in the 1960s and 1970s. Rather than compete with Sears, Sam Walton took on the "Harrys Hardwares" of America, winning fans town by town for several decades, gradually amassing scale. Waltons strategy sounds simple enough, but the key to his success over time was in execution-giving customers better value and bet- ter in-store experiences. When Wal-Mart entered a small town in the Midwest or rural South, it brought with it the electricity of a KISS concert. In contrast to the sleepy marketing and inexperienced man- agement that characterized so many of the small stores in these areas, Wal-Mart offered a consistent experience of clean stores, friendly personnel, and a wide array of hard goods and apparel at reasonable prices. Though Wal-Mart might not have been the most sleek, sophisti- cated retailer in America, it was the hottest, biggest retail deal to roll into these small towns. And though Wal-Mart didnt set off fireworks and employees didnt march around in strange makeup, Wal-Mart did generate as much buzz and fervor among its fans with its everyday     low prices (EDLP) strategy, offering consumers consistent, low prices every day, every time they shopped. Competitors usually employed high-low pricing, in which a particular item acts as a loss leader one day (to entice customers into the store to pay full price for everything else) and is full price the following day. Customers began seeing Wal- Mart as their friend in an environment where most other stores faced rising expenses and tried to pass them on to customers in the form of higher prices. Low prices and value remain an important brand proposition for Wal-Mart, which today uses the phrase "Always Low Prices" in its tagline. The ultimate goal, however, was to enter larger suburban mar- kets. First circling cities with a ring of stores in surrounding small towns, Wal-Mart would then gradually build newer locations closer and closer to the target city. Incrementally, Wal-Mart grew both in size and in operating efficiency, and by the early 1990s, its total sales were greater than those of the Goliaths who had previously ignored the little David from Bentonville and the markets they deemed too small. Wal-Mart continues to penetrate further into target markets, marching from conquered suburbs into larger cities. This type of ex- pansion is forcing a new twist-going from stores so large that some customers have requested benches so they can rest during shopping sprees to a smaller, neighborhood market concept with less space and stock-keeping units (SKUs) than in rural and urban locations. Perfecting the Wal-Mart Experience When Wal-Mart finally went public in 1970, most of Wall Street