Wal-Mart Can Learn from Kmart Fall (Commentary)

No one could have predicted five years ago that two corporate giants like Kmart Corp. and Enron Corp. would be bankrupt within months of each other.

But Enron, like so many failed dot-com companies, turned out to be a bunch of nothing. Billions and billions of dollars of nothing that thousands of investors were happy to invest in. A pure service sector industry totally dependent on people capital gone bad.

Kmart is another story.

It’s a classic case of a company that spent too much time dwelling on the competition, specifically Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville. Wal-Mart emerged as a superior business with a superior business plan and proceeded to dethrone Kmart as the discount retail king.

The situation only grew worse as upstart Target Corp. developed its own strategy for taking on both Kmart and Wal-Mart. During the past Christmas shopping season, Wal-Mart and Target reigned supreme.

A Kmart store was a bicycle ride from home when I was growing up in Pine Bluff, and Wal-Mart had not entered the market. It was a fun store to visit and was far superior to the long-standing yet aging Magic Mart and TG&Y stores.

As the years went by, I noticed how the store seemed run down and I wasn’t impressed with it anymore. The luster was gone and the new Wal-Mart across town was the cool new store that had everything you couldn’t find anywhere else.

It seems impossible to think Wal-Mart could ever meet Kmart’s fate, but our home-state operator might need a wakeup call. I’m happy to deliver it. Target is the discount store of choice in west Little Rock. Wider aisles, faster checkout lines, competitive prices and a better overall quality and selection of merchandise are making the difference. Those are my perceptions.

Long checkout lines had become too routine for me at Wal-Mart. The Sam’s Club next door is even worse, but I still sneak in there a few times a year.

(And Best Buy isn’t likely to get another dollar from me because of lines, but I digress.)

Wal-Mart was my destination for two baby-related items a few weeks ago, and I left unable to find either item. The department’s shelves of baby goods were in shambles.

I hope Wal-Mart can woo me back because top to bottom it does far more for the state than an out-of-state chain like Target. I don’t want people to think about Wal-Mart as yesterday’s news because I have too much respect for what Sam Walton and his associates built.

It seems to me that ultimately price is only one consideration and not the only consideration. Wal-Mart was built on everyday low prices but seems vulnerable in other areas that can make a difference long-term. The Kmart story is one to learn from and not gloat about. The challenge is on for Wal-Mart to remain the best in the business.

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Little Rock’s Walt Coleman turns out to be quite a prognosticator. Of course, that’s not a term Oakland Raiders fans are probably still using to describe him.

The weekday milk man turns National Football League referee on the weekends, and he’s one of the league’s best. Having been evaluated throughout the season, he ranked among the top seven officials to earn an invitation to call a playoff game — Oakland at New England.

Four days before the game, he spoke at the downtown Little Rock Rotary Club and opened the floor for questions.

What are the toughest calls to make? He said it was distinguishing between a forward pass and a fumble.

What did he think about instant replay? Well, he said, reviewing plays quickly on a small screen in front of thousands of hostile fans isn’t anything he enjoys. Furthermore, the television announcers aren’t always correct. But it’s a good system that results in reversals only a third of the time.

It turns out that he eerily described what he would face in the weekend game. He overruled his own fumble call after reviewing the tiny screen and called it an incomplete pass — a move that ultimately enabled New England to come from behind, win in overtime and advance to the conference championship game.

Oakland fans, the announcers and most fans who watched thought he erred. Coleman’s boss, the NFL’s head of officiating, said it was the correct call but could prompt a rule change.

Meantime, Coleman displayed an uncanny ability to predict his future and step into the national sports limelight. Now he’ll be best known for the infamous call instead of his Arkansas accent.

Jeff Hankins can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].