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Why bother? Doesn't everyone know who the winner will be? Why bother investing in new stores, in remodeled stores, in new distribution centers, new technology systems? By acclamation isn't everyone [...]

The editors of Chain Store Age and the leaders of the Consumer Products, Retail and Distribution practice of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) teamed this winter with Leo J. [...]

Wal-Mart is not high on the list of Ryan Silvashy's and Tracy Shaw's favorite retailers. 'I have to steel myself up to go into this place,' Shaw grimly says, walking [...]

Retailers have experienced a doubling in costs partly because of inflation and partly because of an increase in dollars spent per square foot. There is a mandatory requirement that the gross margin per square feet should rise in pace with the increasing costs or rise faster to get a good return on assets and equity. The experiences and strategies of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, The Gap and Nordstrom are analyzed., Lately, a lot of attention has been focused on reengineering, activity based costing, downsizing, or just straight cost reduction. One might believe that retailers who have embraced these new concepts [...]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] About a century alter Marshall Field coined the phrase 'Give the lady what she wants,' one of the legendary merchant's spiritual descendants, Sam Walton, founded the discount retail [...]

What goes up must come down--except perhaps for fuel prices. 'No one believes the price of fuel will be moving down,' said Tim Lynch, senior VP, American Trucking Association (ATA), [...]

Discussions of high performance retailing could easily take hours on cross docking in the distribution center, line busting at the point of sale or data mining in the IT department. [...]

If you've been holding out hope for the era of the dot.com, you might think of it as yet another death knell of the 'new economy.' But if you've been [...]

Martina Busse is excited. The supercenter she manages next to Wal-Mart's headquarters in Wuppertal, Germany, has replaced its brown metal clip strips with plastic ones. For a woman who professes, [...]

Korea has opened its door to Wal-Mart. In China, Wal-Mart has wedged its foot in the door. The retailer has six stores in Korea, 11 in China and will just [...]

Wal-Mart has had mixed results in South America. It entered both Brazil and Argentina in 1995--its first venture outside North America. But when Argentina fell on hard times in 1998, [...]

From sourcing relationships to merchandising tips to people, Wal-Mart is leveraging a world of assets Wal-Mart is importing and exporting more than merchandise. A Mexican heads up information systems for [...]

Of all the events to lake place during the 10 years since Wal-Mart began its global operations, the acquisition of ASDA nearly two years ago was easily the most significant. [...]

In Woodstock, N.Y., activists, including some Chamber of Commerce members, are fighting to keep CVS from taking over a Grand Union location sold off as part of the grocer's asset [...]

Wal-Mart will build a 1.2 million-sq.-ft. distribution center in Cleveland County, N.C. The facility will begin operating in fall 2002, serving stores in the mid-Atlantic [...]

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., will use Memphis, Tenn.-based Concord EFS Inc. as a provider of on-line debit point-of-sale processing. The agreement includes Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Clubs. Concord already was a [...]

The good, the bad and the unknown factors behind excess space 'Success has put us in the position of having to dispose of proven retail locations,' declares Jed A. Harrison, [...]

Wal-Mart is spending $40 million to construct an 880,O00-sq.-ft. distribution center in Baker County, Fla., due to open in summer of 2002. The company recently opened a $50 million, 1 [...]

Wal-Mart shoppers throughout Canada were overcharged on a Saturday afternoon in November due to a debit-card glitch. The extent and cause of the debit problem remain unclear, but Toronto Dominion [...]

Go figure. After all these years, it ends up that Wal-Mart is commitment-phobic. At least, that's how it seems lately. And it may be one of the reasons that the [...]

Once Hurricane Katrina made its way off of the Gulf Coast last August, Wal-Mart discovered that more than 170 stores and approximately 34,000 employees were somehow impacted by the storm. [...]

It is, I think, the mark of a good business book that you can sum up its message in a single sentence. 'The Tipping Point' is about how concepts and [...]

Much has been made in recent months of some of the positive news coming from Safeway, which not that long ago seemed like the poster child for mismanagement, labor strife, [...]

The untold story behind the success of the most revered company in retail resides in a squat, gray building on the outskirts of Bentonville, Ark. Wal-Mart Distribution Center No. 6094 [...]

Wal-Mart Stores challenged research that claims the state of California paid some $86 million in public assistance to Wal-Mart employees in 2001 due to low wages and poor benefits. The [...]

Tough times for the supermarket industry. No question about it. But the industry has seen tough times before. Or at least what it believed were tough times. When I first [...]

Asda, the British supermarket division of Wal-Mart Stores, has offered to acquire 70 of Safeway's stores in the United Kingdom for roughly $3.5 billion. The move seeks to block the [...]

Wal-Mart Stores will no longer accept MasterCard signature-based debit cards, effective Feb. 1. The chain says the transaction fees of the cards are too high. Wal-Mart will continue to accept [...]

The launch of Wal-Mart's private-label Alcott Ridge wine in November 2000 drew predictable jokes about twist-off lids from wine snobs who scoffed at the brand's opening price point. However, roughly [...]

On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart discount store in Rogers, Ark. It was a 30,000-sq.-ft. outlet, a virtual behemoth for its time. Since that day 40 [...]

Wal-Mart is preparing once again to shake up the food-retailing landscape. With the effects of supercenters on grocery chains well-documented, the competitive fight for the food dollar is now moving [...]

Within the space of two weeks' time early next year, we will inaugurate a new leader of the most powerful nation in the world on Jan. 20, followed on Feb. [...]

Can justice be served when the world's largest retailer turns a blind eye on petty shoplifting? According to a document that was leaked last month by an ex-Wal-Mart Stores associate, [...]

Wal-Mart Stores is on track to meet its goal of 270 to 280 new supercenters this year. The company has 1,400 stores in the pipeline for future [...]

Wal-Mart Stores is reviewing its advertising strategy as part of a larger overhaul the chain has begun of its marketing image. The business under review is reportedly worth about $578 [...]

I'm descended from a long line of bargain shoppers. My mother, aunt and grandmother spent the better part of their free time driving up and down New Jersey's highway to [...]

A coalition of women's groups and family-planning organizations urged Wal-Mart Stores to change its policy and start stocking emergency contraceptive pills in its pharmacies. The groups, claiming a total membership [...]

The world's largest retailer knows that not all checks are created equal: Some are riskier than others. At Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores, the company has implemented technology that allows [...]

Wal-Mart Stores locations using RFID have 16% fewer out-of-stocks and are 63% more effective in replenishing out-of-stocks than their peers, according to new research from the University of Arkansas. Wal-Mart [...]

Wal-Mart Stores launched a series of wide-ranging environmental initiatives to reduce energy usage in its stores and distribution centers, increase its trucks' fuel efficiency and minimize its use of packaging. [...]

Workers in seven Wal-Mart stores in Canada rejected a plan to unionize. The chain said that about 70 automotive sales and service associates in seven British Columbia stores voted against [...]

With an estimated $1.1 billion annual energy bill, Wal-Mart is always in the market for the lowest electricity prices. With that in mind, the chain has entered the power market [...]

Wal-Mart is looking to improve its environmental record. The retailer has launched a conservation program, Acres for America, in partnership with the nonprofit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. For the [...]

Transcan Development, Alamo, Calif., will open Canyon Crossings in the Southern California hub of Riverside. A Wal-Mart supercenter will anchor Canyon Crossings, slated for phase-one construction completion in late 2005. [...]

Wal-Mart is fighting back in a public-relations battle against a coalition of critics who claim that the retailer is shirking its corporate responsibilities. Last month, Wal-Mart held its first-ever media [...]

The United Food and Commercial Workers Canada hasn't given up on its efforts to unionize Wal-Mart employees in Quebec, according to published reports. The UFCW filed two applications for unionizing [...]

Wal-Mart Stores will pay a record $11 million to settle accusations that it used hundreds of illegal immigrants to clean its stores. Federal investigators said they decided not to bring [...]

Wal-Mart's entry into New York City suffered a setback when Vornado Realty Trust decided not to include the retailer in a proposed development in Rego Park, Queens. The proposed Wal-Mart [...]

There is a bit of wistfulness, perhaps even a bit of naivete, in the comments coming after a series of events of the last several weeks. Outpourings of heartfelt emotions [...]

Lately, Wal-Mart has been especially insistent in its push to get other retailers to hop on the RFID bandwagon. So insistent, in fact, that one begins to read between the [...]