BizNomic

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) Chief Merchandising Officer John Fleming is resigning, in what is the retailer’s third upper-level executive change in less than a week.

Fleming spent 10 years with Wal-Mart and played a notable role in overseeing product selection and relationships with vendors at the company, which had more than $400 billion in sales last year. He is leaving Aug. 1 for what Wal-Mart said are personal reasons.

Fleming, who joined the company in 2000 as chief merchant of Walmart.com, had a rocky track record, including a failed attempt to take the Wal-Mart’s brand upscale in 2005, said Deborah Weinswig, retail analyst at Citigroup. Fleming’s departure gives newly appointed Chief Executive Bill Simon “the opportunity to set a new course for Wal-Mart’s merchandising organization, which, in turn, could lead to improvement in apparel and home,” Weinswig said.

The announcement came just days after Wal-Mart said it would move the head of its U.S. operations, Eduardo Castro-Wright, to oversee its international e-commerce group and global buying operations, and promote Simon to fill his place. Simon announced Fleming’s departure Friday in a memo to staff. “Our leadership team will focus on picking up our pace to meet our challenges,” Simon said.

Until Wal-Mart names a replacement, John Westling, executive vice president of planning, pricing and replenishment, will lead the general merchandise and replenishment teams. Jack Sinclair, currently general manager for grocery, will lead Wal-Mart’s food and health and wellness merchandising teams. Both Sinclair and Westling will report directly to Simon.

“John has been thinking about how he could spend more time with his family,” Walmart spokesman David Tovar said. “The changes announced earlier this week presented him with an opportunity and he decided it was the right time for him to leave the company.”

Simon gave credit to Fleming as “the architect of groundbreaking efforts to grow our e-commerce business, creative marketing programs to communicate with customers and inventive merchandising initiatives.” Wal-Mart is taking steps to improve U.S. operations, with its high-profile move to open a second store in Chicago seen as a potential door-opener to other urban markets. The company also is opening smaller stores as it boosts its presence as a grocer.

In a note to staffers, Simon said Wal-Mart’s mandate is to “increase customer traffic, make sure our products are relevant to our customer and never give an inch on price leadership.

Shares were recently down 0.7% to $48.01. The stock is off 10% this year.