For years, the annual meeting of Wal-Mart store managers and suppliers has been mostly an occasion to celebrate the company's successes and discuss its growth. This year, things are different.

The world's largest retailer is struggling, and the thousands who attend the meeting will want to know what management plans to do about it.

The annual conference in Kansas City, Mo., will gather about 7,000 store managers Monday and Tuesday and then, for the next two days, draw hundreds of companies that supply the merchandise Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sells in its nearly 4,000 U.S. stores.

Wal-Mart, which is headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., keeps the doors of the meetings closed to outsiders including the media, investors and analysts.

The analysts say they'll be watching for signs that Chief Executive Lee Scott has a plan for recovering from a disappointing 2006. The top question now is whether the company will continue a year-and-a-half-old strategy of prying more money from affluent shoppers with trendier products or go back to low-priced basics.

Efforts to improve its image with trendier fashion brands and home fashion accessories have fallen flat, though its push for higher-price electronics like flat-panel TVs has done well.

Wal-Mart reported the worst holiday season on record even as the company started to re-emphasize its low prices after months of playing down its discount strategy. That has left customers and observers confused about what Wal-Mart is trying to be.

"Wal-Mart urgently needs to regain its price initiative," said Robert Buchanan, retail analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons. "They have sent a mixed message. They have to be crystal clear that they are a low-price leader."

At the same time, the retailer is starting a two-year effort to tailor its stores to local communities, offering different selections of merchandise to six target demographic groups from Hispanics and African-Americans to those it calls "empty-nesters/boomers."

"They're going through a big shake-up. This (meeting) gives them a chance to get everybody on the same page as to the direction the company needs to be going," said Don Gher, chief investment officer at Coldstream Capital Management in Bellevue, Wash., which manages over $1 billion in assets that include Wal-Mart shares.

That shake-up includes a reorganization announced this week in the way Wal-Mart selects the merchandise it sells. Wal-Mart also has promoted John Fleming, its top marketing executive, to head the effort in the newly created post of chief merchandising officer.

Fleming, a veteran of faster-growing rival Target Corp. who joined Wal-Mart in 2000, will oversee the buyers who stock Wal-Mart in most of the categories the company considers key for growth: grocery, entertainment, apparel, and home furnishings.