Walmart has long talked about plans to open smaller stores, but few saw them looking this small. Its new Walmart Express format is expected to be only 15,000-square-feet.
The "Express" name was first revealed
during Wal-Mart's fourth quarter conference call. But last week at the Bank
of America Merrill Consumer Conference, Bill Simon, president and CEO, Walmart,
U.S., elaborated on the opportunity.
"We have been hard at work on this roughly 15,000 square-foot format," he said. "We're in the process of developing and we will open in the second quarter in both urban and rural pilots with pharmacy and without pharmacy, varying levels of fresh and other products, product assortment."
He added, "The aim here, folks, is to get the right model so that we can rapidly roll these things out. At our peak we built about 350 supercenters in a year, so when we get this thing right, these are going to come real fast and we're real excited about this format."
According to Bloomberg News, Walmart Express will have about 12 aisles, with one side wall and part of the back wall allocated to produce, refrigerated foods and frozen foods. Three are so far planned for Arkansas, according to Bloomberg. One is also planned or the South Side of Chicago, two blocks from where a Walmart Supercenter is scheduled to open in early 2012, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Even smaller, Mr. Simon noted that its first Walmart on Campus opened on the University of Arkansas early this year is "doing way better than anybody anticipated." The 3,300 square feet prototype carries 2,800 SKUs, half grocery/half GM/OTC/HBC. Mr. Simon added, "There's been a lot of interest from a lot of other college campuses, the universities on this project, and it's something that we think is going to play out pretty well for us."
The third smaller format, Neighborhood Market, is being rebranded Walmart Market. Focusing on groceries and pharmacy, it ranges as low as 25,000 to 30,000 square feet to as high as 60,000 to 70,000 square feet.
Overall, Mr. Simon said of the smaller stores, "We are going to be adding hundreds of these in the coming years and maybe even more depending on how they work out."
Addressing an investor's question, he also said Walmart would be open to acquisitions to drive expansion among small formats.
"Once we get them right, these are small locations that you can build really quickly and you could either acquire somebody or you could acquire sites relatively easily in a place that might not even be a retailer," said Mr. Simon.
- Wal-Mart Transcript March 10 at Bank of America Merrell Consumer Conference - Walmart Stores Inc.
- Wal-Mart Powerpoint Presentation March 10 at Bank of America Merrell Consumer Conference - Walmart Stores Inc.
- Wal-Mart to Expand 'Express' - The Wall Street Journal
- Wal-Mart to Open ‘Hundreds' of Small Stores Over Three Years - Bloomberg News
- Wal-Mart express coming to Chatham, alderman says - Chicago Sun-Times