Retailers Emulate Wal-Mart's Focus On Necessities

ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

NEW YORK (AP) — As Wal-Mart prepares for its annual shareholder meeting Friday, several large retailers are emulating the king of one-stop shopping and offering more necessities.

The stores are trying to keep registers humming, as Wal-Mart has, amid a recession that has pushed consumers to cut back spending to essentials — food, cleaning products and other consumables.

Target, known for cheap chic clothing and home accessories, is adding fresh food and relaunching an in-store line of home and personal-care products like sunscreen as up & up. Toys R Us Inc., which has long carried baby formula and diapers, is rolling out a new section in 260 of its almost 600 stores with more consumables, like paper towels, hand soap and detergent.

Family Dollar Stores Inc. has been rapidly expanding its once-limited food assortment and adding brands like Jif peanut butter from J.M. Smucker Co. and Triscuits from Kraft Inc.'s Nabisco brand as it strives to pull in more shoppers. It added 200 new food items in May, according to company spokesman Josh Braverman.

Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics, noted there was a good reason consumables weren't seen as a growth engine before: Profit margins are much thinner in food than apparel or home furnishings.