David Strasser

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- David Strasser, analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott looks at Best Buy's strategy of a store-within-a-store for individual companies and products and how it is changing the landscape of its retail stores. He speaks on Bloomberg...

David Strasser, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, looks at Best Buy's strategy of a store-within-a-store for individual companies and products and how it's changing the landscape of its retail stores. Strasser speaks on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg Surveillance."

Wal-Mart certainly has taken a step back from its heritage with the revelation that it's removing greeters from the graveyard shifts at its U.S. supercenters, in the first reversal of a 30-year-old tradition that helped define what the folksy chain was all about in its early years.

It wasn't that long ago that retail industry experts were saying Target needed to do something to stem the numbers of shoppers heading to Wal-Mart to buy everyday staples. Today, the company is being criticized for the low margins associated with getting greater numbers of people to buy food products in its stores. For a little history, a 2008 report by Citi Investment Research found that 87 percent of consumers perceived Wal-Mart to have lower prices than Target. Many consumers were flocking to supercenters that offered food items not available at locations with the bull's-eye logo.