Wal-Mart marketing experiments

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Wal-Mart has experimented publicly with changes to certain of its business practices.

Contents

0.1 Renewable energy
0.2 Attracting upscale consumers
0.3 Organic food
0.4 Advertising in local newspapers

1 See also
2 References

Renewable energy

Recently, Wal-Mart has designed two experimental stores [WalmartFacts.com], "Environment". Accessed May 5, 2006., one in McKinney, Texas and the other in Aurora, Colorado, which feature wind turbines, photovoltaic solar panels, biofuel-capable boilers, water-cooled refrigerators and xeriscape gardens. The buildings also include many other energy and cost-saving technologies. Critics, such as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance , contend that gestures at two Wal-Mart stores among several thousand have negligible impact and are little more than public relations exercises far outweighed by the company's negative environmental impact across all of its locations. Wal-Mart is said to drive sprawl, consume unnecessarily large amounts of land, and to sometimes build on environmentally sensitive sites, among other things.

Attracting upscale consumers

In March 2006, Wal-Mart opened a new Supercenter in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, that is decidedly fancier than other Wal-Mart stores. It is part of their effort to attract a more affluent demographic, who tend to view Wal-Mart product offerings as inferior to those of such stores as Costco and Target. Differences from conventional Wal-Mart Supercenters include wooden floors, wider aisles, a sushi bar, a coffee/sandwich shop (with free Wi-Fi Internet access) instead of the usual fast food venue, and pricier items, including expensive wines and high-end electronics. This Wal-Mart is also the first and only store to implement employee baggers at the checkout lines. The exterior sports the less-common hunter green background behind the Wal-Mart letters instead of the trademark blue. Wal-Mart states that this type of store is not planned to be duplicated anywhere else.

Organic food

In 2006, Wal-Mart announced plans to increase the amount of organic food available in its stores. Both conventionally grown and organic versions of certain products will be available, but Wal-Mart intends to keep the price of the organic versions to no more than 10% over the price of the conventionally grown counterparts.

Because Wal-Mart is one of the nation's largest grocery retailers, their move into selling organic food has some people worried. Specifically, the increase in demand for organic food will require that more organic produce be imported. Secondly, the push to lower prices "would virtually guarantee that Wal-Mart's version of cheap organic food is not sustainable".

Advertising in local newspapers

After [complaints] by newspaper publishers in early 2005 that Wal-Mart did not advertise in smaller newspapers, the company placed ads in 336 Missouri and Oklahoma newspapers preceding the 2005 holiday shopping season. In April 2006 Wal-Mart [claimed], "our test showed that it did increase product sales, but our margins are so thin that we didn't even come close to offsetting the cost of the ads."

References