I'm reading this article, and there are some interesting figures you might want to take a look at.

Albertson's is aiming for the number 1 spot for the country's biggest grocer, with Larry Johnston (ex-GE Appliances) leading a team of ex-Safeway, ex-Dell, and even ex-Walmart gurus.

Here are some figures:

- Walmart: $56 billion in revenue
- Albertson's: $36 billion in revenue

- Walmart: 3.3 cents profit per dollar ($1.8 billion profit)
- Albertson's: 1.4 cents profit per dollar ($485 million profit)
- Safeway: .78 cents profit per dollar
- Kroger: 2 cents profit per dollar

- Walmart worker makes an average of about $8.5 per hour
- Albertson's worker makes an average of about $13 per hour

- Walmart's grocery prices are 20% to 25% cheaper than Albertson's on average


Most retailers pull in sales data from their "point-of-sale system"—once known as cash registers—at the end of the day or twice a day. Wal-Mart pulls in sales from its electronic registers every 15 minutes. By 4 a.m. each morning, suppliers can see how their products sold the day before in every Wal-Mart store around the globe. According to Buzek, some suppliers are also allowed to see what other products were purchased by the consumer along with their own. The system is anchored by a Teradata warehouse that stores 200 trillion numbers and letters—the largest digital library of any company in the world.

And Wal-Mart never stands still. It is pressing ahead with what it believes will be its next big advantage, radio-frequency identification technology. All suppliers will be required to put radio tags containing electronic product codes on pallets and cases by the end of 2006.