NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores is focusing on greater selection and fewer price promotions to restore sales, the new head of its U.S. operations said Wednesday.
In his first public remarks since succeeding Eduardo Castro-Wright in June, Bill Simon, chief operating officer of Wal-Mart U.S., also said Wal-Mart would put a greater emphasis on national brands and would explore smaller store formats.
Simon's back-to-basics agenda represents a reversal of tactics employed by previous Wal-Mart leadership whose "Project Impact" strategy advocated tighter selections, more private brands and a "Win Play Show" merchandising strategy built around product categories that showed the most growth.
Simon said that program although successful in some aspects ultimately eroded Wal-Mart's reputation for providing one-stop shopping, and a subsequent program of aggressive price rollbacks this spring failed to win shoppers back.
"Our customers will decide what we carry based on what they buy," Simon said in remarks at the Goldman Sachs Retail Conference here. "We will win in every category in which we compete. Every four-foot section of our business will attempt to grow. We won't direct the customer to certain categories in the future, they will decide that."
Price competitiveness, Simon added, would be measured on a basket basis, rather than an item basis, as Wal-Mat restores its everyday low price positioning.
