Wal-Mart sales strong, discounts to stay
Wal-Mart Stores chief executive Lee Scott said that back-to-school sales have been strong and the company will continue aggressive pricing during the holiday season
“We are setting the pace,” Lee Scott, president and chief executive, said. “Our back-to-school experience was awesome.”
Scott also said 15 of the company’s stores remain closed as a result of Hurricane Katrina principally in New Orleans . Nine of the stores have major damage, including one reduced to “half a wall and the safe.”
Scott also said the company has a strategy to deal with negative publicity. Adding that efforts directed against Wal-Mart are “the largest, most well financed corporate campaign in the history of business.” “It’s not directed at organising our workers,” Scott said. “It is directed at slowing this company down.”
Wal-Mart will not disclose the specifics of the strategy, but said it includes making sure “we are the kind of company that we should be so we are not giving the people who don’t like us ammunition.”
“We have allowed to exist the idea that only the poorest Americans shop at Wal-Mart,” Scott said. “Shame on us. We have people from all walks of life who shop at Wal-Mart stores.”
