Strategic Challenges
The challenges Wal-Mart faces today are actually not much different from what they have been for the past several years. These following quotes come from an article in April 2003: “Even though it is the nation's largest apparel retailer with more than 12 percent of the market, Wal-Mart could be doing better in this category”; “It would like to be a fashion retailer and take on Target with good quality at a low price-point, but it hasn't convinced the American consumer it should be a destination for casual fashion” ; “Wal-Mart is... looking abroad for future sales growth” ; “Wal-Mart will need to struggle against the urge to centralize operations and eliminate decision making from the front lines where managers have face-to-face contact with customers” ; and “The only area in which Wal-Mart has not been able pummel its competition is against to Costco.”184 One of the company's challenges may be to stop proliferating nearly identical sets of challenges each year. Like the stock price, the challenges appear to be stuck in a holding pattern.
One key new challenge is the sluggishness of same-store sales relative to Wal-Mart's competitors. According to BusinessWeek, Wal-Mart faces “the diciest conundrum in retailing today… can it seduce...middle-income shoppers into stepping up their purchases in a major without alienating its way low-income legions in the process?
Another growing challenge is the difficulty of expanding in the domestic market, whether because of community opposition or geographic saturation
These and other strategic challenges are weighing on the minds of Wal-Mart's shareholders, especially on the two with the most responsibility for the company's fate.