Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Wal-Mart Cutting Orders as Unsold Merchandise Piles Up


 Wal-Mart Cutting Orders as Unsold Merchandise Piles Up at Stores

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is cutting orders it places with suppliers this quarter and next to address rising inventory the company flagged in last month’s earnings report.

Last week, an ordering manager at the company’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters described the pullback in an e-mail to a supplier, who said others got similar messages. “We are looking at reducing inventory for Q3 and Q4,” said the Sept. 17 e-mail, which was reviewed by Bloomberg News.

 U.S. inventory growth at Wal-Mart outstripped sales gains in the second quarter at a faster rate than at the retailer’s biggest rivals. Merchandise has been piling up because consumers have been spending less freely than Wal-Mart projected, and the company has forfeited some sales because it doesn’t have enough workers in stores to keep shelves adequately stocked.

More @ Bloomberg

4 comments:

  1. Well I wonder what caused that to happen ???
    I was in Walmart about 2 weeks ago to pick up a prescription and wanted to pick up a few things in the food department while I was there. I noticed many of the shelves were barely stocked and the main thing I wanted to get ( a bunch of Cilantro ) was so brown and wilted I didn't bother. They normally have an older Asian guy there and things were always in order and stocked, but he wasn't there and you could really tell by the way everything looked. Very untidy and the vegetables were in bad shape.

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    1. Thanks and how do you use Cilantro? I'm sure you know the Mexicans are fond of it, but also heavily used in Vietnam.

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  2. I heard yesterday that Wal-Mart is cutting fulltime associates to 32 hrs a week to accommodate 50,000 temps for the Christmas holidays. The Mebane Wal-Mart near me has already done this, but I haven't heard anything about the store that I work at yet.

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    1. Well, my wife told me last night that one of her customers was furious because she had been cut from full time to part time because of Obamacare, so this could have something to do with it.

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