Around the Net

New Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Reverses Company's Direction

  • Ad Age, Wednesday, August 18, 2010 9:13 AM
William Simon, Wal-Mart's U.S. president and CEO since late June, is reversing course on many of the initiatives set in motion by his predecessor-now-vice-chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright, Jack Neff reports. Items that disappeared under Project Impact will return. Deep "rollbacks" will roll the other away again with renewed emphasis on the store's core Everyday Low Price model. And ad spending has also fallen back to "historical levels" after a steep hike earlier in the year.

"We plan to win in every category and let customers decide through their purchase decisions what to include in our assortment," Simon says. He also promises to strengthen supplier relationships and to give store and regional managers greater leeway to merchandise and manage assortment.

The retailer's same-store sales were down 1.8% last month, on top of a 1.5% decline in the prior-year quarter. "It will take time to see significant changes in our comps," according to Simon, who expects improvement by the fourth quarter.

advertisement

advertisement

Read the whole story at Ad Age »

Next story loading loading..