jueves, 10 de julio de 2008

Wal-Mart: Living better with improved experience,‘green’focus

BY MIKE TROY

A new attitude toward expansion, efforts
to improve the in-store experience and
an emphasis on sustainability are major
trends influencing the future direction of
Wal-Mart’s business.
The company adopted a goal to more efficiently
use its capital in 2006, and that thinking first resulted
in pending store projects being re-prioritized
so that those expected to generate the highest
returns were built first. Then last year,Wal-
Mart made a major decision to reduce the pace of
new store growth, especially supercenters, when
it shaved 100 units of its planned 2007 openings.
Last year, 190 supercenters were opened, and
this year that figure will fall further as Wal-Mart
expects to open roughly 170 supercenters, with an
estimated two-thirds of those involving the expansion
or relocation of existing discount stores.
As a result,Wal-Mart should end the current year
with about 2,617 supercenters, 858 discount
stores and 157 Neighborhood Market stores.
In tandem with the decision to reduce the
pace of domestic expansion, the other major development
shaping the company’s business is a
wide-ranging effort to improve the in-store experience.
While there are many facets to this undertaking,
key efforts are focused on major categories
such as apparel, home, entertainment,
grocery, hardlines and health and wellness.Wal-
Mart wants to maintain its longstanding priority
of demonstrating price leadership while providing
a clarity of product offering that simplifies
product selection for consumers and yields a
variety of operational and supply chain benefits.
In addition, the in-store experience is expected
to benefit from continued improvements in customer
service as Wal-Mart has addressed one of
its key shortcomings, lengthy checkouts, through
the better alignment of store labor with peak
traffic times.
Another aspect to improving the in-store experience
relates directly toWal-Mart’s decision to scale
back expansion.With fewer dollars spent on opening
stores that depressed returns and cannibalized
existing units,Wal-Mart has more funds available
to undertake major remodeling projects. An estimated
350 stores this year and 700 next year
will be remodeled to a new store design intended
to offer customers an improved experienced.
Overlaying everything the company does these
days is a commitment to sustainability that prior
to the fall of 2005 was largely nonexistent. However,
during the past three years,Wal-Mart has
emerged as a leader in the field of environmentalism
due to packaging initiatives, the development
of prototypical store designs and the heavy promotion
of products such as compact fluorescent
light bulbs and compacted laundry detergent.

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