Ryan Mauldin/Collegian
Wal-Mart is hoping to attract higher-income consumers and asuage negative publicity by hiring image consultants.
Due to shifts in the economy and a need to expand its consumer market, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has begun to shift its marketing to new types of customers: those that are more concerned with style or service than penny-pinching sales. And they’re taking great strides to do so.
Currently, lower-income rural customers comprise Wal-Mart’s main consumer base. As a result, the company must expand to other income groups to continue to thrive, according to Mark Steckbeck, assistant professor of economics.
“They still can’t lose their consumer base now, but they’ve got to appeal to higher income people,” Steckbeck said. “A company that’s stagnant is a company that’s dying.”
Reaching higher-income customers, however, demands a different image of Wal-Mart—one that’s fashionable but still reasonably inexpensive. To meet this demand, Wal-Mart is advertising in Vogue magazine, hosting fashion shows for the first time and hiring models like Dayanara Torres, the youngest woman to have ever been selected as Miss Universe.
“We want to encourage Wal-Mart customers who don’t usually come to us for apparel to cross the aisle and see what we have to offer,” said Claire Watts, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president of apparel and home furnishings, in an Oct. 11 press release. “We think our fashion-conscious female customers who want the latest looks at an affordable price will be pleasantly surprised.”
Though fashion isn’t a high priority for her, sophomore Amy Thomas said she does buy clothing at Wal-Mart if it’s an emergency or if she stumbles across something she thinks is quality merchandise.
She said she would buy apparel there more often “if there quality were better. Quality is key,” she said.
Since the trends of fashion change quickly, Wal-Mart opened a New York-based fashion office two years ago to stay ahead of the latest trends of Paris and New York.
New fashions, such as the Metro 7 style line, offer fashionable apparel at a lower cost.
“Our customers are clearly voting for this level of fashion, as initial sales have exceeded our expectations,” said Lucy Cindric, Wal-Mart senior vice president of ladies apparel in an Oct. 11 press release.
Along with fashion, Wal-Mart must address growing concerns with store policy. Largely funded by unions, budding groups such as Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart are waging a war against store image to improve working conditions, wages and hiring practices. Also, a new documentary directed by Robert Greenwald, similar to Michael Moore’s films, features leaks about mistreatments and embarrassing cover-ups of Wal-Mart policy.
Wal-Mart also has to tackle community concerns that its stores disrupt the privileges of local business.
Associate Professor of English Michael Jordan has chosen not to shop at Wal-Mart because he sees it as a threat to community relationships.
“In my estimation, it’s building community integrity to patronize locally managed businesses,” Jordan said.
To counteract this tension, Wal-Mart has produced a rapid-response public relations team in Arkansas, hiring presidential advisers such as Ronald Reagan’s political strategist Michael K. Deaver and Bill Clinton’s media consultant Leslie Dach. This strategy has broken new grounds in alleviating growing public dissatisfaction of their goods and services while maintaining competitive advantage in the market.
“Wal-Mart needs to change their image,” Steckbeck said. “If they can get higher quality goods at lower prices, they will [change their image].”