Economic Crisis

Wal-Mart: Our shoppers are ‘running out of money’

Via money.cnn.com

Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

“We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” Duke said at an event in New York. “There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.”

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they’re “running out of money” at a faster clip, he said.

“Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year,” Duke said. “This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.

Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), which averages 140 million shoppers weekly to its stores in the United States, is considered a barometer of the health of the consumer and the economy.

To that end, Duke said he’s not seeing signs of a recovery yet.

With food prices rising, Duke said Wal-Mart is charging customers more for some fresh groceries while reducing prices on other merchandise such as electronics.

Wal-Mart has struggled with seven straight quarters of sales declines in its stores.

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1 Comment

  1. People need to start shopping smarter. The problem with Walmart is that it seems like it is cheap and convenient, but the volume and quality of the food (and other goods) is not worth the increasing cost.

    Food is the main thing people should be storing to weather the coming economic and possibly apocalyptic disasters racing towards us.

    http://www.familysurvivalcenter.com/fwb.htm

    People, especially with families, should be buying rice, beans, oats and canned goods by the case. These staples are cheaper in bulk and it doesn’t take long to build up a year or two worth of supplies.

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