Wal-Mart Cuts Back Expansion: "Once invulnerable, Wal-Mart has begun to stumble..."

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Wal-Mart Cuts Back Expansion
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: June 2, 2007


(April L. Brown/Associated Press)
H. Lee Scott Jr. is the chief executive and president of Wal-Mart.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark., June 1 — The world’s largest retailer is slowing down. Again.

After decades of staggering growth, which blanketed suburban America with thousands of its giant stores, Wal-Mart will reduce the number of new supercenters to be opened this year by nearly 30 percent, or roughly 75 stores, the company said here Friday during its annual shareholder meeting.

The store pullback, the second in less than six months, may be the biggest in the company’s 45-year history, and suggests that Wal-Mart is reaching a turning point.

Once seemingly invulnerable, Wal-Mart has begun to stumble, with sales gains at individual stores falling to their lowest levels in decades in 2006. Opening new stores at the rate of one a day has not helped; they have taken attention (and resources) away from aging outlets in need of renovations and at times have snatched sales from nearby older stores.

Rather than relying heavily on new Wal-Marts, executives are now more focused on squeezing sales and profits out of older ones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/business/02walmart.html

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Or...

They recognize that the economy, for their core clientele, could suck more but it would take a nuclear event or act of god.

[roguevalley]

2. I hope the carbunkle they plan here disappears too.

[Hardrada]

3. Have they had their Stalingrad?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. squeeze away you corporate criminals...

I was in a Walmart once, and only once. Destroyers of small business and fair wages. Fuck 'em!

[Bitwit1234]

5. Could it be the WalMart shoppers are feeling the pinch

of bush's so called roaring economy. I suppose the only retail companies that are enjoying this roaring economy are those for the super super rich.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. I think it could be, indeed. nt

[blondeatlast]

7. These bastards cleosed a store in a lower economic are of a major road

in Phoenix only to build another store less than a mile away in a "better" area ON THE SAME ROAD. Now the other stores in the mall are struggling to survive and the clientele, amny of whom don't have cars, must take public transit to shop there.

Big box stores are bad, but Wal-Mart is just it's own brand of corrupt. And it's made in China, no doubt.