who frequents the new Marsh store in Fort Wayne, Ind. And her reason for avoiding the local Wal-Mart--"it's too chaotic"--could be the industry's salvation. Kroger is trying to emulate the swanky Whole Foods scene in a few of its 2,500 stores by adding in-store chefs, gourmet meals and upscale wines. Likewise, Safeway, which is making a huge push into quality perishables in general and prepared foods in particular, is doing so with...
...Meijer, the Michigan retailer that invented the supercenter way back in 1962, the top brass would no doubt argue against such a strategy. Sales plummeted at the company when Wal-Mart started moving into its strongholds a few years ago. "They sold everything we sold and ran promotions that we could not match," says Jim Jensen, 46, who was managing a 209,000-sq.-ft. Meijer in Howell, Mich., when a Wal-Mart moved in across the street in 2000. Jensen responded with six-hour price specials, supersales and coupons galore, and when those initiatives failed to pull the store...