A new management team was installed last year at Sam's Club, and Wal-Mart said it hoped that merchandise improvements would help it compete, but that earnings improvement would trail sales growth until later in the year.
And Canadian Tire — which, despite its name, sells a wide range of home improvement merchandise, sporting goods and household products — is also readjusting its product lines and marketing campaigns.
Massmart can be described as a combination of Wal-Mart and Home Depot, selling general merchandise and home improvement supplies in 14 sub-Saharan countries, though most of its operations are in South Africa.
"Our general merchandise business showed some improvement this quarter and the food business delivered another excellent performance," Bolland said.
The food operation has been "outstanding", but the general merchandise arm, despite "outstanding improvements" in its product range, has failed to meet financial expectations.
But there is "noticeable improvement" in select merchandise categories, such as jackets and its new Travelers collection, he said.
We are focused on improving our performance in General Merchandise and were pleased to see early signs of improvement.
Again, the running commentary of improvements and alterations and merchandise choices.
As Craig Menear, Home Depot's executive vice president for merchandising, put it: that is "a significant improvement compared to double-digit declines in previous quarters in 2009".
In 1927 a store commissioned him to study its merchandise, assess its attractiveness, and make drawings indicating improvements that the manufacturers could make.
General merchandise stores jumped ahead of other categories with a 1.2% improvement in monthly sales in January, and electronics and appliance retailers saw a 0.6% sales boost, but that did little for share prices Friday.
