Walmart's new store off Walden Avenue in Buffalo opened this month after a community relations situation that should have been resolved months earlier. The local transit authority had asked Walmart for six months to provide a bus drop-off location inside the store's parking area. A young woman had been killed two decades earlier crossing the same thoroughfare. The episode is small but instructive.
Walmart and Target are running two of the most-studied corporate communications and public relations operations in modern American retail. Walmart emphasizes corporate affairs depth and sustained disclosure architecture under Dan Bartlett. Target emphasizes consumer brand work and cultural relevance. Both companies are working through substantial strategic transitions as 2015 closes.
Costco, Walmart, Amazon, Target, Aldi, Trader Joe's, TJX, Whole Foods, Kroger, Best Buy. The 2026 retail value proposition environment — pricing, selection, experience, convenience, trust.
No American company has done more, over a sustained period, to rebuild its reputation at scale than Walmart. The 2005 Lee Scott reset, the sustained sustainability commitments, the operational benefits, the post-Katrina response, and the corporate affairs discipline under Leslie Dach. The Mike Duke succession this year continues the broader trajectory.
Avery Dennison is filed mentally as office supplies. The reality is an $8.7B Fortune 500 technology company powering RFID and supply-chain visibility for Walmart, Inditex, Nike, and most of the global apparel category. The communications gap and what fixes it.
Walmart entered the casket business this month — quietly, online only, with twenty caskets priced between $999 and $3,200, roughly a third of comparable funeral home pricing. The FTC Funeral Rule of 1984 made it legal. Costco entered in 2004. Walmart's October launch is the larger, louder, more sustained challenge. What the broader funeral services category should be watching.