Wal-Mart to Purge About 1,000 Magazine Titles

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores confirmed media reports last week that it is drastically cutting back its selection of magazines. A spokeswoman said the unattributed report, which said Wal-Mart represented 20% of retail magazine sales and was cutting about 1,000 titles, was “close to accurate.” The number includes national and regional publications and a number of titles that are no longer being printed, the spokeswoman said. “As a retailer, we are constantly evaluating our merchandise offerings and adjusting based on customer demand and the availability of retail space. We made a decision to fine-tune our magazine offerings to best fit our customers' needs,” she said. Among the titles being purged: Better Homes & Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, The New Yorker, The Economist, BusinessWeek, Forbes and Fortune, the media reports said. Celebrity titles, such as the tabloid weeklies, will continue to be stocked.

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