Thursday, April 12, 2007

Would It Be Different If It Were Wal-Mart?

MSNBC has an article about how Target plans on adding 500 new stores over the next five years and plans ultimately to have somewhere between 2,500-3,000 US stores. I haven't heard much else about the announcement, which is itself interesting. Would it be different if Wal-Mart had just announced another store every 3.6 days for the next 5 years? Would there be protests? Would there be endless articles about how Wal-Mart destroys small towns?

If the answer to any of these or similar questions is yes, what does that mean? Does it mean that Target doesn't do those things? Are they an inherently better company or corporate citizen? Or, as I believe was posited in Good to Great (but I am very open to correction on that), is it simply that Target has been able to maintain a better image than Wal-Mart?

2 comments:

Joe said...

I think Target does maintain a better image than Wal-Mart. And I think it is interesting that despite its better public image, Target still doesn't come close to producing revenues and profits in line with Wal-Mart. Pretty obvious what matters most to most consumers.

Maarek said...

Very good point, Joe. I wonder if anyone can find the per store revenue of Target and WalMart?

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