Business Development – Lessons From Plans That Are Not Working
The Wall Street Journal has been providing good coverage of the efforts of Wal Mart to upgrade the content and display of their merchandise in an effort to appeal to the more affluent population. Recently there was a report that Wal Mart’s effort to improve fashion apparel merchandising is not working so well.
Does this mean the change is not good? Upon closer examination the report says, merchandise displays are not managed well, dressing rooms are inadequate and sales staff are usually not experienced with fashion apparel. On top of that, advertising support is viewed as being weak.
Seems like most of these issues could be resolved. However, I am concerned about one of them and that is the hiring and the training of sales staff to support the affluent customer. Seems like this is contrary to the entire Wal Mart culture.
