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Wal-Mart Quietly Launches Buyer Blog

by Tim Stevens on March 4, 2008 at 09:20 AM

Wal-Mart Quietly Launches Buyer Blog

Corporate buyers are the generally unknown people who have a huge impact on what you buy. They're the ones who decide which products wind up on store shelves and which ones find themselves sold at heavy discount on woot.com. Buyers don't tend to talk too much about what they think about the products they purchase, at least not in public, and, as a company, Wal-Mart would prefer to give presentations on cost-cutting shipping methods than divulge just how it goes about selecting which products to stock. Curious, then, that it would create a blog where its buyers are ostensibly allowed and encouraged to rant or rave about, well, just about everything. And yet, that's just what Wal-Mart has done.

The blog, called Check Out, has a multiple entries covering a number of products. A (very) few of the posts are vaguely critical about products that Wal-Mart or its membership-only warehouse spin-off Sam's Club sell, but a quick scan through the pages of the blog reveals that the overwhelming majority are exactly what you'd expect from a blog run by Wal-Mart and filled with posts from Wal-Mart employees. There are posts stating that "Wal-Mart has become the destination for all things Hannah" (speaking of course about Hannah Montana), a post raving about the "just too cool!" Apple TV (available at Sam's Club), and one talking about the current iteration of the Elmo craze and which other toys are equally hot right now.

So, is this an unbiased collection of rants and raves from unfiltered employees or just another marketing tool? We wouldn't go so far as to say the whole thing exists only as a thinly veiled sales scheme for the retailer, but it sure reads like one. Regardless, it's getting a somewhat better reception than their attempt at Facebook marketing.

From NY Times

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Tags: blogging, Retail, Wal-Mart

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