Wal-Mart has a new sales gimmick called Secret In Store Specials in which select stores have sales on some popular items that consumers may be interested in for the coming holiday season. Last evening there was a Wal-Mart ad on TV which mentioned this secret sale of sorts, in which they advertised a Toshiba HD-DVD player for about $99. This morning I took a look at Wal-Marts website which sure enough had the in store sale and the Toshiba HD-DVD advertised as well and a Acer laptop for $348.

The sale started Friday AM at 8:00am, and not because of the specials, I had to pickup a few things at Wally-World. So I stopped in at the electronics isles and sure enough, there was the Acer and also the Toshiba. There was also a Sanyo 50″ Plasma TV for $998, another secret special as well.

I’m not telling Wal-Mart how to run their business since they seem to be doing very well. But this type of advertising seemed kind of odd to me. Secret Ads? Why? One would expect that if you advertised these specials people would flock into the store. By advertising I mean not only TV ads, but ads in the local rag as well. Most of us are familiar with the Sunday paper which is now about 10% news and 90% ads as the holiday approaches. A Wal-Mart ad with these specials would do well.
Comments welcome.

You can access the Secret In Store Special ads on the Wal-Mart site here.

You can even sign up for email alerts to the secret stuff as well.

[tags]wal mart, specials, in store, secret,[/tags]