The other 52 US stores are a mixture of Supercenters, WalMart’s largest format; discount stores; a grocery format called Neighborhood Market; and outlets in the company’s Sam’s Club bulk-selling wholesale chain. The new Neighborhood Market is a scaled-down store fitting the size of the small town. It’s about 10 miles north of a Walmart store at 2421 Powell Ave. and about six miles south of the Walmart Supercenter at 3468 Dickerson Pike.
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Also on Friday the company announced internally that changes are coming to its technology operations, and corporate employees were informed of the pending retirement of Chief Administrative Officer Rollin Ford.
After failing to generate enough foot traffic at numerous stores, the company pulled out of California and is still selling off some of those remaining stores.
Wal-Mart earnings have been strained by its decision previous year to raise entry-level wages and invest more money in its online business to better compete with Amazon.com Inc.
No Nebraska or Iowa stores are affected.
The announcement comes three months after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. “They wouldn’t go into any specific details in terms of their rationale for closing the store”.
Mike Moore, Walmart’s executive vice president of supercenters, said in an interview that the decision to pull out of the projects at Skyland and Capital Gateway was based on fresh assumptions the company was making about the potential profitability of those stores. The store is one of 269 worldwide being closed by Walmart.
The store manager referred The Leaf-Chronicle to Wal-Mart public relations and politely asked a reporter to leave the store. “But this store has been very successful for Walmart”, said Reid. Walmart instead will focus on strengthening Supercenters, optimizing Neighborhood Markets, growing the e-commerce business and expanding pickup services for customers.
“It’s sad, really, because I mean the people around here have gotten really used to it. I know a lot of the people really love the pharmacy and their really going to miss that one”, Laughlin said. The other 115 stores are in Latin America, including 60 already-closed locations in Brazil. (NYSE:WMT) traded down 1.79% during midday trading on Friday, hitting $61.93. In November, the company forecast a full-year profit of $4.50 to $4.65 per share. Zacks Investment Research upgraded Wal-Mart Stores from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $66.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 21st.
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Walmart hopes to place workers losing their jobs at nearby stores.
