Wal-Mart to fight back with updated site.

Wal-Mart Stores hopes to blunt some of its increasing online sales competition when it debuts a revamped Web site after Halloween. The company is facing stiffer online sales competition, including that from Amazon.com, which yesterday said it was creating an online shopping mall with more than 500,000 products. Wal-Mart began planning an overhaul of its Web site earlier this year with the idea of debuting the revised shopping area before the holiday season. Internet retail sales are forecast almost to triple to about $10 billion in the fourth quarter, when many retailers traditionally have their best sales season. Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart said in June that it would introduce its revamped Web site in the fourth quarter to meet a growing demand for online shopping. Since then it_s signed up Books-A-Million to provide books for its online customers, and retained Federated Department Stores_ Fingerhut, a mail-order retailer, to manage and fill orders placed on its Web site.