Recently, I heard a news report, which claimed Walmart had lost market share to its competitors over the past few quarters.  This statement, alone, did not seem “out of the ordinary” or odd considering the economic climate we’ve experienced over the past two years or so.

I did, however, find the reason for this decline somewhat interesting.  As it turns out, Walmart did what a lot of businesses sometimes do when looking to grow.  They focus on a new market instead of re-focusing their efforts on retaining or attracting more of their core customers.

At some point, during the economic slowdown, Walmart changed their strategy in an effort to attract middle–class families.  This seemed to work – for awhile.  However, for some reason, their core customer (lower income families) started to shop elsewhere.

Then, as the economy began to pick up steam, middle-class families who shopped at Walmart during the slowdown went back to their old shopping habits and dropped the big-box store from their weekly shopping trips.

This is a situation many businesses face on a regular basis, including Fruition Interactive.   When you try to appeal to everybody you end up reaching no one.  Forgetting who your best or core clients and customers are can be disastrous, as we’ve seen here with the Walmart example.

Onward.

photo credit : ogimogi