Walmart observations

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
storewanderer
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: November 26th, 2020, 5:56 pm Wal-Mart also exited South Korea in 2006, a country which Tesco bailed from a decade later. Speaking of Tesco, they have done far worse in Asia, even selling off the profitable Thai/Malaysian operations. They have even sold off the Turkish and Polish divisions.
I expect Tesco to only have a presence in the British Isles by 2025.
I'm sure Wal-Mart will stick around in China. People in suburban/rural China seem to like them.
My understanding is Wal Mart does pretty well in China... the Wal Mart branded stores in China look nothing like their US counterparts. The Sam's Clubs look more similar to the US Stores.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: November 26th, 2020, 9:52 am
klkla wrote: November 25th, 2020, 7:07 pm
The name of the chain in Argentina is Chango Mas (More Monkey). That alone could be reason for failure lol. Reminds me of when Chevrolet sold the Nova in Mexico (Which means 'it won't go' in Spanish).

But seriously, the Argentine economy has been very volatile for years. I can understand why they wanted to exit without retaining any equity.
There are Supercenters in Argentina with the Wal Mart banner that look quite similar to a US Supercenter (as in, not with the more extensive service grocery departments of the Mexico Supercenters). Even with Self Checkout, online order pick-up, etc.

Recall they exited Germany about 15 years ago.

However Wal Mart announced in the past year or so they are adding 500 new stores in China (both Wal Mart and Sam's Club). Is this still the case, who knows? We know how many times we've heard they were adding hundreds of Neighborhood Markets in the US and it seems to sort of stop before they get very far.
The 2015 closures were when the brakes really stopped on the Walmart Neighborhood Market concept. I'm pretty sure they've built a few since then, but that division is a mess. Some of them (including D-FW, where the WNM concept got on pretty well) were replaced with full Supercenters, but some of the locations did poorly (including lasting 2-3 years) and whole markets never got off the ground (Houston ended up only getting a small handful of stores).
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Re: Walmart observations

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pseudo3d wrote: November 26th, 2020, 9:31 pm
The 2015 closures were when the brakes really stopped on the Walmart Neighborhood Market concept. I'm pretty sure they've built a few since then, but that division is a mess. Some of them (including D-FW, where the WNM concept got on pretty well) were replaced with full Supercenters, but some of the locations did poorly (including lasting 2-3 years) and whole markets never got off the ground (Houston ended up only getting a small handful of stores).
Despite rumors over the years, we never got any Neighborhood Markets in Reno. They at one point had sites and ultimately sold the real estate. Instead we got what I would call a saturation of Supercenters. And all of these Supercenters do quite well.

Down around Sacramento they have Neighborhood Markets. They seem to range from doing okay to doing well down there. NorCal is one of the only markets where I've seen semi-busy Neighborhood Markets. But even in NorCal I think they've had some closure activity, an oddly located store in the back of a mall in San Jose area comes to mind. Everywhere else I've gone into a Neighborhood Market, traffic has been light. Even in Bentonville.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by mjhale »

What was/is Walmart's goal for the Neighborhood Markets? To me it is like the Super without the Center. I've been in a few Neighborhood Markets in NC and SC. If I was living in the area I might shop there if I just wanted groceries and wanted them fairly quickly. Beyond that I'm not sure what the attraction is as compared to a Supercenter. One place I could see Walmart trying to use Neighborhood Markets would be in areas where they couldn't build or expand a store to a Supercenter. But if the area in question doesn't Walmart to build in the first place or expand an existing store I'm not sure what makes Walmart think a Neighborhood Market would be accepted either.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by BillyGr »

mjhale wrote: November 27th, 2020, 3:33 pm What was/is Walmart's goal for the Neighborhood Markets? To me it is like the Super without the Center. I've been in a few Neighborhood Markets in NC and SC. If I was living in the area I might shop there if I just wanted groceries and wanted them fairly quickly. Beyond that I'm not sure what the attraction is as compared to a Supercenter. One place I could see Walmart trying to use Neighborhood Markets would be in areas where they couldn't build or expand a store to a Supercenter. But if the area in question doesn't Walmart to build in the first place or expand an existing store I'm not sure what makes Walmart think a Neighborhood Market would be accepted either.
The one (now closed) one I know of here fit that second idea. There was an old mall across the street that had been redeveloped with a Target, supermarket, Lowe's and many smaller stores in a kind of "bits and pieces" setting (many separate buildings around the parking area, not a strip of storefronts), and Walmart had an existing store in another part of the area (that started as a standard Walmart, but may be supersized now). Where the Neighborhood Market was built was a smaller property (with a few other small storefronts) on a triangle of land that splits two main roadways, so they may have just figured that was a good spot but didn't have room for a full Superstore.

Of course, the three supermarket chains in the area have stores - the one across the street and the other two a couple and few more blocks down that street, with the 3rd having a locally owned co-op store across from it that dates back many decades, so there may just not have been reason for most to visit another grocery option (although it was a convenient area with so many options close by for those who like to mix & match the best deals from multiple stores).
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by klkla »

mjhale wrote: November 27th, 2020, 3:33 pm What was/is Walmart's goal for the Neighborhood Markets? To me it is like the Super without the Center. I've been in a few Neighborhood Markets in NC and SC. If I was living in the area I might shop there if I just wanted groceries and wanted them fairly quickly. Beyond that I'm not sure what the attraction is as compared to a Supercenter. One place I could see Walmart trying to use Neighborhood Markets would be in areas where they couldn't build or expand a store to a Supercenter. But if the area in question doesn't Walmart to build in the first place or expand an existing store I'm not sure what makes Walmart think a Neighborhood Market would be accepted either.
I'm surprised they lasted this long. The regular WalMart stores without the grocery section were very profitable because they sold a lot of high-margin imported general merchandise items. They added low-margin supermarket sections to the standard WalMart stores because they realized people would shop in the stores more often and buy more of high-margin items in the process. This was a huge success.

But they don't really bring anything new or special to the table in the standalone supermarkets except their name. In fact whenever you go to a WM Neighborhood Market you realize what a poor operator they are compared to the legacy supermarkets. They have probably taken some market share but I doubt they're making much money in the operation and it seems like a distraction to me.
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Re: Walmart observations

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klkla wrote: November 27th, 2020, 7:36 pm
I'm surprised they lasted this long. The regular WalMart stores without the grocery section were very profitable because they sold a lot of high-margin imported general merchandise items. They added low-margin supermarket sections to the standard WalMart stores because they realized people would shop in the stores more often and buy more of high-margin items in the process. This was a huge success.

But they don't really bring anything new or special to the table in the standalone supermarkets except their name. In fact whenever you go to a WM Neighborhood Market you realize what a poor operator they are compared to the legacy supermarkets. They have probably taken some market share but I doubt they're making much money in the operation and it seems like a distraction to me.
Those Neighborhood Markets around Sacramento aren't too bad. There is one in a former mid 90's Albertsons which is quite nice, large, and they do fill the space up with a better mix of packaged goods than another one nearby that sits in a former late 80's Albertsons and is noticeably smaller. I put them in a class similar to a Foods Co or a Smart & Final. Staffing levels are low and these stores have basically no service departments (the mid 90's one has a tiny service deli right in the spot where Albertsons deli was on the back wall, which seems to rarely be open). They have better product selection than either Foods Co or Smart & Final, and also better pricing than either of them.

Say what you want about Wal Mart as a grocer, but they are actually quite good at packaged goods selection and pricing. Categories like coffee, canned goods, even things like dry pasta their selection is excellent and exceeds the regular chain grocers. Also their selection on refrigerated items like dairy, cheese, and lunchmeat/hot dogs/bacon is excellent and exceeds the other chains. Same on frozen- excellent selection, even on the brands like Amy's and the other alternate brand type items. Perimeter isn't great, but it is passable, I have bought beef there this past year a few times and was satisfied (they actually have a couple SKUs of Ground Round and Ground Sirloin-you do have to look for it as most is "ground beef"- the large chain grocers that label everything as "ground beef" are suspect due to the pink slime thing, so you can be assured there is no pink slime in the ground beef when it is labeled as Ground Chuck, Ground Round, or Ground Sirloin) as well as various produce and bakery items and the quality is about average compared to regular grocers. Their pricing on produce isn't great. The packaged chicken in the Marketside label is also just fine though seems to be more expensive than Trader Joe's comparable chicken.

I actually have found Wal Mart's grocery operation has improved considerably over the past 5 years. Their perimeter departments look far better than they did before, their selection of produce has increased noticeably and their selection of bakery has increased. Use of the "Marketside" label for Organic items, bakery items, and certain meat items has really improved the offering as the items in that label are very good quality (though not a great price). Not sure how the Marketside deli items like sandwiches are, have only tried the pizza, which was just okay. They have segmented merchandising by location and a number of locations have a decent mix of Organic items now that are generally well priced. They also seem to do a better job keeping their shelves stocked than before.

I have long been critical of Wal Mart's grocery operation, but can recognize the improvement, as I have been buying more there over the years. I didn't used to buy any groceries there- there was no reason to. They've gotten better while a number of the regular grocers have gotten worse. In certain cases, radically worse.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by veteran+ »

Neighborhood Markets was Walmart's response to "big box" resistance. Without proper strategic locations, they were going to canvas the country with these fill in stores.

In 5 states I have never been pleased with these poorly run and unpleasant stores. I often did competitive checks and walked away laughing. As a consumer I would never even purchase a pack of gum from these idiot stores.

One of the most laughable operations was in Palm Desert California (closed). They opened up in a closed ToysRus unit. This is an upscale neighborhood. I walked in for a competitive check and low a behold a former junior manager that I fired for theft was the manager.

Walmart would be smart to continue to close these poorly conceived stores that really do not make sense, unless they are serving a "food desert".
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by J-Man »

I've been doing an almost weekly grocery pickup with Walmart since March. While there have been some hiccups (especially earlier in the pandemic), I've been impressed by their service and how it's improved. I've also used Instacart delivery (for Aldi and Stater Bros.), and store pickup from Ralphs and Whole Foods. And those have all had more issues that I ever had with Walmart. My last Aldi/Instacart order was a disaster--they were "out of stock" for over 60% of my order. Clearly they're not doing a great job with updating their database to reflect Aldi's inventory. I had the same issue with Ralphs -- and that can only be blamed on Kroger, since they have their own ordering system.

And Whole Foods? For the prices they charge, they need to provide better service. One time I ordered Italian parsley and they gave me cilantro (not as a substitution -- just a mistake.) Then I ordered butter croissants, and they gave me VEGAN croissants (again --not a substitution.) They're also frequently out of items, and their selection isn't that great to begin with. I wasn't even able to find buttermilk on my last order (perhaps they have it in the store, but it's not available for ordering on the Amazon site)--but they have it at Walmart. Even something more obscure like almond paste was not at Whole Foods -- but Walmart had it.

Walmart seems to be the only store that actually takes your feedback into consideration. When I responded to their customer satisfaction survey earlier in the year that shopping online for groceries was sometimes frustration due to items showing up but never being available (or being available at other stores), an actual store manager called me to discuss the situation. And they have improved markedly. When I first started ordering from them, you couldn't specify an acceptable substitution if your item was out of stock--now you can, at least on some items. It's not as good as Instacart's system, but it's better than it used to be. (This eliminates the problem of, for example, ordering a 24-pack of soda, and being advised it's out of stock instead of getting two 12-packs.)

While I'll probably still use some of the other services to fill in the gaps for what Walmart doesn't offer, I'm going to stick with them for the majority of my shopping until I can go back into stores safely.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Super S »

I have seen improvement in Walmart's grocery operations. I am visiting them more since I have shifted away from Fred Meyer after they started their card program. While I feel that WinCo still has better prices overall, Walmart does have better variety in frozen foods, carrying some items that WinCo does not. While WinCo does have more space devoted to frozen foods, they sometimes have a lot of empty space. Walmart is a little better at having things stocked later in the day.

While Walmart is often criticized for low front end staffing, the cashiers for the most part are quick, and you don't have to deal with WinCo's rude cashiers turning on the belt and shoving other items into yours as you are bagging because they think you are bagging too slowly. Their self-checkouts don't seem as glitchy as WinCo. I shop later in the day so normally can get out pretty quickly, but Walmart at times has all self-checkouts closed for unexplained reasons while only having one or two regular checkouts open.
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