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Wal-Mart Struggles with Fashion, Brand

As a brand, Wal-Mart drags around a whole host of undesirable connotations: poverty, sweatshop labor, low quality and corporate exploitation. And as has been noted earlier, Wal-Mart’s new ad campaign rarely shows the company’s stores or products, undoubtedly as a way to circumvent these cultural associations. But the problems are proving hard to overcome as Wal-Mart struggles to boost sales of its fashion and electronics. The company’s new health care proposals are a step in the right direction towards wholistic repair of the company’s image problems. Maybe if the Wal-Mart made substantial changes in these other fields its reputation would improve.

Wal-Mart working to improve home, clothes sales-CFO [Reuters]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is seeing improvements in its home and apparel businesses, but there is still much work to be done to get the categories back on track, its chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

“We’re still struggling with negative traffic in these categories and have lots of room for improvement,” said CFO Thomas Schoewe, speaking at a Bank of America conference that was broadcast over the Internet.

Last year, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, downplayed its discount roots to try to expand its image beyond that of a low-priced retailer. It stocked more upscale items such as high threadcount sheets, trendy clothes and plasma TVs, hoping wealthier shoppers would spend more in its stores.

While its efforts to boost electronics sales by increasing its selection of name-brand items and renovating its electronics sections resonated with its shoppers, its core lower-income customers balked at other changes, like its push to sell trendy clothes.

That left it with heaps of unsold merchandise. Wal-Mart has been working to clear its stores of poor selling clothing and home goods, resulting in price cuts that have undermined its sales and margins.

Schoewe said the retailer is in “very good shape” now when it comes to its apparel and home inventory.

But he said the retailer is still not happy with its initial efforts to remodel its home area and is experimenting with a different home section layout at a store in New Jersey.

Wal-Mart shares rose 39 cents, or almost 1 percent, to $43.71 in late morning New York Stock Exchange trading.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 19, 2007

COMMENTS

“But the problems are proving hard to overcome as Wal-Mart struggles to boost sales of its fashion and electronics.”~Alex Goldschmidt

And here we were the whole time thinking WM’s struggles were in fashion and home decor (according to what’s out there in the press, electronics was written to be among WM’s in-store strengths).

Nice try, Alex, but you missed...again!

Bill

Bill in
Wednesday, September 19 at 02:55 PM

Someone get Alex a spell checker. It’s “undesirable” and “holistic.”

tjc in NY
Wednesday, September 19 at 03:01 PM

“Wholistic” or holistic, Wal-Mart is “still struggling with negative traffic in these categories”.

And here the whole time we thought Wal-Mart’s automated inventory control was world class.

Did I miss the rollback on “slutty” tops?

Ken V in Texas
Wednesday, September 19 at 03:20 PM

Read This tjc

Tjc:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

The question is not whether Alex spelled particular words correctly...the question is whether or not readers knew what he meant.

Apparently you’re having some trouble there, tjc? Maybe you need a remedial reading course. Better yet...just go away. You bring even less to this blog than Bill does.

ScrewedbyWal-Mart in Anytown, America
Wednesday, September 19 at 06:40 PM

By the way, tjc

Was your spell checker not working yesterday?

Silly, it’s all about Mattell’s matierals…

tjc in NY
Tuesday, September 18 at 01:23 PM

ScrewedbyWal-Mart in Anytown, America
Wednesday, September 19 at 06:59 PM

I thought Mr.Typo(RDS) was working overtime yesterday and today-

ddrb in
Wednesday, September 19 at 07:06 PM

Screwed,

So tell us...just what is it we’re supposed to bring to you, anyway?

A plate of cookies, perhaps?

I’m sorry to tell you the majority of the population doesn’t revolve around your flawed ideology. If you think otherwise, you’re just fooling yourself…

Bill

For tjc - I guess you said something that was strong-enough to ruffle Tom’s feathers…

Bill in
Thursday, September 20 at 08:20 AM

“You should know by now, that Screwedby doesn’t like to ‘debate’, he’s said as much in the past!! Even Jake, noticed right off, that Screwed came off like an ‘attack dog’!! As far as he is concerned, only anti-posters should be allowed on this site (he’s said that too), so he just is around to put down anybody who is posting Pro-Wal-Mart!!”~RDS

Enough said; don’t sweat the small stuff, tjc…

Bill

Bill in
Thursday, September 20 at 10:29 AM

My spell checker is working fine. I was (not so) humorously pointing out some of Alex’s previous spelling mistakes. Like it or not, he posts as an employee or representative of the organization running this (public) site, and what he says and how he says it does matter.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

There’s also a reason why, if you go to cnn.com or nytimes.com, you won’t find a lot of paragraphs like that one, or misspelled words in general on those sites. I’m sure you know why that is.

tjc in NY
Thursday, September 20 at 10:30 AM

My crystal ball shows an unholy alliance forming.... tjc and Bill!

Are you sure you’re ready for that, tjc? :o)

None of you Alex Goldschmidt critics would be wrangling for his job, would you? I agree he needs to tighten up his act but then so do we on this side of the comment line.

Ken V in Texas
Friday, September 21 at 04:16 AM

Nothing against Alex Goldschmidt, personally (he’s probably a nice guy). But, as tjc so elequently put it:

“Like it or not, he posts as an employee or representative of the organization running this (public) site, and what he says and how he says it does matter.”

And no, I wouldn’t want Alex’ job, as I don’t fit WMW’s profile to be one of their staffers (in case noone has figured it out, yet, most of the staffers are young people, who came of age during the internet era).

And if it weren’t for the internet—well, would any of us be here, at all?

Bill

Bill in
Friday, September 21 at 08:29 AM

Bill in: And if it werent for the Internet,would any of us be here at all?"Now that gives an entirely new meaning to the word matrix....

ddrb in
Sunday, September 23 at 11:26 AM

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