Excellent article in the Chicago Tribune (rr), with interesting data points. First about potential shifts in store size to meet urban regulations:
Anticipating space constraints and potential zoning problems as it expands, Wal-Mart opened a 99,000-square-foot prototype "Supercenter" earlier this year in Tampa, to see how a smaller format would fare. A Wal-Mart Supercenter sells food and general merchandise.Next about historical and future growth patterns:
So far, Wal-Mart's chief strategy for developing Supercenters has been to convert its existing discount stores, which sell only general merchandise. A 2003 report by William Blair & Co., a Chicago investment firm, shows that conversions accounted for 70 percent of the 827 Supercenters opened from 1995 to 2001.There is also a multi-level store in LA:
Wal-Mart has been willing to build multilevel stores, but it prefers to stick with single-level versions."It makes more sense to begin this way than to shoehorn ourselves into an area where property is more costly," spokesman John Bisio said.
Peter Kanellos, Wal-Mart's California spokesman, said the company opened its first and only three-level store a year ago in the Baldwin Hills section of Los Angeles. The store includes "cartveyors"--basically elevators for carts.
Nationally, Wal-Mart also is testing store formats of 40,000 square feet or smaller in other communities. But Wall Street isn't impressed by the idea.
"They're too small to really move the needle, and they won't have the same returns as Supercenters," Dreher said
Posted by Kevin on May, 24 2004 at 10:16 AM
