Wal-Mart and Spending

Wal-Mart is seeing better customer habits despite the fact that it hurts sales. What do I mean: people are buying cheaper goods, using less credit cards, and buying needs instead of wants. This is good news. But even in a down economy, people are buying less which I suppose is bad news for Wal-mart. Some highlights:

"Credit has been declining dramatically," said the Ecuador-born executive who has run Wal-Mart Stores USA for three years. "That decline in credit means people have to make choices about how they spend their hard-earned money."

I suppose it wasn't "hard-earned" before? Was it someone else's money they played around with? No, it just hurts consumers more when they have to pay interest and get into larger debt. It's never someone else's money. But I suppose he means that it is now more "hard-earned" than it was in the recent past due to price increases and job losses.

Wal-Mart has seen a rise in purchases of staples instead of discretionary items. Shoppers have more then doubled purchases of private-label items, eschewing name brands. Castro-Wright said, however, that Wal-Mart has no immediate plans to change the stores' merchandise mix to take advantage of the trend.

This should always be the case. Generic pop-tarts taste better than regular ones. Generic over-the-counter drugs are virtually the same as others.

He also pledged that Wal-Mart won't cut back on philanthropic spending this year, though other corporations may be forced to reduce their charitable donations.

Well that's good news. I wish I could say the same for churchgoers giving to the church.