buckguy wrote: ↑March 8th, 2024, 7:04 am
arizonaguy wrote: ↑March 7th, 2024, 7:21 pm
The Towson, MD Walmart is closing on April 5.
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/wal ... erformance
This is another "mall" Walmart (the store is a former Montgomery Ward) that was 2 levels. There is also a Target in the same mall which is a typical 1990s build store (not a 2 level former mall anchor) as well as a Weis supermarket (former SuperFresh).
The Target and Weis seem better located within the center and a lot of online message boards say this store had a "theft" issue.
There seems to be a common theme here where Target will put their traditional store into a mall (by demolishing the former anchor and building a new traditional store) and Walmart will try to shoehorn their format into a former anchor. In these situations the Target seems to perform better and Walmart has been closing.
Walmart seemed to cheapen out during it's "expand at all costs" phase in the early 2000s and, in retrospect, should've demolished and rebuilt these stores (if possible).
Towson is the center of gravity for upscale retail in Greater Baltimore. It also has a tremendous amount of retail competition and is an old area (large scale retail development began in the 50s) that has outlasted super-regional mall developments further out---the dead/redeveloped Owings Mills and Hunt Valley malls). I doubt that reshuffling the Walmart deck at this location would have helped. They simply don't do well in these kinds of locations. The Mayfield Heights, Ohio store they closed is in a less upscale retail environment (although upscale residential is nearby) but similar in having just about everything that competes with them in close proximity, in a long established retail area (again, the basic infrastructure began in the 50s), that outlasted a couple malls in close proximity.
Target has built two level stores in these kind of areas, where necessary--Rockville, MD and University Heights, OH come to mind--one an expansion of an existing strip, the other redevelopment of the site of a May Co. Department store. Configuration doesn't matter as much as whether the area is a good fit for the business. Walmart may be poor at executing locations that don't fit their standard model, but if the location is one that shows their weaknesses in other respects, I doubt that the configuration accounts for the failure.
Target does well with two story buildings because, quite frankly, they make them a royal pain in the rear to shop. Every one I have been in is bizarre. The ones I shopped the most were Lakewood, which was a relocation of a smaller old Target that reopened as a Walmart a few years later, and Westminster Mall which is a converted new build Macy's (that Macy's should have kept).
I think their first strategy has been to relocate existing stores into malls when it gives them the opportunity to upgrade the store to a larger format, and the mall is a better location than the original. This way they can be sure to move traffic over there in a sort of forced exodus. My impression is that all the incremental new multi level stores are less successful than relocations.
The layout is always intentionally scrambled so that it is impossible to get any shopping done without going to both floors. This ensures the customer is going to be forced to walk through the entire store and have maximum exposure to impulse buys, endcap deals, and so forth to get a full basket and high ticket.
For example, they will put household cleaning products on the first floor. Personal products like body wash, shaving etc. will wind up on the second floor. So what normally would be blocks next to each other are split between levels. Dawn dish soap level one, dial hand soap level two and so forth.
Mens and Women's clothing are also separated by floor. Home Decor will be split too, like bed and bath separated from the rest of home on opposite floors.
Food and Pharmacy also opposite levels.
Maybe these stores have changed in the last few years since I visited but I doubt it due to the high cost of moving these departments around.
I can't stand shopping these two story buildings, but I can understand why Target is more successful than Walmart. Walmart will make the ground floor basically the grocery store and the second floor the rest of the general merchandise. Makes it easy to bypass all the general merchandise and thus buy less overall. Combine the lower average sale, which probably underperforms to the rest of the chain, more difficult and labor intensive logistics, and higher rent these types of sites probably command, and it's a recipe for closure.