Wal Mart Stores

Retailers slashed prices to move merchandise, and some consumers spent their tax rebates, boosting July sales moderately at the nation's biggest chain stores. Discounters - led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. - benefited most as cautious consumers bought mostly necessities such as food and household goods. Even with deeper than usual discounts, fewer shoppers came through the stores during the month than in July last year, retailers said. The National Retail Traffic Index compiled by Chicago analytics firm RCT showed traffic off 4.2 percent in July.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. yesterday rejected accusations that some of its Asian suppliers had used illegal child labor, but it acknowledged that imported clothing had been displayed as domestic merchandise in some of its 2,000 stores.The accusations were made in a report Tuesday night on the NBC News program "Dateline." The program was seen in nearly 14 million households and drew the highest rating for the program since the weekly news magazine was first broadcast in March.The program raised questions about how effectively Wal-Mart monitors its import standards and whether the "Buy America" program created in 1985 by Wal-Mart's late founder, Sam M. Walton, was more an advertising gimmick than a substantial plan.

Crab-flavored potato chips and kosher foods may not have much in common, gastronomically speaking. But in the frenzied world of warehouse-style retailing, the two items are inextricably linked, at least in the Baltimore-area market.You'll find both in bulk at the 116,000-square-foot BJ's Wholesale Club store in Columbia, which opened June 27."It's called knowing your market," says Herbert J. Zarkin, chief executive officer for Waban Inc., the Natick, Mass.-based company which owns BJ's.Before selecting what to stock in the massive 6,000-item inventory of the new store, the members-only chain studied in detail the demographics and taste nuances of area residents.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Federated Department Stores Inc. said yesterday that post-Christmas sales weren't strong enough to cushion the worst holiday shopping season in more than three decades. Wal-Mart said sales at stores open at least a year rose as little as 2 percent, the low end of its forecast. Results for the November-December holiday period at Macy's parent Federated will fall about 4.5 percent, a steeper decline than expected. J.C. Penney Co. said same-store sales at its department stores rose 4.5 percent in December.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's leading retailer, will not be coming to Howard County -- at least not in the near future.The Howard County Council, sitting as the Zoning Board, last night unanimously denied Wal-Mart's petition to rezone 54 acres in Ellicott City near U.S. 29 and 40 for retail rather than office use.The only grounds for making zoning changes between comprehensive rezonings of the county, done about every eight years, are a mistake in...

Rebuffed by the planning board two months ago, the nation's leading discount retailer will try again before the zoning board tonight. Wal-Mart will ask to build a department store and members-only wholesalebuying club on 54 acres in Ellicott City near U.S. 29 and U.S. 40.To build a 114,000-square-foot department store and a 130,000-square-foot buying club on an extension of Ridge Road, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will have to persuade the zoning board it made...

If it looks like a Wal-Mart site and if it's zoned like a Wal-Mart site, then residents of the Wheatfields subdivision in Ellicott City want to know if 52 acres near Route 103 could be the next site for a Wal-Mart store in Howard County.Residents say they'll ask a lot of questions at a meeting tonight when county planning officials present their plans for comprehensive rezoning of the eastern portion of the county. The meeting begins at 6:45 p.m. at Ellicott Mills Middle School.The county administration's rezoning proposal would grant general business zoning for the property between Route 103, U.S. Route 29, Route 100 and Long Gate Parkway.

WESTMINSTER -- Merchants forced to compete with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. should be ready to switch, not fight.To stay in business, they will have to sell merchandise Wal-Mart doesn't, extend their hours, improve return policies and smile more often, said an Iowa professor who speaks across the country on how to compete with the retail giant."

Japanese cars head quality listJapanese automakers took top honors yesterday in the influential J. D. Power and Associates quality survey just a week after five of the winners were singled out for punitive U.S. trade sanctions.The survey of American owners found that Honda Motor Co. Ltd.'s Prelude and the Infiniti J30 by Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. tied for the top spot with 48 problems per 100 vehicles. They were followed by Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus SC300 and SC400 models, Honda's Acura Legend and the Lexus LS400 in having the fewest problems.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said yesterday that its first-quarter profit rose 15 percent, bolstered by cost cutting and rising currencies. Sales increased at the slowest pace in more than a decade. Profit from continuing operations climbed to $1.83 billion, or 41 cents a share, from $1.6 billion, or 36 cents, a year earlier, Wal-Mart said. Excluding results from the McLane distribution unit that Wal-Mart is selling to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., sales increased 9.7 percent to $56.7 billion in the three months that ended April 30. Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott is cutting costs by buying more goods directly from manufacturers.