Wal-Mart pledges to help small retailers

By Staff -- Playthings, 4/4/2006 1:43:00 PM

CHICAGO—In a move bound to surprise many of the retailing giant's detractors, Wal-Mart today announced the launch of a program to help small business succeed when one of its big box stores opens up nearby.

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced the new, nationwide "Wal-Mart Jobs and Opportunity Zones" initiative in a speech at the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention today.

The program is designed to "create more opportunities for small businesses to capitalize on the benefits of having a Wal-Mart store in their community," the company said in a statement released concurrent with Scott's speech.

The key elements of the initiative's "Opportunity Zone" element include:

• Working with Wal-Mart store managers to identify up to five local businesses per quarter to be singled out as "Small Business Spotlights"
• Featuring these small businesses in local newspaper advertising and offering to product free radio ads for them, which will then be broadcast on Wal-Mart's in-store radio network
• Establishing a "Wal-Mart Business Development Team" to hold seminars for small businesses on best practices and how to thrive with Wal-Mart in their communities
• Producing an annual "Wal-Mart Trends Report" that it will share exclusively with the small business community

Additionally, the program will place an emphasis on supporting minority and female-owned businesses through several efforts, including "Working with Wal-Mart" sessions designed to help local, minority and female-owned businesses learn how to do business with Wal-Mart.

Chicago's West Side is the program's first "opportunity zone." Nine additional markets will be announced in the coming months, according to the company.

As to the program's jobs component, Wal-Mart says it will build more than 50 stores in the next two years in "neighborhoods with high crime or unemployment rates, on sites that are environmentally contaminated, in vacant buildings or in malls in need of revitalization." The project is expected to create between 15,000 and 25,000 jobs, many of which will be in minority communities, according to the company. The stores are expected to generate more than $100 million in state and local tax revenue for those communities.

"Wal-Mart has never been afraid to invest in communities that are overlooked by other retailers … Where those businesses see difficulty, we see opportunity," said Scott, of the program. "This is a commitment to reach beyond our stores, to further engage the community, and to offer and even greater economic boost to people and neighborhoods that need Wal-Mart the most."