Walmart

Bentonville, Ark. -- Walmart will start unveiling its Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving at 6 p.m., which is two hours earlier than last year, and stagger them throughout the night and all Black Friday weekend. The retailer is also offering a special incentive to employees who work on Thanksgiving Day: a 25% discount on an entire purchase this holiday season."

By Lynn Hinderaker, [email protected]

The future is knocking on the door of hedge fund manager and owner of Sears, Eddie Lampert. His decision to split off Lands’ End and Sears Auto Center from the core Sears brand would have been a good decision in 2004, one year after he purchased the deteriorating retail brand. Today, given the monumental shift in online purchasing behavior that has changed all of retailing, Lampert’s move is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Holiday shopping continues to encroach on Thanksgiving with Walmart the latest retailer to reveal plans that its promotional activity will begin at 6 p.m. with an expanded range of featured items, price guarantees, deeper inventory levels and detailed crowd control procedures.

The five year old Green Works brand from Clorox is facing new competition on the natural products front following the launch of Walmart’s Great Value Naturals cleaning products.

Walmart said the introduction of Great Value Naturals furthers its commitment to making eco-friendly products more accessible and affordable and will be available in more than 2,000 stores and online.

Clorox introduced its Green Works brand in early 2008 and the line was prominently featured in Walmart promotional vehicles at the time.

San Bruno, Calif. -- Walmart announced today the two grand prize winners of its Get on the Shelf contest, Elvis Presley Home Bedding Collection and SKRIBS Customizable Wristbands. As grand prize winners, both products will be sold on Walmart.com and receive additional online marketing support. They will also be introduced to the Walmart Stores’ Merchandising team for store shelf consideration.

Walmart split with its Indian joint venture partner of seven years recently and the smart folks at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business put the situation in perspective and offered insight into future possibilities for a market that still boasts more than 1 billion potential consumers and promising long-term prospects.

A pricing glitch on Walmart.com this week generated enormous publicity and did more to promote the retailer’s e-commerce business in advance of the holiday season than any of its other marketing efforts.

Walmart talks a lot about the opportunities it provides to employees and every so often examples pop up that puts things in perspective.