Yesterday’s paper had an article about a new strategy Wal-Mart is rolling out. They’ve decide to do… wait for it… price cuts. Yeah, they’re cutting prices again (you’d think with all the price cuts that their prices should be zero about now, right?).

Here’s the interesting part of the article… They are only cutting prices on 20-30 key items – mostly groceries like cases of Coke. Twenty to thirty out of 100,000!?! And that’s gonna change people’s perception and drive traffic to new levels?

Either Wal-Mart thinks the general public is really gullible, or perception truly is reality.

I predict they’ll get a little bit of a traffic bump from people who only want the specials, but with such a small selection of price cuts, I also predict their competitors will have no problem matching them. (In fact, according to the article, Target and Kroger already had.)

But in the long run it won’t move the needle. But if it does…??

Yeah, that’s why I’m watching it.

-Phil

PS Apparently Wal-Mart has run out of ideas. Hopefully you haven’t.