Wal-Mart announces new company policies on Target's turf

Wal-Mart has suffered seven straight quarters of declining sales in stores open at least a year -- even as its smaller rival, Target, has posted gains. But that didn't stop Wal-Mart executives from coming to Target's back yard Monday to promote its planned revamped store offerings.

Wal-Mart senior vice president Joel Anderson came to Bloomington to announce the company is restocking 8,500 items that were previously taken off the shelves. He said the company has also made changes to its price-matching policy.

"We have the simplest, the broadest ad match campaign in the marketplace," Anderson said. "It's very simple for our customers. They simply go right to our checkout and any cashier can match any ad done by our competitors."

Anderson said customers aren't required to bring in the competing advertisement in order to get the discount. However, he says cashiers will have information on other local offers so they can verify the customers' claims.

Wal-Mart is battling against Target, which has a much bigger presence in Minnesota.

"I think Target's done a good job in particular, locally, with the 5 percent off card," said Dave Heupel, a portfolio manager for Thrivent Financial who follows retail trends. "Because once you factor that into a basket, in some instances now Target can even be cheaper than a Wal-Mart. So I think they've lost a little bit of their edge there."

Heupel says it's likely that Wal-Mart will open more stores in the metro area at some point. However, he says Target stores already occupy some of the best retail real estate in the Twin Cities.

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