{"id":19944,"date":"2011-05-19T03:43:34","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T11:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/?p=19944"},"modified":"2011-05-19T08:40:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T16:40:51","slug":"not-buying-it-wal-mart-just-cant-get-people-into-their-clothes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/style\/fashion\/not-buying-it-wal-mart-just-cant-get-people-into-their-clothes","title":{"rendered":"Not Buying It: Wal-Mart Just Can’t Get People Into Their Clothes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart just reported increased quarterly profits and overall sales, led by low food prices. While that’s been enough to keep business growing, sales in other areas have suffered: apparel is one of particular concern for executives.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re simply not converting enough of our grocery customers to shop apparel,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said William S. Simon, the president and chief executive of Wal-Mart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s United States division, in a conference call with investors.<\/p>\n

After flirting with fashion-forward items, Wal-Mart decided to focus on basic clothes, but company executives said they did not perform well.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve stumbled with over the last several quarters and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not happy with,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Charles M. Holley Jr., the chief financial officer, said in a conference call with reporters. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It does start with basics, and for us to be able to sell anything that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fashionable at all, we really have to get basics down first.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

While \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we had a fairly good quarter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with items like T-shirts and underwear, he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still not executing is in the kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s business.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – {New York Times<\/a>}<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Children’s apparel is a different matter, but when it comes to women’s clothing part of the problem could be selection, but we’d put a larger part of the blame on Wal-Mart’s image.<\/p>\n

In March, a number of bloggers picked up on PennyChic<\/a>, a site by LA blogger Shauna Miller. Using herself and her friends as models, Miller post photos of outfits exclusively from Wal-Mart. In an interview with\u00c2\u00a0Refinery29<\/a> Miller says “Even my city-dwelling friends who hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stepped foot in Wal-Mart before PennyChic go on Wal-Mart shopping binges online, because of the outfits they see on the site. I go to parties all the time and people are like \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Wal-Mart chic\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6look at my shirt!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m exposing Wal-Mart to a new customer, which is very cool.”<\/p>\n

Those commenting on the article weren’t as optimistic, referencing the company’s gender discrimination lawsuit and other ethical reasons for not thinking of going Wal-Mart chic.<\/p>\n

There’s a marked difference in tone when Target or H&M releases a new designer collaboration or special collection. While Miller’s blog brought up questions over everything from labor practices to negative treatment of suppliers, you’d be hard pressed to find similar concerns on blog posts including fashion items from Target or H&M.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Is one of these dresses more socially acceptable than the others?<\/p><\/div>\n

In this case, the difference isn’t exclusively about price – Target, Forever21 and Wal-Mart all currently offer a black dress for $18. It’s almost impossible to track an individual item back to the factory where it was made, but if we reason that the low prices are a result of less than ideal working conditions and pressure on suppliers, wouldn’t it be fair to assume that the conditions in the factories that produce clothing for Target or Forever21 are about the same as they are in the factories that produce Wal-Mart’s clothes?<\/p>\n

Yet somehow those questions rarely – if ever – arise when the item being promoted is from any other low cost or fast fashion retailer. While Wal-Mart still doesn’t have the most compelling or cohesive style offering, their much larger challenge is convincing shoppers that their purchase is supporting a company with a culture that’s not any worse than any of the other’s who’ve kept cheap chic in style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wal-Mart just reported increased quarterly profits and overall sales, led by low food prices. While that’s been enough to keep business growing, sales in other areas have suffered: apparel is one of particular concern for executives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19944"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19948,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944\/revisions\/19948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}