{"id":317,"date":"2010-10-16T16:58:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-16T21:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=317"},"modified":"2011-01-09T03:58:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T08:58:02","slug":"walmarts-pricing-strategy-backfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2010\/10\/walmarts-pricing-strategy-backfires\/","title":{"rendered":"Wal*Mart's pricing strategy backfires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/business\/article\/0,8599,2023857,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">an article<\/a> in <em>Time<\/em> magazine, Wal*Mart's most recent round of price-cutting has been a failure:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Earlier  this year, the retailer tried to spark sluggish U.S. sales by lowering  its prices - already bargains - even further. One analyst called it \"an  initiative that screams: Price! Price! Price!\" These rollbacks, as they  are known in Walmartspeak and in the company's advertising, were  intended to overwhelm the shopper. ... Walmart expected a flood of  customers to its stores, which would help lift the company's stock out  of its rut and get Walmart rolling again.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, cutting prices  depressed sales, as shoppers took the bargains and ran. For the quarter  ending July 31, Walmart's U.S. same-store sales fell 1.8%. The  company's same-store sales have now fallen for five straight quarters.  Of the rollback strategy, Bill Simon, the president and CEO of Walmart  U.S., told investors at a September conference, \"It did not do what we  had hoped it would do. It did, however, drive price perception. It did  not drive sales or traffic.\" As a result, Walmart rolled back the deeper  discounts, and prices started inching upward this summer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The  article goes on to talk about how all those recent expensive  renovations you had to suffer through weren't as successful as expected,  either. It's an interesting look at how we, as consumers, are still  able to direct the choices Wal*Mart makes, so go check it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to an article in Time magazine, Wal*Mart's most recent round of price-cutting has been a failure: Earlier this year, the retailer tried to spark sluggish U.S. sales by lowering its prices - already bargains - even further. One analyst &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2010\/10\/walmarts-pricing-strategy-backfires\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,24,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-news","category-walmart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}