LITTLE ROCK — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is testing a program in which shoppers who buy groceries at competing supermarkets can find out if they could have saved money by shopping at Wal-Mart.
Shoppers in the test markets can upload a photo of their receipt to a Wal-Mart website and receive a reply in 24 to 48 hours showing, presumably, how much less they would have spent on the same basket of goods at the nearest supercenter.
The market test began in mid-August in Albuquerque, N.M., Chicago and Atlanta. In the test markets, Wal-Mart offered $10 gift cards to the first 100 shoppers who submitted receipts by Sept. 1.
“It’s most definitely in test form, just to kind of see how it works,” said Molly Philhours, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “It’s a tool for us to show that we’re the everyday low price leader.”
The website is http:// seeforyourself.walmart. com/receiptcomparison. Receipts sent to the website cannot be more than seven days old, Philhours said. A short video on the website explains how the program works.
Bob Phibbs, a retail consultant and speaker based in upstate New York whose business is called The Retail Doctor, said it is common for retailers to periodically try new strategies in a limited number of test markets.
“You try things, see if it works. Is it going to be an ongoing thing in six months? I doubt if you’ll even hear about it. I think what they’re looking to do is grow the basket,” he said, and to reinforce the message that “they’re really that onestop shop.”
But the program, if it is rolled out nationwide, also has a potential downside, Phibbs said.
“Who wants to hear, ‘Well, we could have saved money if we’d shopped at Wal-Mart,’” he said.
Ben Ball, senior vice president of Dechert-Hampe, a consumer products and services consulting firm, recently posted a statement on RetailWire, an industry forum, about Wal-Mart’s program. He said that, “It’s not the participation rate that matters so much here, nor even the actual outcomes, on which Wal-Mart will almost certainly lose at least a few. It’s the message of reinforcement that the program sends to consumers: we believe we have lower prices every day, and we’re willing to prove it.”
Wal-Mart’s stock closed Friday at $73.82 a share, down 99 cents or 1.3 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange. It has traded between $49.94 and $75.24 in the past year.
Business, Pages 33 on 09/08/2012