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Posted
Aug 27 2008, 12:34 PM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
At last, Wal-Mart's new Marketside grocery concept has a look: It's purple and neon-green, with natural wood finishes.
Designed to break into the as yet untapped high-income urban demographic, shoppers who traditionally reject the company's 261,000 sq. ft. Supercenters as the epicenters of all that is wrong with consumerism, capitalism, and the plight of our planet, the new small-store format makes no mention of its corporate parent. Deep exploration of the concept's fancy website finally reveals the master.
The first four 15,000 sq. ft. stores will be down in Arizona and are designed to go head to head with outfits like Whole Foods, complementing Wal-Mart's existing Neighborhood Market concept that takes on traditional grocers like SuperValu. Wal-Mart isn't alone in its thinking, as U.K.-based Tesco and Safeway are both ramping up small grocery concepts in response to an emerging urban living renaissance and shift towards healthier living with fresh fruits and vegetables.
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Posted
Aug 14 2008, 08:46 AM
by
Todd Harrison
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On the topic of Wal-Mart's earnings report, it was an interesting apparel inflation number this morning. Here's why: China makes 25% of U.S. clothing, give or take. "The Chinese Consumer" is always assumed to be a great thing (as in, "they'll love our iPhones!").
Americans buy more clothes than iPhones. Chinese lifestyles going higher means that A) companies like Liz Claiborne and the private labels of discount chains like Wal-Mart and Target are starting to have to pay much more to produce clothing (or find a new impoverished nation to make the clothes) and B) the end prices will go higher for consumers (who, as we recall, are making less all the time).
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Posted
Aug 12 2008, 10:36 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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I've argued that Best Buy should spin off Geek Squad, its service that installs and repairs TVs, computers and other devices. It's not getting any easier to set up components, and an independent Geek Squad could partner with other retailers and turn this service thing into a real industry. Too late. Wal-Mart is working with Dell on a similar service, and Target has a clone up and running as well. That's enough for Citigroup analyst Kate McShane to slap a "hold" rating on Best Buy. Geek Squad was a competitive advantage for Best Buy, she writes, but now its share is threatened.
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 11:41 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
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It looks like there's a positive side to the economic slump after all: Consumers are quickly changing their spendthrift ways.
During the second quarter, Americans lifted their savings rate to 2.6% from a pitiful 0.3%, while real consumer spending net of medical care, food, and utilities clocked in at only 0.8%. It's "a vivid sign that frugality is now replacing frivolity," in the words of Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg.
This means healthy market-share gains for private-label groceries from companies like Supervalu, Kroger, and Safeway. The transition away from expensive brands is especially noticeable
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Posted
Aug 01 2008, 09:09 AM
by
Todd Harrison
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Major retailers say sales of house brand items are climbing as shoppers look to save a few pennies in a downbeat economy.
Wal-Mart, Safeway and Kroger say their store brands have traditionally sold well and sales have recently increased.
The Food Marketing Institute, a trade group in Arlington, Virginia, says about 60% of shoppers say they now buy some store brands.
But these aren't the generic brands you remember from your school days. A stark gray can labeled "Peas" or "Asparagus" -- a tacit warning that the contents were bland at best and sometimes nearly impossible to eat -- have been replaced with stylish labels and better quality.
Kroger offers "Private Selection." Safeway offers "O Organics." Wal-Mart rolled out "All Natural".
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Posted
Aug 01 2008, 06:34 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
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Wal-Mart -- defenders of the faith of "everyday low pricing" -- is warning its management and supervisors it will be easier for workers to create unions if Democrats win in this fall's elections, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Most Wal-Mart shareholders believe that keeping organized labor out improves margins.
Although it is not clear that Wal-Mart would face higher personnel costs if unions made their way into the world's largest retailer, the history of the labor movement says that higher wages and better benefits would be likely.
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Posted
Jul 10 2008, 07:06 AM
by
Todd Harrison
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Wal-Mart turned in better-than-expected same-store sales this morning. Costco did the same.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It was the same story last month and the month prior to that. Indeed, ever since early January when unemployment and oil prices started ramping in earnest, reporting on sales has been akin to being the beat reporter for the Harlem Globetrotters.
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Posted
Jun 30 2008, 07:29 AM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
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Wal-Mart has finally decided to do something about its staid white-on-blue logo and red, blue, and grey color scheme. In a surprising move for a company that acted as though it was too big, too powerful, and too damn cheap to bother with its image problem, Wal-Mart's new face to the world will be a white "Walmart" logo and starburst on a burnt orange background and brick store exterior. This is according to planning documents filed for a new Wal-Mart Supercenter outside Memphis.
Accompanying the new look is a new, smaller store format that features "new department titles, less signage, curved lines and earth-tone colors" according to company public affairs and government relations manager Dennis Alpert. The building will also feature lighting systems that turn on when they detect a shopper in close proximity, large skylights, and other "green building elements" in an effort to conserve energy.
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Posted
Jun 23 2008, 05:41 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Citigroup, Sprint, Wal-Mart, Intel, AMD, AT&T, Starbucks, Target, Sears, IBM, Circuit City, Sun Microsystems
Rating:
With the trading year almost half over and results from the first quarter out, 24/7 Wall Street has created the latest installment of its Ten Worst Managed Companies In America list. This is a companion piece to the "CEO of the Year" list and "Large Companies that May Disappear" series.
This analysis is based on: 1) one-year and five-year stock performance relative to the major indexes and other companies in the industry, 2) the company's position in its industry both now and over the last five years, 3) whether management made identifiable and critical decisions which hurt the company, 4) a change in the company's relative market strength compared to its competition, and 5) whether the company could have identified mistakes and changed course quickly enough to avoid a catastrophe.
Some readers will think it is not fair to include companies which have had a recent
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Posted
Jun 02 2008, 06:37 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Did you ever wonder which stocks Warren Buffett holds in Berkshire Hathaway? Here's a snapshot of his various holdings, broken down alphabetically, as of the reporting cut off date of March 31, 2008.
Some have multiple positions because of various entities that are held. Here goes:
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