When a large retailer like Walmart wants to check out the competition, the job of spy usually falls to someone several rungs below company CEO. But when Walmart CEO Mike Duke wants to know what the competition is up to, he simply drives to his neighborhood Target, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Just two years ago, Minneapolis-based Target opened a store in Rogers, Arkansas: a scant five miles from Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville. That makes it easy for Walmart executives to keep tabs on their top competitor.
The Target store is run by manager Chuck Simmons, who has caught Duke “spying” in his store more than once. But while Walmart and Target are fierce competitors, Simmons and Duke are cordial. Simmons said he and Duke have walked the Target store together and says Duke is a “fantastic guy.”
3 comments:
This is very common and not just Walmart. I know someone who runs the Targets in my area. The spying goes both ways and not just these stores. I've seen a Safeway employee many times in Target logging Target's prices. But still Safeway is a lot more expensive so I'm not sure what they are doing with that information.
When I worked for a drug store in my college years, I was paid to go to all the competition and be a "shopper"
Sometimes they would ask what you were doing but they always let you keep doing it.
I actually think the corporate spying is a good thing. The spies find out what people want most, what sells best, and at what price. The consumer can benefit from that,
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