Wal-mart is the retailer wearing the pants.  When they talk, their grocery suppliers have no choice but to listen.

Wal-Mart wants to keep their prices down while other retailers selling groceries are raising prices.  And they are doing just that.  Why is Wal-Mart so smart?

With gas, grain, and dairy prices exploding, you'd think the biggest seller of corn flakes and Cocoa Puffs would be getting hit by rising food costs. But Wal-Mart has temporarily rolled back prices on hundreds of food items by as much as 30% this year. How? By pressuring vendors to take costs out of the supply chain.

"When our grocery suppliers bring price increases, we don't just accept them," says Pamela Kohn, Wal-Mart's general merchandise manager for perishables. To be sure, Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) isn't the only retailer working to cut fat from the food chain, but as the largest grocer - Wal-Mart's food and consumables revenue is nearly $100 billion - it has a disproportionate amount of leverage.

Here's how the retailer is throwing its weight around.

Shrink the goods. Ever wonder why that cereal box is only two-thirds full? Foodmakers love big boxes because they serve as billboards on store shelves. Wal-Mart has been working to change that by promising suppliers that their shelf space won't shrink even if their boxes do. As a result, some of its vendors have reengineered their packaging. General Mills' (GIS, Fortune 500) Hamburger Helper is now made with denser pasta shapes, allowing the same amount of food to fit into a 20% smaller box at the same price. The change has saved 890,000 pounds of paper fiber and eliminated 500 trucks from the road, giving General Mills a cushion to absorb some of the rising costs.

Read more in CNN.Money Fortune Magazine

Wal-Mart puts the squeeze on food costs  í  here





 

If you haven't been in the actual store, I'm sure you've walked past one at either Brookfield Square or Mayfair.

They are dark, and shuttered.

They smell strongly of cologne...it pours out of the entryway.

Handsome young people, usually men, are standing inside near the doors...sales clerks.

I'm talking about Abercrombie & Fitch

The chain has been in past news before regarding their provocative ads and for charges of racist hiring policies.

They are in the news again. 

They have a new ad campaign of photos out where one photo includes three twenty-something guys in a field, shirtless, their backs to us, all appearing to be pulling up their jeans as they walk away.  One of them has some of his buttocks showing as he is pulling them up.

Walking behind them is the slight figure of a female, who is shadowed.

In Virginia Beach, police seized this mural and charged the manager with obscenity charges.

Children are allowed to enter the store and these photos are not proper, is what's been said.


Read the article


Virginia Beach Police Seize Photos From Abercrombie Store  Ã here

Has the Abercrombie & Fitch gone to far in their ads?

Did the police go to far?

What do you think?