Wal-Mart discounts kick off back-to-school retail season

Wal-Mart discounts kick off back-to-school retail season    Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. kicked off the back-to-school retail season Monday, announcing it was reducing prices on 16,000 back-to-school items starting this week.
   The cuts, which range from 10 percent to 50 percent, are a bid to boost sales of the critical back-to-school season. Wal-Mart will also back the lower prices up with a new ad campaign focusing on how customers can save money in the face of record-high gas prices. According to the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, this year's back-to-school discounts are much deeper than those in the year-ago period. The total number of items being discounted also tops last year's 11,000 items the retailer slashed prices on right before the holiday season.
   Retailers are hoping that this year's back-to-school retail season top's last year's lackluster season and build significantly on the modest gains experienced during the early summer months. U.S. Commerce Department figures for June showed a 0.9 percent adjusted drop in retail sales and a 3.2 percent unadjusted gain over the same period last year.