Wal-Mart details next steps
By Maria Weiskott -- Playthings, 4/20/2006 6:57:00 AM
BENTONVILLE, Ark.—The company that wrote the book on successful mass marketing is taking a few pages from the specialty retail handbook. Wal-Mart executives this week described a blueprint for the future of the world’s number one retailer that includes such strategies as enhancing the shopping “experience,” developing a better understanding of the local customer and communicating with customers through programs and special events.
|
At a Glance: Wal-Mart ·138 million people shop at Wal-Marts around the world ·Has 6,546 stores worldwide ·Employs 1.8 million associates globally ·130 million consumers per week shop at a Wal-Mart in the United States ·84 percent of U.S. households shop at Wal-Mart ·70 percent of Wal-Mart’s customers have Internet access ·Future stores-of-the-community will be built on about 7.8 acres of land or less ·1,300 stores have a strong Hispanic customer base ·1,500 stores have a significant African-American base ·Only 3 percent of the products in the new Plano, Texas, store were new; the appearance was achieved by rearranging the products to enhance the shopping experience |
To ensure success of this concept, Wal-Mart went through a process of decentralization geared to bring divisional and regional managers closer to the company’s sales associates and thus closer to the consumer. The result “makes a store more local,” Pat Curran, executive vice president store operations, told the 70 journalists yesterday that were invited to the company’s second annual media conference.
The decentralization is resulting in better decision-making by bringing leaders closer to associates, she said, adding that the leaders work and live in the community. It is also creating partnerships between Wal-Mart and the communities where the company looks to locate, she added.
Wal-Mart is working with city and county planning staffs and participating in community forums, Curran explained. There is more “open planning going on and we are soliciting feedback earlier in the building process,” she noted. The result is stores-of-the-community that blend into the look and culture of the community they’re in. The one-size-fits-all store model has apparently gone the way of other business dinosaurs—at least as far as Wal-Mart is concerned.
Possibly one of the best examples of a store-of-the-community is in Middlefield, Ohio, which boasts the fourth largest Amish community in the United States. There are hitching posts to accommodate 84 horse and buggies outside the store. Inside, there are such Amish necessities as block ice for traditional household “ice-boxes” and denim material suitable for making clothes.
“We are making stores to fit the community,” said Curran.
The retailer is also making a positive “experience” for customers out of shopping, a tradition that most specialty retailers have mastered, but is lacking at most big box retailers.
A goal, said Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, USA, is to improve the shopping experience for our customers; “to enhance the in-store experience,” he explained.
To achieve this, the retailer is offering more product choices, a wider range of prices—many higher than usual for Wal-Mart—and “solutions” for time starved customers; one solution being a true one-stop shopping experience that offers everything from detergent to furniture to home décor to gifts to toys to “mass luxury.” To accomplish this, the retailer is bringing new and more “high end” products to its shelves in most categories, and merchandising them in ways found in traditional department stores and specialty stores. And while the loyal Wal-Mart customer will be seeing some higher price points, those prices will be balanced by the more familiar low price points—and both will likely be in eyeshot of each other.
Other solutions? Cross-merchandising, creating on-trend displays and vignettes—all of which resemble the lifestyle merchandising model used by specialty retailers—are all viewed by Wal-Mart as shopping solutions. Pulling items together in vignettes (another specialty practice) makes it easier for the customer, said Claire Watts, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president, merchandising and apparel.
Another goal is to appeal to a broader range of customers—but without going “upscale,” the retailer insists.
From the retailer whose mantra had always been “lowest price,” comes one that is more inclusive and focused on a wider range of customers, while still encompassing the low-price ideal. “We want to champion a broader range of customers with more relevant product services,” said John Fleming, Wal-Mart executive vice president, marketing and consumer communications.
That focus is probably best expressed by the theme of this year’s press media event, “Champion the Consumer.”
The execution of the strategy remains; its success will only be determined by the consumer wallet.
Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
