Leaked Wal-Mart Memo Reveals America's Not Buying Their Stuff

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/644585/leaked_wal-mart_memo_reveals_america%27s_not_buying_their_stuff/#paragraph5

Bloomberg News obtained an internal memo revealing that the economic downturn companies like Wal-Mart help create isn't exactly helping its sales--while competitors' sales continue to grow.

This leads Gawker's Hamilton Nolan to wonder if America's "love affair" with the nasty corporate giant may be slowly coming to an end.

Here's the dirt from the Bloomberg story this morning:

Those Wal-Mart stores had 82.8 million fewer visits through the first five months of the company’s fiscal year than a year earlier, says the memo, which was obtained by Bloomberg News. Wal-Mart doesn’t disclose those traffic numbers, and David Tovar, a spokesman, declined to comment on the memo.

Wal-Mart’s plan to recapture customers by returning thousands of products to U.S. store shelves has failed to reverse a decline in foot traffic at the world’s largest retailer, said Jeff Stinson, an analyst at Cleveland Research Co. That’s primarily because Wal-Mart’s core low-income customers are shopping less and going to other retailers more often, according to two recent shopper surveys.

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