Steve Montgomery

Target and Wal-Mart Give Individual Attention to Customers

August 31, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Target and Wal-Mart Stores may be the biggest mass merchandisers in the country, but both believe business results can be improved by tailoring what they do to individual shoppers. Do you think Target and Wal-Mart are capable of achieving a "neighborhood store" feel?      [more...]

I'm with Ms. Spieckerman--I believe Wal-Mart has been utilizing this approach for some time. As data analysis has gotten better and faster I would simply see this as an extension of their historic practices, i.e., an evolutionary rather than revolutionary change. In many case the result is less dramatic than the examples in the article--more of a broader selection of certain categories rather than the addition or elimination of them.