Wal-Mart Sells 500,000 American Flags

On Sept. 11, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. saw sales of gasoline cans jump by 900 percent and television antennas by 400 percent at its 2,600 stores across the United States.

It was the day terrorists crashed jetliners into The World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C.

Guns were also a hot selling item that day, with sales increasing by 70 percent compared with a year ago. Ammunition sales increased by 140 percent.

Tom Williams, a spokesman for Bentonville-based Wal-Mart, said sales for most items pretty much got back to normal the day after the attack, but sales of American flags increased.

Wal-Mart sold 116,000 American flags on Sept. 11 (compared with 6,400 on Sept. 11, 2000), 200,500 on Sept. 12 and 135,000 on Sept. 13.

“By that time, stores were running out of them,” he said.

Total sales on Sept. 11 were about 10 percent less than they were for that date a year ago because of the “CNN effect,” Williams said. The theory is, customers were “pantry loading” in the morning, then rushed home to watch the news. The sales pattern was similar to what occurs when a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, is expected, he said.

On Sept. 12, sales were pretty much the same as they were on that date in 2000. By Sept. 13, sales were back on track at 4 to 6 percent above the previous year’s figure, Williams said. Wal-Mart’s sales have been pretty much back to normal since then.

Other items that sold well the day of the attack were batteries, bottled water, matches, fabrics and television sets.

Williams said Wal-Mart doesn’t normally reveal sales figures for particular items, but the world’s largest retailer had already agreed to provide that information to The Wall Street Journal for a day-in-the-life of America series the newspaper planned to do about that week. So Wal-Mart made the information available to other news outlets as well. In addition to news organizations, Williams said, Wal-Mart had had requests for the statistics from “some fairly high places.”

Wal-Mart’s sales are instantly tabulated by the scanners at its check-out stands and analyzed by a computer at the corporation’s headquarters in Bentonville. Wal-Mart has 100 million customers per week in the United States.

Wal-Mart also pledged $2 million for national relief efforts following the terrorist attacks. The amount includes an immediate $1 million to the American Red Cross and a pledge to provide at least an additional $1 million to other agencies providing relief efforts for victims and their families.

Wal-Mart also sent seven trucks with trailers full of supplies to the Salvation Army in New York City. The shipment included two truckloads of water. Another truck was full of flashlights, ventilator masks and large adjustable wrenches. The others were loaded with medical supplies, clothing, blankets and other items.