Shabby chic: how can Wal-Mart attract shoppers from one of the state's wealthiest suburbs? With sushi bars, high-end electronics, and the illusion of elegance.(Letter From Plano)

Publication: Texas Monthly

Publication Date: 01-JUN-06

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COPYRIGHT 2006 Texas Monthly, Inc.

Erase any doubt that you are being followed. Walk through the new Wal-Mart Supercenter in Plano, and eager, clean-cut men stare at you as if you were exotic prey. Will you inquire about the $2,984 one-carat diamond ring in the jewelry department? Will you linger over the $298 treadmill? Or will you just grab the two-for-$5 Slow Cooker Helper and dash for the checkout? The men in suits may ask if you are enjoying your "shopping experience." But regardless of your answer, a sophisticated tracking system will report your purchases to Wal-Mart's Arkansas headquarters, where some poor schlub will analyze the data and wonder where on earth the legacy of penny-pinching Sam Walton is headed. [paragraph] This atypical Wal-Mart--which, nonetheless, has most of the same items as its regular stores--opened on March 22 on the far west side of town, shoehorned next to Costco and Home Depot and not far from Target. The store is unique; it's a one-of-a-kind retail "laboratory" designed to lure the upper crust, and there's no upper crust like Plano's. Here in the Dallas uber-suburb, where shoppers at one mall are greeted by doormen, the 223,000-square-foot Wal-Mart has been built out of light-brown brick to match the color of the surrounding maze of gigantic homes that begin at around $300,000.

Why rich folks, you ask?

Maybe you didn't hear about the slump. Wal-Mart is no longer the country's largest company, thanks in part to Exxon Mobil's booming sales. But something else is giving Wal-Mart a migraine. It could be the 20 percent stock drop over the past two years. Or last November's report of the smallest quarterly profit increase in four years. Or community opposition to stores in urban markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, which rallied a war room of experts, including Robert McAdam, a former political...

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