Correction: On Black Friday 2013, Wal-Mart sold so many cellphones that it had to increase its staffing to be able to activate them all. The situation was incorrectly described in this article. Also in this story, the name of Wal-Mart’s new price comparison tool, Savings Catcher, was incorrectly named in one reference to it.
ROGERS -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. knows more about customers' shopping habits than anyone likely imagined.
Specially trained marketers examine information on roughly 1 million Wal-Mart customers' in-store and online shopping experiences a month, said Cindy Davis, executive vice president of global consumer insights and analytics for Wal-Mart. She was speaking Wednesday to a group of reporters about Wal-Mart's changing customer base and how the world's largest retailer is adapting to meet these younger customers' needs.
Wal-Mart gathers customer information in modern ways, such as online chat groups that can be monitored from the company's corporate headquarters in Bentonville and through syndicated market data that can tell the retailer what shoppers are buying from its competitors.
It's possible, Davis said, to determine the length of check-out lines in any given Wal-Mart store and alert a manager when it's time to add another cashier. And on Black Friday last year, when Wal-Mart offered specials on cellphones, the company took note of the rate of sales and was able to alert cellphone companies to increase their manpower for activations.
More than 65 percent of Wal-Mart customers have a smartphone. About 80 percent of its customers are under 35. Knowing these shoppers and their wants and needs plays an important role in Wal-Mart's strategy moving forward, Davis said.
"We make sure the customer is represented in every meeting and every decision that we make," Davis said. She was joined in the conversation by Jane Ewing, senior vice president of baby goods; Chief Marketing Officer Stephen Quinn; and Michael Bender, president of Wal-Mart West in the company's U.S. segment.
The under-35 age group, known as millennials, also are considered "digital natives." Many of them do not know what it's like to live without a computer. Davis said millennials are expected to lay out $1 of every $3 spent in the U.S. by 2018. They're also very value-conscious, as their grandparents -- but not their baby boomer parents -- were before them.
"I have a very detailed budget," said "Shawyna," one of the digital focus group participants in an unedited video clip that Davis showed reporters. "If it's not in my budget, we don't get it."
One way Wal-Mart is catering to millennials is the nationwide expansion of its Savings Catcher price comparison tool. The program has been tested in seven markets for a few months and should be available across the country by the end of the month.
Davis said Price Catcher is Wal-Mart's highest-rated concept ever tested. It outpaced its ad-match guarantee, which promises that Wal-Mart will match any local competitor's advertised price. Instead of having to scour the various retailers for the best price on items, Wal-Mart customers can go to walmart.com/savingscatcher and enter a receipt number and date. If a competitor is found to have offered any item at a lower cost, the difference will be put on a digital Wal-Mart gift card to be redeemed later.
When Savings Catcher goes nationwide, customers will be able to compare about 80,000 grocery and consumable purchases. Produce and general merchandise will be added in the coming months.
"If you really think about that, if you're shopping anywhere else because of price, that reason has been eliminated," said Quinn, the chief marketing officer. "That is going to level the playing field. The customers don't have to worry about shopping around to get the lowest price."
"Even if we do get beat on pricing here and there, the customer has reassurance we'll give savings to them in a very frictionless manner," said Gibu Thomas, senior vice president of mobile and digital global eCommerce at Wal-Mart.
Business on 06/05/2014