Walmart observations

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storewanderer
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

I've never heard of a standard large size Division 1 Wal Mart with only 97 employees like that CT Store. Either that is an error or this store was extremely low volume, like struggling Kmart level volume.

It appears this CT store has limited food. Was this a store that had some kind of lease restriction and was only allowed to use a few thousand square feet for groceries or something?

I also don't think I've seen another Division 1 Wal Mart with the exposed/warehouse ceiling.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by buckguy »

Guilford is a very wealthy town as are the adjacent towns. I would imagine that they might put limits on big box retail. The area is built out enough that there may have been limited numbers of suitable sites (and no one interested in subsidizing them, something else WM likes).

Lyndhurst is mostly middle income. Pepper Pike is much wealthier. The Garfield Heights store was on a problematic landfill and the surrounding stores quickly decamped many years ago shortly after the area was built out. The Bedford Heights store had shrinkage problems but had replaced a smaller store nearby, so one would think that they understood the market. Macedonia has emerged as the hub for big box retail in that area. The area around the Bedford Heights store once the largest suburban shopping area in the region--Randall Mall supplanted it (during its brief heyday), but it remained a strong secondary into the 90s.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Alpha8472 »

I noticed that a local Walmart just had the propane cages replaced with stronger more theft resistant cages. The old ones were broken into a short time ago, but the new ones seem much more heavy duty.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by mbz321 »

storewanderer wrote: April 21st, 2022, 6:39 pm I've never heard of a standard large size Division 1 Wal Mart with only 97 employees like that CT Store. Either that is an error or this store was extremely low volume, like struggling Kmart level volume.

It appears this CT store has limited food. Was this a store that had some kind of lease restriction and was only allowed to use a few thousand square feet for groceries or something?

I also don't think I've seen another Division 1 Wal Mart with the exposed/warehouse ceiling.
I believe the store in question was previously a Caldor or maybe a Bradlees. Walmart acquired a lot of their locations in the Northeast when both chains went under in the early 2000's, and they did put a fair amount of work into fixing them up, including opening up the ceilings. However Walmart doesn't seem to be a fan of operating out of these recycled buildings and many have closed/relocated nearby to new Supercenter locations.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Brian Lutz »

Visiting the Tulalip (Marysville) Supercenter tonight, I see that the store is now in the process of remodeling, and a lot of shelves have been moved around making it difficult to navigate the store. temporary signs in the grocery section say that the store is being remodeled to add a "Pickup and Delivery Hub," which seems to suggest that a portion of this store is being turned into a Market Fulfillment Center, and indeed it appears that work is being done to wall off at least some portion of the store. At the same time, it looks like the store is also being remodeled to the "Airport" decor package, although it's too early to see much of that yet.

It appears that the intent of this is to create a small distribution center inside the store where commonly puchased items can be stored in a way that pickup and delivery orders can be automated, thus increasing efficiency and significantly reducing the need for employees to walk the aisles to fill orders. In one way it feels like a big bet on the future moving even farther toward pickup and delivery as a major source of revenue, but In another way it feels almost like Walmart is trying to move back to the "behind the counter" (pre Piggly Wiggly) model for selling a significant portion of the store's merchandise. This seems like a step backward, but maybe in extreme cases this is what it may take to continue to operate in high shrink areas without having to resort to putting half the store in glass display cases. In either case, there's a huge Amazon fulfillment center being built up in the Smokey Point area about a block away from a Walmart Supercenter that, when you approach from the right angle, looks like it's about to try to devour the Walmart, Mortal Engines style.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: May 5th, 2022, 9:16 pm Visiting the Tulalip (Marysville) Supercenter tonight, I see that the store is now in the process of remodeling, and a lot of shelves have been moved around making it difficult to navigate the store. temporary signs in the grocery section say that the store is being remodeled to add a "Pickup and Delivery Hub," which seems to suggest that a portion of this store is being turned into a Market Fulfillment Center, and indeed it appears that work is being done to wall off at least some portion of the store. At the same time, it looks like the store is also being remodeled to the "Airport" decor package, although it's too early to see much of that yet.

It appears that the intent of this is to create a small distribution center inside the store where commonly puchased items can be stored in a way that pickup and delivery orders can be automated, thus increasing efficiency and significantly reducing the need for employees to walk the aisles to fill orders. In one way it feels like a big bet on the future moving even farther toward pickup and delivery as a major source of revenue, but In another way it feels almost like Walmart is trying to move back to the "behind the counter" (pre Piggly Wiggly) model for selling a significant portion of the store's merchandise. This seems like a step backward, but maybe in extreme cases this is what it may take to continue to operate in high shrink areas without having to resort to putting half the store in glass display cases. In either case, there's a huge Amazon fulfillment center being built up in the Smokey Point area about a block away from a Walmart Supercenter that, when you approach from the right angle, looks like it's about to try to devour the Walmart, Mortal Engines style.
What is square footage on that store? I seem to recall that being one of the pretty large supercenters.

I was in a Supercenter in Parker, CO that may be the largest one I've ever seen. Place was absolutely massive. Also surprisingly busy given Target was across the street. Clean well stocked store; felt safe and had customers that were solid middle/upper middle class. It isn't that way closer into Denver; the Wal Marts have noticeably less traffic than the Targets and are clearly capturing a lower income customer. Castle Rock Wal Mart Supercenter for instance was not very busy (another very large store, larger than usual) but again a very clean and orderly store there and it is my understanding that store does good volume also.

Also went to a Supercenter in Elizabeth, CO. Not sure what the story is there but it looks like the lowest volume Supercenter I've ever seen. Looks like the kind of store Super Kmart would have considered closing back in the 90's or 00's pre-Eddie. It will be interesting to see if they wait for future development (it is coming). The store is from 2009 but looks brand new.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Brian Lutz »

The Tulalip Walmart store is roughly 150k square feet, and it's one of the largest ones in the area (the other Marysville Supercenter on Highway 9 is rather large as well, but I'd estimate that one is around 120k and doesn't have an auto center.) Given its location in Quil Ceda Village near the Tulalip Casino and outlet mall, it was presumably built to serve a relatively large area. In particular the Quil Ceda Village and nearby Smokey Point developments seem to cater to Canadian shoppers coming down from BC to shop in US stores but COVID closed the border for almost two years, with restrictions being removed only recently. There's also been a lot of growth in Snohomish County with people moving out of King County to find (somewhat) more affordable places to live, and the move toward more fully remote and hybrid schedule jobs makes living near Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond (where a lot of the jobs are based) a lot less necessary than it used to be, so people seem to be moving further out, which presumably means that more of the store's business is coming from locals now.

The store's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Walmart2595/) doesn't currently say anything about the remodel, but a recent post does suggest that the store's bulk fabric inventory is being liquidated, which presumably indicates that this department will not be present in the remodeled store.

Another thing to note about this store is that it used to have a USA Gasoline station in the parking lot, but a few months ago it was closed, and has since been demolished. Other Walmart gas stations in the area seem to have been either converted to Walmart branded stations or Speedway Express (which is somewhat odd since Speedway isn't an established brand in the PNW). I would assume that they have some other use for this land in mind, most likely one of the drive-up automated pickup stations mentioned in the article on my last post.
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Re: Walmart observations

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Brian Lutz wrote: May 6th, 2022, 9:10 am

Another thing to note about this store is that it used to have a USA Gasoline station in the parking lot, but a few months ago it was closed, and has since been demolished. Other Walmart gas stations in the area seem to have been either converted to Walmart branded stations or Speedway Express (which is somewhat odd since Speedway isn't an established brand in the PNW). I would assume that they have some other use for this land in mind, most likely one of the drive-up automated pickup stations mentioned in the article on my last post.
Are any Wal Mart-lot USA Gasoline left? I didn't think any were converted to Speedway Express (franchise stores with no actual Speedway programs). I thought the few USAs with Wal Mart left got closed/demolished last year. Closing the stations was a decision made by 7-Eleven, not Wal Mart. 7-Eleven had 6 months last year to get rid of any Marathon-branding (USA Gasoline, Tesoro, Arco were the brands that had to be wiped away) so they did a lot of conversions to Speedway Express last summer/fall to accomplish that. Speedway Express replaced Tesoro in Alaska which strikes me as a braindead move. I think they were given some flexibility past six months, in certain locations.

It appears the USA in front of Wal Mart in Brigham City, UT is still operating, as USA.

If Wal Mart was a more nimble operation you would have thought they would have just assumed operations of these gas stations and operated them as their own. The lease agreement called for 7-Eleven to demolish the stations if they left and return them to vacant lot form (remove the tanks and everything) but how hard would it have been for Wal Mart to just say- you leave, we take the gas station and open as Wal Mart fuel? Maybe too hard- the USAs all had Gilbarco pumps; Wal Mart uses exclusively Wayne pumps. The Wal Mart stations typically have a small walk in store; the USAs were mostly walk up kiosks.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by wnetmacman »

storewanderer wrote: May 6th, 2022, 9:58 am If Wal Mart was a more nimble operation you would have thought they would have just assumed operations of these gas stations and operated them as their own. The lease agreement called for 7-Eleven to demolish the stations if they left and return them to vacant lot form (remove the tanks and everything) but how hard would it have been for Wal Mart to just say- you leave, we take the gas station and open as Wal Mart fuel? Maybe too hard- the USAs all had Gilbarco pumps; Wal Mart uses exclusively Wayne pumps. The Wal Mart stations typically have a small walk in store; the USAs were mostly walk up kiosks.
It may be more complicated than that....

Usually when any petroleum marketer has a lease, it's an exclusive one, meaning if they can't operate on the property, nobody else can. Those leases are pretty ironclad. That's probably why they are being removed.
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Re: Walmart observations

Post by Alpha8472 »

Walmart does not seem interested in gas stations as much these days.

There is a Sam's Club in Concord, California that was built without a gas station. Even though there is a Costco in the same city, Sam's Club never opened up a gas station. This put Sam's Club at a disadvantage. The Costco does tons of business, but Sam's Club is empty of customers. There is no Target or Walmart in this city. So this city only has Costco or Sam's Club to choose from. Adding a gas station would drastically increase sales at Sam's Club. I did not renew my membership at Sam's Club due to the lack of gas.

Right now Walmart is advertising gas discounts at Exxon and Mobil if you have a Walmart Plus membership. Walmart wants to attract customers by offering gas discounts. It is just that the discounts for gas are not at Walmart gas stations.

You pay for gas through the Walmart app when you are at Exxon or Mobil. You get ten cents off per gallon.
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