Wal mart continues to school me about the retail business...

TIM CHAPMAN/MIAMI HERALD STAFF . FUN LINE: A fashion Cabana on South Beach, on Ocean Drive and 11th, is exhibiting the Metro 7 line of clothing that is offered only by Wal-Mart stores.

Recently I wrote that the "real problem" with Walmart is that they are insatiable in that they want to extract 100% of the retail dollars from consumers. This is why Walmart is:

1. building the separate Neighborhood Market division to compete with supermarkets in places where larger Walmart stores are not viable;

2. developing upscale store concepts, such as in Plano Texas;

3. adding organic produce to stores (because they don't want stores like Whole Foods to be able to continue to grow with impunity); and

4. trying to (and seem to be successful) develop upscale clothing lines to not only extract aspirational purchases from their low-income often minority customers, but from people with higher incomes also...

The Retail Design Diva writes about this in The Diva's Friends Are Wearing Wal-Mart Apparel and the Miami Herald reports on Walmart's guerilla marketing in South Beach in "Wal-Mart fashion visits SoBe: Wal-Mart aims to cultivate a new image as a place for fashion. The company brings its Metro 7 collection to South Beach this week."
SOBE RUNWAY: Spokesmodel Dayanara Torres shows off some foil printed Jeans, a sequin trimmed tank and a chiffon shrug. Photo: Tim Chapman/Miami Herald.

I thought that the use of minority models for the Metro 7 line was smart and strategic move to push their items to minority customers, but attractive women modeling decent clothes will attract other women to buy. So will ads in Vogue... I am always happy to view photos of Daya Torres...

not to mention

5. Walmart is trying to be licensed in banking. Even though they say this is only for credit card processing, you can't help but wonder about long term plans they are likely to have to expand. After all, for years Sears made far more money from the Sears Charge Card and Allstate Financial services, than they did from selling clothes and other sundries...

Index Keywords: retail; walmart