Mass Merchant

It takes a special type of person to work at Walmart, according to chief information officer Rollin Ford, who told those assembled at the company’s shareholders’ meeting that customer service is in their DNA.

Ford, a 28-year Walmart executive, was called into service for a brief presentation at the meeting to recount his experience of working at Walmart while founder Sam Walton was still alive, since most of the thousands of store associates and many of the executives who attended the event joined the company after Walton death nearly 20 years ago.

While an abundance of celebrities and references to Walmart founder Sam Walton gave this year’s shareholders meeting a familiar feel, there also was an unmistakable emphasis on e-commerce and social media.

An amazing variety of people shop at Walmart stores, which is understandable given the company’s often cited statistic that 140 million people visit its stores weekly. This diversity of customers is one of the things that makes Walmart unique as this video from singer Jessica Frech cleverly illustrates in a light-hearted way. Click here to watch.

Driving same-store sales at U.S. stores is the top priority of Walmart U.S. president and CEO Bill Simon and his boss, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., president and CEO Mike Duke. Both executives stated U.S. comp growth is their top priority on Friday and went on to add that they are confident the company has the right strategy and people in place to make it happen.

Sequential improvements in delinquency rates in Targets’s credit card portfolio just keep coming as the percentage of accounts 60 and 90 days past due fell yet again in May.

The number of accounts 60 day’s past due dropped to 3.1% in May compared with 3.3% in April while the number of accounts 90 days past represented just 2.3% of the total portfolio in May compared to 2.4% in April.

Target isn’t off to a great start in the second quarter- with a same store sale increase of 2.8% that was toward the low end of the company’s guidance range that called for a low to mid-single digit increase. The company also fell short of its comp guidance in April.

A lot of companies are content to conduct their annual meetings in a hotel ballroom near their headquarters, but not Target. This year the retailer and its senior executives are schlepping east to Pittsburgh where the company’s annual meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 8 at 1:30 p.m. at a store located about five miles east of downtown Pittsburgh at 6231 Penn Avenue. According to the company, “This location allows us to showcase our current general merchandise store design in the latter stages of construction prior to opening.”

It’s the time of year when retailers engage in the annual Dads and Grads promotional extravaganza, and Target is promoting the Apple iPad at $499 as a gift-giving solution.

The iPad appeared on a full-page ad in this week’s circular along with other Apple products such as the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch.

Not that dads and grads wouldn’t want an iPad, and it never hurts to feature an item that shoppers can aspire to, but the iPad would appear to be out of the price range of most gift-givers, especially where Father’s Day is concerned.

Thinking of opening a store on Manhattan’s Fifth Ave? Be prepared to shell out some hefty rent. The average rent for space along Fifth Avenue’s prime stretch from 49th Street up to 59th Street hit $1,900 per square foot in the first quarter, according to the latest CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) Global Retail MarketView. The second-highest U.S. retail market? Los Angeles, with rents of $520 per square foot.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores's board of directors has approved a new program authorizing the company to repurchase $15 billion of its shares, the company announced at its 41st annual meeting of shareholders Friday. This program replaces the previous $15 billion program, announced on June 4, 2010, that had approximately $2 billion of remaining authorization. Under the program, repurchased shares are constructively retired and returned to unissued status.