St. Louis battleground

I traveled to St. Louis this past summer and did a profile of the city's wholesale and retail trade. In the Aug. 14 issue of The Packer, I covered the expansion of Wal-Mart into the region. Some wholesalers said that the city's consumers were loyal to the St. Louis chains.
I wrote then:

That's not the mindset of Mike O'Brien, vice president of produce for St. Louis-based Schnucks Markets Inc. since 2000 and a company employee for 34 years.
"I think some people will be (loyal), but we have Wal-Mart stores that aren't food stores, and they are all about price -- and people shop there," he said. "You say St. Louis is different, but if we believe that, we may be surprised."
"Our customers will be loyal to us if we are better than Wal-Mart," he said. "We need to be the best we can be."


The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today runs an update on Schnucks' latest move to lower the prices on 10,000 items in the metro area, part of its positioning to deal with the competitive pressure of Wal-Mart's Supercenter growth.


By the way, also in the Dispatch, check out the story about clutter. A quote:

The authors claim that if you're moderately disorganized — that is, you scatter things, mix things around, let things pile up, do things out of order, be inconsistent and wing it — you're probably more efficient, resilient, creative and in general more effective than someone who is highly organized.

Score.