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Wal-Mart Tailors To Markets

ROGERS, AR—Product mix and store design will be tailored to hit five different shopper categories.

By Debra Hazel | Updated on June 05, 2006

ROGERS, AR—Wal-Mart will begin diversifying merchandise mix and store design by shopper segment sometime next year, even as it remains on track to open 270 to 280 Supercenters in the United States in 2006, senior executives said in a meeting with analysts on Friday.

“We are now designing Wal-Mart stores to reflect the unique characteristics of the market we’re entering,” said John B. Menzer, vice chairman of US operations.

The product mix and interior design will be tailored to five shopper categories: suburban affluent, rural, boomers, urban/multicultural and Hispanic. A Plano, TX test store for higher-income shoppers, which has an extensive wine collection and cutting-edge electronics, has a gross profit per square foot 24% higher than others in the area. A unit in Evergreen Park, IL, remerchandised to appeal to a multicultural market, has sales 25% higher than other units in the area. A plan for rolling out the program to other stores will be set next year.

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