Best Buy (BBY) and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) are shaping up to be the big guns this holiday shopping season. I'm more convinced of that after witnessing last weeks Black Friday bonanza between the two retailing behemoths. Although Best Buy had the more enticing gadget deals for the largest retail shopping day of the year, Wal-Mart matched and even beat some of those prices in the "hot product" category like laptop PCs and gaming consoles.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) wants to overshadow the House's stimulus plan by rolling out its own economic stimulus package. To do that, the world's largest retailer has announced that it will be "rolling back" prices on thousands of products that will equate to a 10% to 30% savings for customers -- starting now.

After Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's presentation last week to over 7,000 Wal-Mart managers, the company is taking its standard marketing line as being the retailer that helps Americans when the times are tight. John Fleming, Wal-Mart's chief marketing officer and an alum of competitor Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), said that "We all know economic times are tough so our plan is to help with added savings throughout the year, focusing especially on what people want, when they need it ... we won't let them down."

Wal-Mart is not stupid; the company wants to bring comfort to the U.S. consumer population by caudling them with news of Wal-Mart being one of the few corporate friends available. From a retail perspective, slashing prices when economic hard times are present is not only a good marketing strategy, but one that imbues consumers with the feeling that Wal-Mart really is helping them.

Wal-Mart's price reductions aren't all over the map, either: they include seasonal product categories for this time of year, like fitness and home products. Wal-Mart even provided a buying grid for those wanting to feed a crowd for this weekend's Super Bowl -- a nice marketing touch. In addition to lower prices, it's offering 18 months no interest financing for $250 purchases made on Wal-Mart store-branded credit cards. Bah -- one thing many consumers don't need is more credit debt.

Everyone's favorite mega-retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), has announced that it will be more aggressive this holiday season with its price chopping strategy. It will rollback 20% more items than it did in the 2006 holiday shopping season.

The retailer reduced the prices on 15,000 items this week alone in what may be its biggest push in quite some time to get more customers in stores this holiday season. Although I'm repeating myself from prior Wal-Mart posts, the point is still valid: the retailer seems incapable of conceiving any growth strategy outside of the pricing arena.

Wal-Mart has said that it wants to recruit higher-end customers in stores who will spend more money on higher-margin products, yet it continues to default to low prices as a main tactic. Perhaps the retailer wants the pseudo-affluent to see just how much they can really save by shopping at its locations? Your guess is as good as mine at this point.