As my colleague Doug McIntyre noted yesterday, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has furnished the world with details on how it is improving health insurance benefits for its million-plus U.S. employees. After years of of tussling with unions, the media, employees and just about anyone else about how it so "shabbily" treats employees when it comes to benefits, it wants the world to know what it's up to.

Now, Doug's right about this benefit increase costing Wal-Mart -- it will. In fact, it could not have come at a worse time, as Wal-Mart seems lost and misguided even as it has become the world's largest retailer by revenue. Sales in the U.S. are flat and the company's image (like it has been in the last year) is swirling in the toilet. So, for Wal-Mart shareholders, capital expense increases are probably not what needs to show up on the company's books right now.

On the other hand, marketing rules the world (not product quality), so Wal-Mart's attempt to give its employees over 50 ways to customize medical coverage along with free spousal coverage and $4 generic drug copays will probably increase its image with the Bentonville bashers out there. I've not seen every detail yet, but such expansive health care options are really hard to find, even at many Fortune 500 companies.

Will Wal-Mart see an improved public image due to the benefit changes? It should, as it at least deserves recognition if not minor applause here. Whether that image brush-up changes into revenue gains is anyone's guess. But, if you've left Wal-Mart for greener shopping pastures due to the way employees are treated, will this move get you back in the door any time soon? If so, then mission accomplished for Wal-Mart.

As retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Saks Inc. (NYSE: SKS) start to unveil their August results, it is obvious that back-to-school shopping helped give a needed boost to sales figures after a rather sluggish July. Several of the nation's largest retailers posted strong August numbers this morning.

But not everyone is convinced that this is a sign of things to come. Many analysts are going to overlook August's results as a mere consequence of a back-to-school shopping spree, and will not continue in the months ahead.

A couple of notable retailers (from Melly Alazraki's morning report):

• Wal-Mart reported a 3.1% increase in August same-store sales, or 3% including the impact of fuel. Analysts, on average, had expected same-store sales to rise 1.5%. WMT shares are up 2.7% in premarket trading.
• Saks reported an 18.2% increase in same-store sales, beating the 9.2% analysts had expected.

Overall, estimates collected by Thomson Financial pegged August same-store sales growth at 2.5%. This is lower than the 3.3% gain during August of last year. If the actual rise does wind up being 2.5%, this will be inline with estimates for the month from the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas is getting a new neighbor. The consulting and suggestion group Environmental Defense will set up an office directly across the street from the retailer's headquarters in order to assist the company with planning and executing environmental initiatives.

Is this merely a PR play, or is it a genuine effort by the world's largest retailer to step up its efforts to reduce the negative impact it has on the world's environment? You can make that call, but I do like a quote by an executive vice president with Environmental Defense: "Decisions at Wal-Mart move quickly, with huge global environmental repercussions." This is absolutely true. Perhaps having daily, face-to-face contact with the company at its decision-making headquarters will provide needed guidance for Wal-Mart's far-reaching decisions that affect the environment -- from stores to warehouses to vendors?

Issues that Environmental Defense will advise Wal-Mart on, at least initially, will include such hot-potato topics as climate change, alternative fuels, grocery item sustainability and sustainable packaging methodologies.

Is Wal-Mart really trying to make an impact on the health of the world here? It's already raised fuel economy in its truck fleet, cut energy use in stores and made packaging more efficient on hundreds of its products. With the retailer's huge push into compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) as well, perhaps the company really means business when it comes to protecting the environment.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is currently getting some heat for apparently attempting to court customers of Mexican origin into stores to prop up its money-wiring service. But, don't tell that to LATINA Style Magazine, which just named the world's largest retailer to the "50 Best Companies for Latinas."

This is the second year in a row that Wal-Mart has been selected to this list, and it signifies that is providing a solid commitment to hiring female workers of Hispanic origin. After surveying 800 companies nationwide, the retailer was selected to be placed among the very best in that group. Placement encompassed the gamut of employment practices for Hispanic women, from recruitment and procurement policies, employee benefits and advancement opportunities.

Wal-Mart is the largest private employer of Hispanics in the nation, with more than 154,000 employees of Hispanic origin. Add that to the fact that the 14-member company board includes two Hispanic citizens and it's pretty easy to see that Wal-Mart is providing diversity among its workforce, even at the corporate board level.

Also connected with this story was the fact that the retailer does business with thousands of Hispanic-owned businesses, which is not that uncommon in the retail product industry. Although the retailer purchased more than $1.4 billion of products and services from Hispanic-owned businesses last year, that's pretty much a drop in the bucket of its overall procurement dollars. But, it's not bad.

Welcome to the 25th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

This past week, I discussed Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) unorthodox pricing scheme. Prices ending in $x.87 and $x.76 are common in Wal-Mart stores. In addition, the world's largest retailer rarely has "sales" in the general retail sense, opting instead for "everyday low prices" and "rollbacks" as its primary means of indicating to shoppers that Wal-Mart does indeed have "Always Low Prices."

Is that pricing strategy enough to keep the retailer growing every single year? Hard to say -- but a recent admission by the retailer that it is now selling non-protected digital music files for $0.94 is actually quite profound and may end up giving Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes music store a run for its money, iPod ecosystem or not. Read on.

If one were to look at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) today, two things would become quite obvious. First, the flagging stock price since 2002, and second, the negative press the retailer has been receiving regarding its inability to grow along with the competition. Wal-Mart, though, is growing, and recent annual results will attest to this. Although it's much more difficult to grow a $350 billion company than a $20 billion one, the retailer, as a whole, has done well (not great) in growing its business, despite having a few years with some of the worst metrics in its history. However, some divisions are carrying that growth now, while others are slowing. Case in point, Wal-Mart's U.S. store locations, the backbone of the entire company.

What can be done to "fix" this problem? Wal-Mart's recent Q2 conference call was a little messy. H. Lee Scott, usually one to sound positive regardless of the situation, was a little downtrodden while discussing the flagging fortunes of a company that defined the term "discount retail" in America. When a solution is finally put in place, though, be sure that the people who count most -- store managers -- will have added what they can to the mix. Who else is closer to the customer than these folks? Certainly not executives from Bentonville.

When BusinessWeek talked to a dozen Wal-Mart managers to get their take on what should happen to revive the lumbering giant, some interesting concepts came up that are far removed from board rooms, PowerPoint presentations and executive handshakes. Is there "only one boss -- the customer," as Sam Walton used to say? According to one manager, that is 100% correct. Store managers are concerned about the relentless pursuit of cost cutting which is taking a toll on the company as a whole. Or they suggest to add as a variable to computer prediction models from headquarters to make merchandising decisions the human 'gut instinct.' Will Wal-Mart's brass listen? To revive the company, maybe it should listen since it seems to be running out of ideas.

Welcome to the 24th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

This past week, I discussed how Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has an ongoing problem with the labor relations in its Mexican stores. Mexican law does not require that companies actually pay workers between the ages of 14 and 16 (they work on tips alone), and with Wal-Mart Mexico doing quite well right now (in its global market operations), Mexican authorities are a litle miffed at the retailer. A retailer, I might add, that is not breaking a single law.

Today, I'd like to look at the retail pricing strategy Wal-Mart currently has in place. I'm not talking "always low prices," but the technical details of why Wal-Mart rarely has "sales" and likes to end prices in oddball amounts like "$0.87" and so forth. Is it time for in-store ads like "25% off" and the like to try and revive sales being taken by the smaller competition? Never hurts to try.

Would it not be comforting to see your local doctor set up an office in a local Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) location? Instead of seeing simple health clinics with limited services, visiting a local Wal-Mart to have full-service medical services (outside of hospital services) seems like a great idea to many, including me. With health clinics showing up in discount retailers these days and taking business away from standalone doctor's offices and medical complexes, some doctors in Baltimore are fighting back -- by entering themselves into those same retailers. Hey, if you can't beat them, join them.

In Maryland, four clinics inside Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) stores use licensed physicians as medical directors so that these doctors can gain relationships and insight into future off-site patients. In other words, retail is partnering with the medical community to allow shoppers access to actual doctors so when procedures above and beyond in-store clinics are needed, that shopper (patient) already has an established relationship with that doctor, but at his normal office.

This is a great turn and my guess is that this 'experiment' in Baltimore will filter out to more communities and retail locations in the U.S. in the next few years. It's kind of impossible to have full-service medical facilities inside retail locations, but having full medical expertise inside retailer is nothing but good for partner doctors and retailers as well. Having instant (as in, after hours) access to full medical expertise outside of the doctor's office would really bolster shopper relationships with retailers way stronger than simple health clinics with limited services. Wal-Mart and Target both should embrace this strategy fully, and quickly.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) clothing and apparel business is not in complete shambles yet, but by some indications, it's not that far off from that status. When the top apparel executive for the world's largest retailer resigned less than a month ago, it was most likely because Wal-Mart's strategy to break through into becoming mid-flight clothing retailer fell flat on its face. It's quite a thing to think Wal-Mart would try to compete with clothing lines from Dillard's or even discounter-in-hiding Kohl's. Ever ventured into a Kohl's store? The atmosphere is fantastic (upscale all the way), and many of the clothing prices are as deeply discounted as Wal-Mart. Guess what? Customers know this.

In another apparel executive departure just released this week, Angela Spindler, the global managing director of Wal-Mart's George apparel line has now left the sinking ship. This time, it was an exec at the retailer's Asda chain in Britain, which is apparently not selling much in terms of higher-end clothing at Asda stores as well. The name "George" just is not resonating with customers anywhere from where I sit.

Problem? Well, where in the world is the brand "George" marketed? If customers don't see the name and associate some kind of high-end image to it, it's just a name. And, a bad-selling one at that. Although the exec left Asda "to spend more time with her family," this was a push out the door from all indications. The "George" line in Asda stores was just launched in 2006 and has already been trimmed back, and now its future may be shaky (although the brand will live). Hint to Wal-Mart: make sure your customers know what "George" embodies and get it positioned away from $0.99 flip flops if possible. Customers do notice.

Not only has Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT)'s Japanese-based Seiyu Ltd. unit had a loss for the first half of 2007, but now the subsidiary looks to take a loss for the entire year, according to company. Seiyu said this week that it is planning on taking a full-year loss for calendar 2007, which would give it six straight years in a row without a penny of profit.

Questions immediately come to mind: Will Wal-Mart get out of Japan and sell Seiyu completely to cut its losses? After all, it exited Germany and South Korea in 2006 after many bad financial performances in those countries. It cut its losses there and escaped from the doldrums of loss -- why not in Japan? Hard to tell at this point, but the world's largest retailer did not respond to speculation that it would exit the Japanese market.

But what do you think if you're a Wal-Mart shareholder? The company has poured more than $1 billion into Seiyu (which has 393 stores in Japan), with not much to show for it except occasional upticks in sales that make for little else besides decent headlines.

Wal-Mart has found good look recently in China with the Trust-Mart partnership and in India with partner Bharti, but it's just not cutting the mustard in Japan. Will Wal-Mart continuing propping its Japanese unit up with more money, hoping for some kind of profit on the horizon? Your guess is as good as mine. Six years is a long, long time in the retail biz.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will be reporting results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2008 tomorrow morning before the market opens in a fashion that most likely will be list quarters past for years: a news release with some official comments but no live conference call or webcast. I hope this changes tomorrow morning, but I'm not counting on it. If it happens, stay tuned to BloggingStocks for a liveblog of the news coverage tomorrow morning bright and early. Wal-Mart hasn't given an official time for when the release will be issued, but I'd expect at about 8am EST or earlier.

Estimates for the quarter are for earnings of 77 cents and $92.75 billion in revenues, according to Thomson Financial. Wal-Mart continues to have any thunder stolen by smaller competitor Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), which regularly posts better monthly same-store sales numbers. Proof? July numbers showed a 5.9% gain for Target in same-store sales while Wal-Mart poked along at 1.9%.

One thing that I have noticed in many newer and recently remodeled Wal-Mart Supercenters recently has been how agressively the retailer has been targeting the home electronics market. This fact was noted by 24/7 Wall St. and myself many times in recent months, and the proof is now viewable across Wal-Mart stores in the U.S. Flat-panel TVs seem to be the centerpiece of Wal-Mart's electronics strategy here, and we'll see if that product segment is discussed in the retailer's Q2 results tomorrow. For now (and for the last five years), Wal-Mart shares are languishing in mediocrity, and even a stellar quarter tomorrow probably will not change that.

Welcome to the 22nd installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Last week I discussed how Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) interacts with smaller suppliers and vendors. The pricing and supply demands of the world's largest retailer sometimes are a little too much to bear for many smaller suppliers, no matter how much business each of them stands to gain from a new retail relationship with Wal-Mart.

It's a Catch-22: give the retailer much of your business and you relinquish quite a bit of control over the way you run your business, from cost-sensitive manufacturing locations to yearly price reduction requests that are hard to meet. Don't give the retailer your business and watch the competition swallow you whole in many cases. Many innovative suppliers find a solution to that, and those are truly forward-thinking companies. In the case of shifting manufacturing locations to countries such as China, what are the pitfalls of a strategy like that? Many, but the huge quest for ever-lower prices by Wal-Mart's core customer won't bring on changes any time soon. Well, maybe.

I wrote on Dell Inc.'s (NASDAQ: DELL) position as computer maker in search of a new image a few days ago, as its brand nameplate with the desktop PC segment is being left behind by other fast-moving competitors. With the "back to school" marketing season set to ramp into full mode (or wait, it's already there!), retailers and computer hardware makers are in advertising mode galore. Everyone is seeking to court parents buying PCs for all those millions of kids. Count Wal-Mart in, as the retailer is set to launch an ultra-cheap desktop PC soon, hopefully catching this in-progress buying wave.

Is the desktop PC really dead, then? That depends on how you look at the PC breakdown by age and use, I think. Kids under 15 still living at home are generally just fine (well, most anyway) with a desktop PC. As kids reach the junior and senior years of high school, portable laptops become all-important for computing use. Of course, most college students these days would not be seen near a desktop PC unless it was in a university computer lab.

Although Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) states that it does not want to be known as just a "low price leader," the retailing giant is going for the low-price jugular by offering a sub-$300 desktop PC this shopping season. I'm confused on the timing though, as the unit needs to be on store shelves now or be relegated to the boring fall "normal" shopping season instead of the red-hot "back to school" shopping season.

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths some retailers go to in trying to quell the masses. For example, some stores don't allow certain peddlers and not-for-profit groups to sell wares near store entrances and exits for fear of irking some "anti-this, anti-that" crowd. We see this every year with the Salvation Army and other groups that seem to have support from some retailers but not from others. You can't ever please everybody, but some sure try.

In what is sure to be a hotly contested move from some groups in some corner of the country, it appears that Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) will begin selling a line of religious toys soon. Starting with about 420 stores, the Jesus and Samson action figures will be sold alongside Spiderman 3 garb and other toys. Wal-Mart has decided to set up only about a sixth of its stores with the new religious toys, but it could expand to all 3,300 stores in the U.S.

A Wal-Mart spokesperson said that stores selling the most Bibles will carry the new religious action figure toy lineup. Wal-Mart's strategy here is to sell these to parents who would rather have their children play with faith-based toys instead of the normal superhero/movie action figures. Is Wal-Mart moving into dangerous territory here? Not at all -- serving what customers are likely to buy is the bread-n-butter of its business. But still, there are sure to be detractors to this product launch. Start lining them up now.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) said today that its June 2007 same-store sales results rose about 2.4% from the year-ago period, which blew past the analyst consensus estimate of 0.8%. Wal-Mart's numbers did not even include its fuel sales at its Supercenter locations, so the retailer had a stellar June, all things considered. What caused the upside surprise?

Gas prices again took a turn for the worse as they climbed up the $3.00/gallon scale during late June amid a tough retail environment in every way. Yet, for a $344 billion retailer, Wal-Mart managed to increase sales to a large degree. For the five weeks ending July 6, its sales were up to $35.81 billion from $32.74 billion a year ago, and even Wal-Mart store sales alone posted a 7.1% rise to $22.94 billion. Wal-Mart explained the large lifts by strong grocery sales, which outpaced almost all categories except electronics. Home and apparel sales, though, remained stagnant as they have been all year.

Wal-Mart specifically noted that flat-panel televisions, video game hardware, MP3 players and computers had "significant" year-over-year sales gains. Is the reinvention of the electronics departments inside all those Wal-Mart stores working? This has been a merchandising area targeted by Wal-Mart in the last few quarters as a way to pump up sales of higher-margin goods, and from the looks of June results, it may be working. Wal-Mart remained bullish on its 2007 fiscal guidance and said it would not lower previous expectations.