Two pieces from our sister publication Supermarket News caught my eye--both about Walmart.
As we know, Walmart no longer takes part in the monthly same-store sales report extravaganza. It now reports quarterly. The latest report came yesterday and revealed another quarterly decline for the Bentonville behemoth.
Same-store sales were down 1.1% in the U.S., excluding fuel, but including a 2.7% gain at Sam's Club. Total U.S. sales were down 0.5% for the quarter and up 0.1% for the full year."Sales for Walmart U.S. were below our expectations for the fourth quarter," said Michael T. Duke, president and chief executive officer, Wal-Mart Stores. "Some of the pricing and merchandising issues in Walmart U.S. ran deeper than we initially expected, and they require responses that will take time to see results."
Since Walmart is the nation's largest retailer, you have to wonder how much these figures would have dragged down the same-store sales numbers from November, December and January that had a lot of people excited about the holiday shopping season. Hmmm.
On a more positive note, Walmart's long awaited sub-30,000-square-foot concept, Walmart Express, will make its debut sometime during the firm's second quarter.
Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, here are some other news and notes from around the retail real estate world.
- Blockbuster initiates sale process (Canada.com)
- Best Buy To Cut Retail Space Growth by Going Smaller (CoStar.com)
- AIA's Monthly Architecture Billings Index Dips in January (RealEstateChannel.com)
- Moody's: Commercial Real Estate Prices Dip 0.9% In December (Wall Street Journal)
- On the Call: Barnes & Noble CFO discusses Borders (Forbes.com)