Wal-Mart Adds Guns Alongside Butter

Retailing Giant Resumes Sales of Rifles, Shotguns at Half of Its Stores in Effort to Be One-Stop Shop.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is quietly bringing back rifles, shotguns and ammunition to hundreds of U.S. stores as the hurting retail giant seeks to reinvigorate its one-stop shopping appeal and attract more male customers.

The world's largest retailer stopped selling hunting rifles and bullets at all but a third of its U.S. stores five years ago, citing diminishing sales. It is now restoring them to hundreds of locations, bringing the total to nearly half of its more than 3,600 U.S. namesake stores, as part of a larger push to restore "heritage categories" of merchandise such as fishing rods and bolts of sewing fabric that it removed in an attempt to go upscale that backfired.
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A couple of years ago, Wal-Mart pared thousands of items in an effort to declutter its stores and focus on faster-moving products. Now, after a customer backlash, it is restoring much of what it took away.