مرحبا Wal-Mart! Hello Saks! Hey, Honey Baked Ham!

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Despite all of the bad economic news over the past few weeks, I refuse to dwell on the poor performers in the retail world in this post. It’s time we look at some companies who are doing things right,living up to their brand, and having positive sales trends as a result!


Photo courtesy Newsweek magazine.
First, Wal-Mart opened a store in a suburb of my native Detroit (Dearborn) that caters to the largest concentration of Arabs outside of the middle-east. An article in Newsweek details how this store has adjusted its merchandise mix, its store associates, and its marketing efforts to target the nearly half a million Arab-Americans in this city. With over 550 items in stock appealing to this target customer,they realize that the brand must be a "store of the community". It’s a good example that even as big as Wal-Mart is, it’s not just low prices that appeals to today’s shopper. Granted, they have the lowest price perception of any retailer in the market, but Wal-Mart has rectified some the mistakes of the past few years and gone back to building trust first and athen selling a lot of items at better prices as a result. Their new marketing campaigns are a throw-back to the real people with real benefits for shopping the store (Better than a blue light hawking weekly specials, I believe.) Their programs tied in with the Salvation Army and Second Harvest Food Banks continue to build trust.

The economic woes haven’t adversely affected sales at Saks Fifth Avenue either and it’s not because its customers have more money than most. Realizing that shoes are a major driver of traffic (Nordstrom figured that out a long time ago.), Saks didn’t just increase inventory, it: introduced its new shoe dept. with its own zip code 10222-SHOE. The flagship store devoted its entire 8th Floor with 150% more inventory. The result was that shoes was the #1 category increase for the holiday selling period. Management credits the increase for the 10.6% increase overall With Deborah Messing helping to open the new zip code, Saks has re-branded itself and has made a commitment to live up to that brand in all categories. See http://ny1.com/ny1/content/index for a ‘news’ report covering the launch.

Finally, many people only think about Honey Baked Ham as a great piece of meat. You might be surprised to learn that they do a heckuva retail business too and sell more than just hams--especially at the holidays with Easter leading the way. I was there using a Christmas (Yes, I always save it for later use.) gift certificate for our Easter ham and was impressed not only with the system and logistics of moving over a hundred people through the line but also with the complimentary sales of side dishes, desserts and condiments. The power of this brand resulted in a line up at 9am on the Saturday before Easter that was not unlike the Starbucks queue for a $4 buck cup at the airport when there is no line for the $1.50/cup of joe right across the aisle. Honey Baked charges almost three times per pound as the Sam’s Club or Costco down the street. Quality product backed by a consistent, believable marketing campaign results in brand loyalty all year round.

So, while some stores blame their negative trends on the poor economy and the real estate rollercoaster and weakening dollar, etc…stores like these continue to build their brands and their sales and we know how.