Wal-Mart Visits Drop as Products Fail to Draw

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Visits to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)’s U.S. locations open at least a year dropped 2.6 percent from February through June, according to an internal memo, while rivals are attracting customers.

Those Wal-Mart stores had 82.8 million fewer visits through the first five months of the company’s fiscal year than a year earlier, says the memo, which was obtained by Bloomberg News. Wal-Mart doesn’t disclose those traffic numbers, and David Tovar, a spokesman, declined to comment on the memo.

Wal-Mart’s plan to recapture customers by returning thousands of products to U.S. store shelves has failed to reverse a decline in foot traffic at the world’s largest retailer, said Jeff Stinson, an analyst at Cleveland Research Co. That’s primarily because Wal-Mart’s core low-income customers are shopping less and going to other retailers more often, according to two recent shopper surveys.

“The biggest issue remains weak store traffic,” Stinson wrote in a July 14 report. “We believe sales have slowed in the second quarter and are running below plan primarily due to further traffic declines.” The Cleveland-based analyst rates the shares “neutral.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-03/wal-mart-visits-drop-2-6-as-added-products-fail-to-draw-buyers-memo-says.html

[Pab Sungenis]

1. Gee, is the recession finally hurting the people who started it?

What sweet delicious irony.

[bigwillq]

11. Great post.

:thumbsup:

[Canuckistanian]

16. +1000

Suck it, Walwart.

[myrna minx]

20. +1 - perfect. n/t

[ellie]

21. I posted the story to my FB

wall and stole your comment. It was too perfect to not post.

[Sherman A1]

26. Precisely

As you sow, so shall you reap?

[Pab Sungenis]

31. Henry Ford had it right.

Pay your workers enough that they can afford your product. Wal-Mart has consistently been driving out local businesses that made money for their owners and paid workers living wages while driving down their own employees' pay.

Plus, they've helped kill off the domestic manufacturing industry by only buying cheap foreign made crap to "keep prices low." All of those manufacturing jobs were well paying union jobs that the right wing, led by the Walton fortune, has sought to destroy.

Now no one can afford even the cheap foreign made crap.

[comtec]

35. Ford was a union hating, nazi loving fascist bastard... but at least he was a pragmatist

he, unlike the vast majority of the right wing, had that much common sense.

thankfully his company has improved since his demise, into a company the US can be proud of claiming as one of it's own.

[Firebrand Gary]

27. WTG, Fabulous response!

Greedy Bastards

[flamingdem]

2. But wait! Standard & Poors says we need to cut 4 trillion now, now! nt

[graywarrior]

3. No one can afford the gas to get there.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Or to buy anything once they've arrived.

[graywarrior]

9. Some of their Equate products cost more than some brand names

WTF?

[katnapped]

23. I've been seeing that in a lot of places

Store brand costs more than the brand name product.

Strange times indeed.

[JVS]

30. I've seen a bit of that, but usually it's when the store brand keeps selling the old weight and...

the name brand has downsized. Something like the name brand of potato chips has downsized several times over the last few years and is now down to 11.5 oz while the generic stuff is still 16 oz. but costs a little more.

[Lindsay]

4. Gee, I'd feel so bad

if they've shot themselves in the foot by dictating far fewer choices for consumers so the owners could profit more.

Wait, no I wouldn't.

(And it's still the economy, stupid.)

[hobbit709]

5. There are lots of people today that Walmart has become upscale shopping to them.

[Liberalynn]

7. How do they expect to make money on their "products?"

when the majority of people can't afford to buy them any more? Their wealthy buddies sure as hell don't shop at Wally world!

[DJ13]

8. Wal Mart has serious problems when Target is cheaper

Typical big US corporation, they slashed workers and raised prices to further pad their profits, then act stunned when their (already hurting financially) customers move on.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. I hear thrift stores are seeing more business.

[ChiciB1]

12. Do Price Comparison. I Started Doing It About A Year Ago... Their Prices Are

higher on many, many products. Anyone seen their new "match it" ads must know they are having problems.

But then WHY would I drive all the way to my nearest Walmart and tell them about a cheaper product, use extra gas, when the product I bought is much closer?

So, I don't go tell them about the cheaper product, just BUY the cheaper product that's close to where I live. Too many people have bought the idea that Walmart ALWAYS has cheaper prices and THEY DON'T

Right off the top of my head I can give you 2 items that I bought yesterday. One is powdered Gatorade and the other is International Delight coffee cream. Cheaper at my closer Publix grocery store. And there are more, but these just popped into my head.

And then there are the BUY ONE, GET ONE free items that many grocery stores have now adopted. I always take advantage of those items if they are ones I need.

Glad to see the pinch on Walmart!

[formercia]

13. One of the big problem that Wally World has is lack of Customer Loyalty

It is something that keeps the local Mom and Pops in business. It takes me about 3 minutes to walk to the locally owned Supermarket, and, yes, I will pay a few cents more for the same product, but I am helping on of my neighbors stay in business.

[DAMANgoldberg]

22. It's true, IMHO

You know it's bad when Publix and Harris Teeter are not only price competitive, but even better. And both stores quality on their private label brand ts way superior. I know from personal experience with Harris Teeter as I have worked for them, delivered to them many times in trucking, and have also delivered to Publix as well. Neither store believes in putting their name on junk. Wal-Mart is no longer the cat's meow, and this will come back to bite them hard.

[Obamanaut]

24. We have four places other than Walmart in my town to buy food items.

Mz O scours the twice weekly newspaper for their ads, and plans the circular route to include all four, the library (movies, we don't have tv), and the nursing home where her mom lives.

We get a lot of the two/one sale items if it's stuff we'll use, and the stores usually have in-store reductions that were not in the paper.

FWIW, the nursing home is only three miles from the house, so Granny gets a visit every day even without a shopping excursion.

[Vinnie From Indy]

14. I am surprised that Wal-Mart is surprised by this.

Surely someone at Wal-Mart understood years ago that Wal-Mart's business model of decimating the American manufacturing base in favor of foreign made goods made by slave labor would someday have an effect on their domestic sales. For over ten years Wal-Mart has watched as their customers committed slow motion suicide by shopping in their stores. This is not rocket science. No jobs = no money = no customers.

[comtec]

36. that's the thing... they didn't. The greedy conservative mind has no common sense

That's the only conclusion I can came up with by looking at all the evidence.
conservatives are incapable of making any calculation that requires even pragmatism... they can't understand how an economy works.
what conservative government ANYWHERE in the world has succeeded?

I'd point out that even the Nazi fascists understood enough to provide for their populace in the form of healthcare and vacation time.

[Brickbat]

15. Time for some Schadenfreude Pie! Anyone else want some?

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/09/26/how-to-make-a-schadenfreude-pie/

[beac]

32. Cut me a great big slice!

Glad to see the evil giant struggling. Too bad it also represents the terrible economic situation of American shoppers who got tricked into buying against their better interests.

[Yavin4]

17. Maybe If WalMart Paid Their Employees More, Then

other employers would match, and then you'd have more customers.

[dgibby]

18. Couldn't happen to a more deserving company.

They've spent years ruining small businesses, entire small towns. Karma is a bitch!

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. It has to end somehow.

Walmart can't keep going on swallowing up the earth forever.

[onethatcares]

25. just noticing

last week a mid size walmart opened in our neighborhood, prices are higher there than in the stores 5 miles away in each direction and there is a lot more emphasis on the "WIC" currency and what is available in that program on per the clip on ads on the shelves.

This is close to what I would term an "inner city" store.

Now the arkansas chain is counting on collecting tax dollars through the shopping habits of their customers while paying low wages and no benefits.

[lunatica]

28. Heart breaking

:sarcasm:

[bulloney]

29. Our local Wal Mart pharmacy is a joke. They screw around filling your prescription

thinking that you will spend that time browsing the store to buy "stuff" you wouldn't have normally bought. I recently dropped off a prescription and told them I'd be back in an hour. They said it would be ready. When I returned, it still wasn't filled. There were no lines of people when I dropped off the prescription or when I returned. I had to wait an additional 10 minutes to pick up the prescription. And I didn't buy any "stuff" at the store while waiting. I'm taking my prescriptions to another store from now on.

All I find at Wal Marts any more is "stuff." You look for something you need and they don't have it. All you have is a building full of "stuff." I think Wal Mart may be beginning the same fate that hit Bargain City and K-Mart before them.

[piratefish08]

33. cry me a motherfucking billion dollar river, you filthy pieces of shit......

[WinkyDink]

34. AMERICANS WERE THE GOLDEN GOOSE, and robber-barons killed it.