Analysts took a field trip to the reimagined Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Supercenters recently, and dubbed the new features (scan and go, touchscreens, improved lighting and three types of shopping carts)…
“cool.”
Can Wal-Mart, the epitome of un-cool (the article I'm reference even called it the “Oxyest of Oxymorons”), ever be “cool”?
Wal-Mart has a blog post explaining the new features, and they're promising.
I've noticed changes in produce lately. When I price checked versus Aldi last week, for example, I saw a surprising amount of organic produce on the shelves. There were things I didn't expect, like bell peppers and numerous varieties of apples. Previously, you'd see one, maybe two. There were multiple organic options in carrots, too.
What was un-cool?
Someone at the Supercenter near my house found the pineapple corer again. If you recall, I was pretty harsh about this store's efforts to do in-house cored and chunked pineapple. It was a hot mess.
I'm happy to report that it looks a lot better than before, but I'm still doubtful that this is a good idea for a retailer like Wal-Mart to do in-store.
While the tubs had sticker to across one side to appear sealed, they were still fantastically inconsistent. They were sold for “$1.98/lb” with every tub marked as a pound, as if it was actually weighed and stickered in-store. It was set up to be the same price as whole fruit, which was merchandised alongside the cored fruit for $1.98 each.
Every single tub I weighed was more than a pound, thankfully, and one was even a pound and a half.
Not cool.
