Topic: WalMart goes "back to basics"

[Pandora]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will launch a promotional campaign next month called “It’s Back,” to tell core customers the discounter is restoring merchandise it removed from store shelves in a flubbed renovation effort.

Starting in May, Wal-Mart shoppers in the U.S. will see signs in stores heralding the return of fishing tackle, bolts of fabric and other “heritage” merchandise that Wal-Mart reduced or cut out altogether as it attempted to spruce up its stores to appeal to more well-heeled shoppers.

That strategy failed, and the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant now is pursuing a back-to-basics strategy to reverse the company’s fortunes after seven consecutive quarters of sales declines at U.S. stores open at least a year.

“Some of these products were very important to our customers, particularly in rural areas, and they let us know they wanted them back,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, the former chief merchandising officer of Wal-Mart’s Canadian business, who was put in charge of U.S. merchandising in January. “We heard them, and they are going to notice a difference soon.”

In addition to bringing back a broader assortment in hopes of restoring Wal-Mart’s luster as a one-stop shopping destination, executives at the world’s largest retailer say they are pushing store managers and product buyers to step up price comparisons with neighboring retailers to ensure that Wal-Mart is offering lower prices.

Such checks of the competition were an obsession of the company’s late founder, Sam Walton, but have dropped off in recent years as Wal-Mart moved away from its focus on “every day low prices” and began promoting deals on some products while quietly raising prices on others.

Where they went wrong:

The failure, in large part, can be pinned to Leslie Dach: a well-known progressive and former senior aide to Vice President Al Gore.

In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.

Out went drab, {DRAB?!  BECAUSE TO FRUGAL PEOPLE, COLOR AND STYLE ARE ESSENTIALLY FRIVOLOUS?! - P.}   inexpensive merchandise so dear to low-income Americans. In came upscale organic foods, “green” products, trendy jeans, and political correctness. In other words, Dach sought to expose poor working Americans to the “good life” of the wealthy, environmentally conscious Prius driver.

Dach’s failure should be a cautionary tale for President Obama: last week he scolded a blue collar man in Pennsylvania for driving an SUV, and he has previously admonished Americans to get out of their gas-guzzlers and into electric cars. Dach’s failure should also put Michelle Obama on notice; she has been pushing her White House organic vegetable garden as a model for working Americans.

Like other real-world experiments, the Wal-Mart story exposes the failure of progressivism in the marketplace, as the Dach strategy has been a fiasco: the merchandising turned off low-income (and largely Democratic-leaning) customers. Says former Wal-Mart executive Jimmy Wright:

    The basic Wal-Mart customer didn’t leave Wal-Mart. What happened is that Wal-Mart left the customer.

Dach convinced the company to steer away from founder Sam Walton’s core values. At the core of Dach’s campaign was to prove that Wal-Mart was “going green.” He brought in Vice President Gore to speak about environmental issues: they actually screened his global warming film, An Inconvenient Truth, at a quarterly meeting of Wal-Mart empl0yees and invited environmental groups. Expensive organic foods were showcased in their produce section. Trendy and pricey environmentally safe products were put on the shelves.

Richard Edelman of Edelman Public Relations — who had once hired Dach — noted that Dach constantly pushed Democratic Party health care and environmental agendas inside the giant company. Writes the New Yorker:

    Richard Edelman suggested that he is seeing Dach’s influence on the company. Edelman called Dach an “idealist” who has carried to Wal-Mart his fervor for such traditional Democratic causes as universal health care and environmentalism.

The Sierra Club’s Carl Pope seemed pleased that Dach was inside the enemy camp, confiding to the New Yorker:

    One of the remarkable things about the environmental movement is how rarely people from our side end up on the other side, and Leslie is on the other side.

But Dach’s fervor only sunk the company. Andy Barron, a Wal-Mart executive vice president, told an investor meeting:

    Clearly, we’ve lost some of our focus on what I would call the core customer. … You might say, in short, that we were trying to be something that maybe we’re not.

George Siemon, CEO of Organic Valley — the nation’s largest organics cooperative — said to the WSJ:

    Is the Wal-Mart customer ready to embrace a full set of organics products? The answer is no, not yet.

This is probably not what Michelle Obama wants to hear.

For leading the failed experiment, Dach was awarded three million dollars in stock and a hundred and sixty-eight thousand stock options, in addition to an undisclosed base salary.

Summing up the mess, mechanic Mike Craig told the WSJ:

    Wal-Mart just went and broke it.

Good.  I shopped WalMart for certain items -- the all-Arabica bean coffee for one -- and they've been disappeared from the shelves, so I'm looking forward to not being stuck with Tar-zhay only, since it views selling the large, outdoor garbage cans, for instance, as beneath its fashion-forward self.

[IronDioPriest]

So where is this well-known (heretofore unknown to me) progressive Dach person now? Surely Walmart isn't allowing such an enemy to continue polluting their personnel roster?

[radioman]

Going back to basics means that when I go to check out i will always be next in line!!

[Pandora]

So where is this well-known (heretofore unknown to me) progressive Dach person now? Surely Walmart isn't allowing such an enemy to continue polluting their personnel roster?

Good question and, interestingly, not disclosed.

Dead, I hope.      

[IronDioPriest]

So where is this well-known (heretofore unknown to me) progressive Dach person now? Surely Walmart isn't allowing such an enemy to continue polluting their personnel roster?

Good question and, interestingly, not disclosed.

Dead, I hope.      

Oh the horror. You must be some extremist Right-wing-ger.

[Pandora]

So where is this well-known (heretofore unknown to me) progressive Dach person now? Surely Walmart isn't allowing such an enemy to continue polluting their personnel roster?

Good question and, interestingly, not disclosed.

Dead, I hope.      

Oh the horror. You must be some extremist Right-wing-ger.

'Zack Right!!  With two g's, too, as shown!!

This, with WalMart, is a prime example of why the "progressive", marxist whinging about how "family fortunes" and wealth accumulation must be taxed away is false, wrong, erroneous and downright ignorantly, historically stupid.

If Sam's WalMart heirs are any example, and they are, along with the Kennedys, the Gates', the Fords and a host of others, the offspring will piss away, waste, and expropriate what their progenitors busted their asses to accumulate.

[Glock32]

For leading the failed experiment, Dach was awarded three million dollars in stock and a hundred and sixty-eight thousand stock options, in addition to an undisclosed base salary.

Perhaps he should be given 12 cents on the dollar for that stock (like the GM bond holders) and the balance given (like the UAW) to those "core customers" who were negatively impacted by his social engineering and tinkering around with the purchasing options available to their limited budgets. You know, spread the wealth around.

[LadyVirginia]

 

[Sectionhand]

They also keep bringing back old employees ...and bringing them back ... and bringing them back ...

I knew the manager of one of their Super Stores in Baton Rouge . He told me that the Baton Rouge stores as a group had an employee turnover of 150 % . They kept losing and rehiring the same damned people !

[Libertas]

I guess they finally got tired of seeing more of my money go to Fleet Farm!

 

[ToddF]

Another thing biting WalMart is competition daring to take on WalMart in price.  I've noticed Cub Food really taking them on, in the TC.  A few years ago a study was done comparing prices.  Cub was closest but still nearly 25% higher than Wal-Mart.  I agreed, which is why I bought as much at Wal-Mart as I could, and the rest at Cub. 

Now, it's no longer worth two trips as Cub is much closer in price, and can be cheaper with coupons, such as $5 off if you spend $50.

Just a local example.  No one's dominance will last forever.

[Libertas]

Competition is good, the consumer always benefits, the healthy thrive and the underperforming are culled!

[BigAlSouth]

Leslie Dach BAS Quick Facts

1) Served as communications manager on failed Mike Dukakis campaign. (Now we know who said, hey Guv, why dontcha put this here helmet on and ride in that there tank thingy . . .)

Dukakis Campaign: Communications director
Subsequent Fame: As special counselor to CEO of Walmart, launched major public-relations campaign improving the company’s image
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-10/mike-dukakis-revenge/3/full/full/full/full/#

2) True Blue Blue State Dude:
Leslie Dach is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Government Relations for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., where he serves on the company's executive committee and manages the Wal-Mart Foundation. Dach previously was the Vice Chairman of Edelman, a major global communications firm, and served on their executive committee where he directed the company’s global public affairs, crisis, technology and healthcare practices. A senior strategist in Democratic politics, Dach has served as senior advisor for communication for the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry for President Campaign in 2004. In addition to politics, Dach has worked as a lobbyist for a number of environmental groups, and served as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Source

http://www.naspaa.org/alumni/distinguished_profiles/Leslie_Dach.asp

3) As of this March (2011) he is a Board Member of the "World Resources Institute". He also worked for the National Audubon Society
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Dach_Leslie_334752.aspx

4) Leslie is a guy. Genetically Speaking . . .

[Libertas]

Blech!

Leslie is a commit ed proglodyte.  Little wonder he hold foundation duties, that is often a refuge for obvious leftards!

 

 

[LadyVirginia]

This Dach guy proves the left's arrogance--they think we  Americans are the way we are because we just don't have their enlightment.  If they just show us the way we'll all be lapping it up in droves.

[Libertas]

Yeah, that's the same as a libtard's meme about the reason they suck at an election where they got their butts handed to them is because they couldn't get their message out!  It's just a PR problem.  No, the message was sent, fools, you were rejected!  And you'll always be rejected when people are able to see you for the lefturd you are! 

Sheeeessh!

 

[Sectionhand]

Any doubts that Sam Walton would NEVER have hired the guy in the first place ?   

[charlesoakwood]

If it was necessary to meet him Sam would have probably walked outside to greet him.

[Janny]

I didn't notice anything different at my WalMart. We have all "Supercenters" here, which makes it extremely convenient for grocery shopping.

What I have noticed is that they have been discontinuing stuff more and more, but that seems to be true of all the stores, especially COSTCO. You really like a product, and then all of a sudden it's no longer on the shelves. That could go in the Pet Peeve thread!

[charlesoakwood]

For sure, diets past, rice cakes were a staple; I can't find them, anywhere.