Wal-Mart is increasingly caught in the middle between higher-end retailers and value players, writes Jack Neff, and has recently lost share to both. Some observers feel that some recent strategies -- such as a sharper focus on margin expansion, culling assortments and promotional display space, and playing marketers off against one another -- are exacerbating the threat to its core positioning as a low-price leader. Stores that are part of the "Project Impact" remodeling effort have been a big success, according to Strategic Resource Group principal Burt Flickinger, "but the consumer has figured out that Wal-Mart's prices are too …

Jamaica's tourism director, John Lynch, is putting together a package that includes stops at historic Jewish cemeteries, a visit to the island's synagogue and a traditional post-worship meal with Jewish families in an effort to attract new visitors to the island, Tamara Audi reports. Jamaica's Jewish history, Lynch says, has "been a well-kept secret" -- including a pirate named Moses Cohen Henriques. Jews fleeing the Inquisition started arriving in Jamaica from Portugal and Spain in the 17th century. It had six synagogues and around 2,000 Jews by the end of the 19th century, but assimilation and emigration have …

Target yesterday announced that snowboarder Shaun White and his brother, Jesse, are designing an exclusive line of skateboarder shoes for the retailer that will debut this fall, Retailing Today reports. Calling White the "embodiment of youth-culture marketing potential," New York's Jada Yuan captures the brashness that makes the Olympic champion so appealing to his target. White, for example, put a picture of his bulldog wearing sunglasses on a T-shirt for his Target clothing line. "And then I look around and there's all these people wearing my dog!' White says. "It's just hilarious that these massive …

Brand advertising is giving way to "referential placement of a good or service at/near the point of a transaction, argues Alex Rampell.

Artisans who cut paper and fold ribbons around gift boxes are going the way of coat checks, tea rooms and hair salons in Macy's' more than 800 stores nationwide (with a few exceptions, including its flagship Chicago store), Sandra M. Jones reports. "It's penny-wise, but pound-foolish," says Pamela Danziger, president of luxury market research firm Unity Marketing. "It doesn't make sense. In our research, people are willing to pay extra to get a good presentation." Most mid-tier stores have followed the lead of discount chains such as Target, Wal-Mart and Kohl's, which offer bare-bones service in …

Infomercial impresario A.J. Khubani was in Los Angeles last week evaluating the work of 44 inventors who'd like their creations to be the next Snuggie or Ginzu knife. He and three other judges sat at a table in a conference room at the Marriott and watch a passing parade of newfangled pet leashes, floor mats, home exercise devices, skin creams, pillows, umbrellas, coffee mugs, kitty litter strainers, eyelash curlers and the like, Michael Hiltzik reports. The inventors' "hope was to receive the Nod That Leads To Wealth from Khubani, the founder and chief executive of Telebrands," he writes. …