Wal Mart Stores Inc

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will trim a second line of women's apparel by the end of this year as it struggles with a growing inventory of ladies wear despite a drive to offer more fashion for price-conscious shoppers. The world's largest retailer said Monday that it would reduce by an undisclosed amount the number of U.S. stores selling a fashion line by designer Mark Eisen, which it unveiled last year as part of a drive to match successful low-price designer labels at rivals like Target Corp.

The world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said it will open as many as 275 new stores next year and expand or relocate as many as 110 others. During a Monday meeting with analysts at its Arkansas headquarters, Wal-Mart executives said plans for new markets include 40 Wal-Mart discount stores, 20 to 25 Sam's Club warehouse stores and 70 to 80 super-center stores, which include discount merchandise and groceries.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has decided to stop selling guns in about a third of its U.S. stores in what it calls a marketing decision based on lack of demand in some places, a company spokeswoman said Friday. The world's largest retailer decided last month to remove firearms from about 1,000 stores in favor of stocking other sporting goods, in line with a "Store of the Community" strategy for boosting sales by paying closer attention to local differences in demand.

The world's largest retailer is going on a diet. Beset by shrinking sales growth, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday that it planned to build fewer and smaller stores as it cuts costs to help shore up profit. For the second time this year, Wal-Mart is trimming plans for capital expenditures to about $15 billion from a June forecast of $15.5 billion in the face of continued decline in sales growth, Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe told investors and analysts at a conference.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday that profit grew 13% in its fiscal fourth quarter, but tepid sales and a cautious outlook for the current year damped investors' enthusiasm. Holiday-quarter sales for the world's largest retailer grew 8.6% to $89.3 billion, and for the year Wal-Mart posted a 9.5% increase to $312 billion. But much of the gains came from the company's aggressive expansion, which included a breakneck pace of new-store openings and acquisitions.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said Tuesday that it will open as many as 325 stores next year and move or enlarge 115, its largest expansion, even as other merchants suffer in the slowing economy. The number of new stores will be about 40 more than Wal-Mart had planned to open this year. About 310 will be in the U.S.; more than half of those will be warehouse stores with full grocery departments. Chief Executive H.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Wednesday that it will open 40 supercenters across California over the next four to six years, bringing these giant discount-plus-grocery stores to the state for the first time. The move is a direct challenge to grocery chains in California, as Wal-Mart Supercenters in other states have eroded the profits of small and large rivals. Although the Bentonville, Ark.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that it would slash proposed spending on new stores to boost its financial picture and appease Wall Street. Investors have been pressing the world's largest retailer to slow its expansion to improve earnings and boost a stock price that has been mostly stagnant over the last several years.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said Tuesday that it plans to expand both domestic and international operations. The company also said it won't open its revamped Web site until Jan. 1--a later-than-expected start date that will miss this year's holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart, which employs more than 1 million people, said it will open, remodel or move as many as 340 stores during its next fiscal year.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Monday that it had selected nine more areas in need of economic revitalization where it plans to open stores in the next two years, including two in California. Wal-Mart Vice Chairman John Menzer, who heads the company's U.S. operation, was traveling to Indianapolis and Pittsburgh to announce that the company was moving into neighborhoods in each of those cities where commerce had faltered.