Wal-Mart reported last week that net earnings for its fiscal second quarter increased 5.7% compared to the same quarter one year ago. More interesting to me were two tidbits about pricing that I read in a summary of the company’s results:
1) Due to Wal-Mart’s continued investment in pricing, gross profit as a percentage of sales declined by 20 basis points in the U.S.
2) The company said it was pleased with the results in the 25 markets in which they are running ads built around basket price comparisons with other supermarkets in the market.
Clearly Wal-Mart is paying great attention to price and making significant efforts to be perceived as the low price alternative to supermarkets.