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Non-Tech : Wal-Mart
WMT 102.48-0.1%Nov 14 3:59 PM EST
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To: Jack L. Dlugach who wrote (108)7/16/1997 11:58:00 AM
From: Ken Turetzky   of 1166
 
TEXAS JOURNAL
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Next, They'll Ask Shoppers
To Sweep the Lots as Well
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By Louise Lee

The Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones

The ever penny-pinching Wal-Mart is asking customers to pitch in.

The discounter's outlet in Irving has posted signs on its doors asking
customers to bring in a shopping cart from the parking lot. For their trouble, shoppers can enter a weekly drawing for a $10 gift certificate. "It's really to create excitement," says Daniele Lehri, the store's assistant manager, who estimates 50 to 100 shoppers a week participate in the program.

And every little bit helps. "There's fewer carts out there to do damage to customers' cars," she says, "and the parking lot doesn't look like a mess."

Ms. Lehri holds the drawing each Monday morning and announces the winner's name over the store loudspeaker. She says the store hasn't reduced the number of workers assigned to collect carts from the parking lot. "A hundred shopping carts a week isn't enough to do that," she says.

Shopping carts have in fact played a part in marketing ploys at other Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlets. Some stores have tried shopping-cart "bingo," in which the customer using a cart marked with a particular number wins a gift certificate. Other stores give kids miniature carts for their "shopper-in-training" campaign.

Wal-Mart insists it isn't depending on customers to help maintain the parking lot. "It's more about getting the customer involved," says a spokeswoman at Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. But if an enthusiastic customer brought in 10 carts in the same shopping trip, "we'd probably offer him a job," she says.
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