Wal-Mart seeks to cater to "Selective" customer
By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 4/19/2006 11:50:00 AM
Rogers, Ark. —- Don't call it "upscale." Wal-Mart's new merchandising and store initiatives are intended to reach out to a career-driven, time-pressed (read: higher spending) consumer segment that shops the stores less frequently.
The "Selective" shopper shops at Wal-Mart "only" 46 times a year and spends just 28% of her grocery dollar there. "We are really trying to understand that customer," said Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores USA, at the company's second annual media conference here.
In contrast, the "Loyalist" Wal-Mart shopper visits the store 63 times a year and spends 77% of her grocery dollars there, explained John Fleming, executive vp marketing. "The Loyalists shop items, they shop price points and they love the big, broad assortments that Wal-Mart offers," Fleming explained. "It becomes one-stop shopping for them."
"The Selective shopper, on the other hand, is looking for solutions," he said. "This is a customer who is looking for value for their money. This is a customer who is very focused on convenience -- in fact, time becomes their currency. They shop for value, not just price."
Despite 800-thread count sheets, two-carat $5,400 diamond rings, and $2,300 flat panel television sets that have been added to the mix in recent months — and its new upmarket test store that opened in Plano, Texas last month — Wal-Mart is going to great pains to repeat, over and over again, this is not upscaling, a term that might imply leaving its core customer base behind.
That would be ridiculous, suggested ceo Lee Scott outside his office during an impromptu visit with reporters touring Wal-Mart's home office on Monday. Scott asserted, "That business is just too important to us."
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