Marketing and all things related

Now you might think that Wal-Mart already has a disproportionate share of the nation’s wallets, and you would be wrong, naturally. Wal-Mart wants more wallet real estate. So the retail monolith just applied to the FDIC for status as a loan company. If approved, the status would allow Wal-Mart to issue their own credit card and process their own electronic payments. Processing these payments internally would save Wal-Mart a fraction of a cent on every transaction, resulting in millions of dollars of savings for their monstrous sales volume. To be fair, Wal-Mart is the most successful retail merchant in the history of the free and non-communist world because of their persistent cost controls. (Also, competitor Target stores has FDIC loan company status.)  However, cost-savings cannot be Wal-Mart’s only motive. A Wal-Mart credit card would open the door to affinity programs and more detailed data mining. Eventually, you will owe your soul to the company store. Brand Week have more. Marketing Blurb says watch your wallet.