August 17, 2009

“Oh Honey that is over in Lawn and Garden.”

Posted to Theresa Larsen

Of course. I am only looking for ribbon with beads on it that I saw about a month ago and who wouldn’t think ‘lawn and garden’. I mean the car seats are in with the ketchup so I should have known. (And yes, as I maneuver through the store I am thinking ‘there is a blog here.’) I am in the Delavan Wal-Mart and they are in the process of ‘re-merchandising’ the entire store. This is a huge undertaking. I can only imagine how much has gone into the financial view of what is working, what is not and what is being added to increase the dollars per square foot in this store. Current and developing departments will have new plan-a-grams denoting product layouts and shelving configurations mixing old and new. Signage and pricing will be right along side and let’s just keep going down the list. But, this is a great sign because it signifies new investment, an increase in products, new traffic patterns in the store and overall more visual stimulus to us, the consumer.

And just what does this current havoc in Wal-Mart mean to you and me? It is forced change to create a new buying pattern which equates to more dollars being spent in this store and dripped into the economy. You and I get use to looking at the same thing in the same place. It becomes a vague montage as you pass what you see every day without stopping to check what is new. A good parallel to housing. “Oh, I saw that house on the net last week or last month”. “I have thought about that neighborhood but have not turned the corner.” “ I might look at that next week.”. Yikes! Time to mix the ketchup in with the car seats. Take the new road, look at something you didn’t consider, get up, make a call, get out and move on and move in. Change your patterns. If you don’t then what you loved will be gone (which it was), you will be forced to spend money and time driving somewhere else (which I did) and still not find what you passed by purchasing when you saw it (which is what happened). So make that one turn down that new street and take a look –finally– at a house you may have passed for the last few months. Make the purchase and embrace the change because then you might just be heading to the new Lawn and Garden.

Posted By: Margaret Canfield

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