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Is This the End of Local Stores? Mighty Walmart Plans to Build 350 Mini 'Express' Shops a Year to Take on Smaller Retailers

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Is this the end of local stores? Mighty Walmart plans to build 350 mini ‘express’ shops a year to take on smaller retailers The article I have chosen is one about Walmart and the opening of their new convenience stores around the US. I found this article quite interesting and thought it showed very much where the retail industry is heading, a more uniform retail environment, especially in a market like grocery stores. This article also gives a strong example of retail strategy and location as well as illustrating the effect these multinational retailers are having on the smaller independent retailers. To best evaluate this article we need to discuss the relevant retail marketing concepts, models and theories that are …show more content…

She believes that the financial crisis over the last couple of years is factoring into the shrinking of store size, for some retailers opening and operating smaller stores are a way to cut costs. Paul Freddo, senior executive VP leasing and development of developers Diversified Reality, believes that a smaller size also allows a retailer to reach smaller markets with less density, and to be closer to its existing store base. Leon Nicholas, director of retail insights of consultancy Kantar Retail, says ‘The digitilisation of retail goes with the shrinking of retail.’ Grocery stores are now offering Internet shopping which would mean that in the future larger stores would not be as necessary. The article makes it clear that Walmart intend their strategy to be two-pronged, ‘stores in small towns that aren’t big enough to support a full-sized Walmart, and stores in big cities where building a whole super centre is impractical.’ This is a way of expanding the Walmart brand in areas where it is unreasonable to have super centres. They are trying to make Walmart accessible for everyone so consumers don’t have to drive to the nearest superstore. The article mentions that ‘the average round trip to a dollar store is six miles, compared with thirty miles for a typical Walmart trip.’ This is too far for most consumers especially when were in an era of high gas prices. Dollar stores will have an advantage over the superstores

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