Leave it to Wal-Mart to try to make the best of a bad situation.  The world’s biggest retailer just announced that they have a plan to drive holiday sales.  Their plan?  The early bird gets the shoppers.

According to this week’s Advertising Age, Wal-Mart plans to start advertising holiday sale items now.  Normally retailers wait until after Halloween to set up Christmas displays and mark items for holiday promotion.  However, Wal-Mart has already begun to stage their stores with Christmas items- the displays should be up and ready as early as tomorrow.

Wal-Mart is also sticking to its low price policy by offering 10 popular toys for $10 each this holiday season.  The retailer is hoping that the cheaper items will pull in consumers who will splurge on impulse buys once in the store.  I don’t know about you, but that strategy always seems to work for me in the grocery store- or is it that I shop when I’m hungry?