Walmart

Columbia, S.C. -- Walmart plans to open dozens of new stores throughout South Carolina during the next five years, adding more than 4,000 jobs. Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., announced plans for the new stores at an event at the new South Carolina Farmers Market, in Columbia, S.C.

The new stores will include energy-efficient technology and sustainable features to reduce energy and water consumption and minimize waste.

New York City -- The Maine House on Wednesday voted to effectively repeal the Informed Growth Act, a law that was enacted four years ago to protect Maine's downtown business districts from big-box stores, The Portland Press Herald reported.

The vote, while a preliminary one, followed an impassioned debate about the character of Maine's traditional downtowns and whether Wal-Mart and other large national chains have hurt local businesses or have helped them by attracting more people to communities, the report said.

The most recent pricing survey from the equity research team at Credit Suisse shows that Target is either 3.1% more expensive or 1.9% less expensive than Walmart. The firm compared prices at stores in the Dallas and Chicago markets, as it does every month, and during March discovered the gap between the two competitors narrowed considerably.

“Target’s price gap with Walmart tightened from 4.2% in February to 3.1%,” according to the firm. “Target’s basket price decreased sequentially by 0.8% compared with Walmart’s 0.3% increase.”

This Mother’s Day is shaping up to be a battle between Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, with the popular e-readers featured on the cover of circulars from Target and Walmart that dropped this past weekend.

The 5% REDcard Rewards program Target launched last fall has contributed to sales results and served as a game changer on the pricing front with Walmart. Savvy shoppers are increasingly realizing the additional 5% savings they receive by using their REDcard can result in the price of a basket of food and consumables at Target slipping below the price of a comparable basket at Walmart.

Mike Duke presented at the Barclay’s conference Tuesday, and, as we predicted in last week’s WNN, he did not speak about first-quarter sales, which the company will report on May 17. Instead Duke focused on such broad goals as growth, leverage, but offered little detail on how the company plans to achieve them.

By Jim McNeill and Gary K. Brucker Jr., [email protected], [email protected]

Regional supermarket chains that offer grocery delivery services may soon have some competition from Walmart if its program is expanded nationwide. According to several reports including one in The Wall Street Journal and another in The New York Times, Walmart is testing its Walmart To Go service in San Jose, Calif.