The Walmart's Index !

If anything, Walmart's performance by category is an excellent index and I usually pay close attention to their earnings.

When reporting last week, they indeed gave some precious indications : if same-store figures rose by a pale 1.6% in the US, probably the weakest in a decade (year-earlier increase was double at 3.1%) it was in the area of +5% in food and electronics (still on same-store basis). As a contrast, apparel and home-related products were very soft (no data disclosed).

Again (I posted on that one in november, here) what is also interesting is the failure of their attempt to sell upmarket fashion apparels (trying to mimic rival Target) : they are now returning to their rock-bottom price strategy.

With $350bn total sales and much more than a million employees, Walmart's impact on the US economy is very significant (though they pretend the c10% share of total retail is small !). Numerous books have been published on the retail titan, some very critical (ie "the high cost of low price" or "how Walmart is destroying America...") the latest being "what it really takes to profit in a Walmart world" (haven't read it yet).

Comments

[J.]

Colette sells Target's apparels.

[Hubert]

J'ai toujours été déçu par les supermarchés aux US, y a t-il une enseigne digne de notre Carrefour national, capable de proposer des surfaces de tailles equivalentes avec une presentation aussi propre et claire ?

[Michel de Guilhermier]

"Digne de notre Carrefour national" ?

Hubert, de mon côté, je suis aussi déçu par les Carrefour et préfère les Auchan !

Sinon, tu as Whole Foods dans le genre upmarket aux US.

[Michel de Guilhermier]

Jean Louis, I didn't know that !