Great news for Sprawl-Busters across the nation from Wal-Mart today!
The retailer told the media today that it will open fewer stores this coming year, and ??? it will significantly slow its pace in fiscal 2018.???
The retailer is shifting its investments away from bricks and mortar stores, and towards e-commerce, including building fulfillment warehouses instead, like Amazon. Three years ago, 50% of Wal-Mart???s investments were in stores, but that will drop to less than 20 percent next year.
Wal-Mart will open 130 U.S. stores this coming year, just under its down from its original projection of 135 to 155. But the big transformation comes in the following year, when it will open only 55 U.S. stores???of which 35 will be supercenters and 20 will be Neighborhood Markets. In the mid 1990s, Wal-Mart was opening 200 superstore per year.
“Growth looks very different than it did 16 years ago but there’s still so much opportunity for Wal-Mart,” the retailer???s CFO told CNBC. That is music to our ears, here at Sprawl-Busters.
News of Wal-Mart store slow down resulted in its stock dropping by 3%. CNBC also reported that more store closings, like the 269 units it closed a few months ago, could be coming.
“It’s not a growth at all costs mindset,” Wal-Mart???s CEO Doug McMillion (sic) said.
Sprawl-Busters has said repeatedly that Wal-Mart is overbuilt with superstores, sometime 2 or 3 miles apart. The retailer has been cannibalizing its own stores. In addition, the superstores are too large and difficult to navigate for consumers. The big box store has entered its retail Ice Age.
But the real concern clearly shown at Wal-Mart is that the company is desperately behind Amazon online, and is trying to pivot into virtual sales. Its enormous investment in Jet.com, and is capital shift into internet sales is a slap-dash effort to gain market share online. Its website is about as exciting as watching plaster set.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/06/wal-mart-reiterates-2017-guidance-plans-to-slow-store-openings-to-invest-in-digital.html
Whatever the reason, activists in the nearly 450 communities across America that have blocked a big box store are celebrating the arrival of the Dinostore???s Ice Age.
Great news for Sprawl-Busters across the nation from Wal-Mart today!
