Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by mjhale »

I was in the Sterling, VA Walmart Supercenter today. The store is located near Dulles Town Center Mall in a large retail area. The store was originally further south off Route 28 at Waxpool Road. They moved to their current location in 2003 to build the first Supercenter in the area. Loudoun County balked at 24 hour operation for several years but finally acquiesced and the store became a Supercenter in 2009. At the time the press releases said the store was 220,000 sq feet. Trust me the place is huge. The store is currently in the process of being remodeled to the current interior and with a store pickup hub thing. What is interesting is that on the GM side of the store they walled off the last six aisles or so in the automotive/hardware area along the back wall which has created a long hallway to get to the auto center. Before the auto center was immediately off the sales floor. They have also walled off an area that is from the hallway to the auto center all the way to the front walkway that goes to the registers or the garden area encompassing floor space that was to the right of the GM action alley. Embedded in this area that is walled off is the new pharmacy. The pharmacy is moving from being adjacent to grocery to the more traditional location on the right side of the store. The walled off area near automotive has no access to the customer and no visible doors for staff to access it. The walled off area to the right of GM action alley is accessible for now as they are using it for clearance merchandise that isn't being sold anymore. None of the mass clearance though that others have described. You can tell this area isn't going to be for customer use long term as there is only a small eight foot wide opening to it and the floors are not finished (lumpy and bumpy) like the rest of the store (polished concrete). Despite all of this I can find no evidence of a store pickup hub as their initial signage about the renovation indicated. The total of the walled in areas has reduced the floor space by probably a quarter or just a bit more. This has left the store kind of cramped in a way it wasn't before. The other smaller purpose built and expanded Supercenters in the area don't feel cramped even though they are in the 120,000-160,000 sq foot size. Has Walmart figured out that these massive 200,000+ sq foot Supercenters just aren't efficient? Is Walmart admitting in a way that they overbuilt in overall floor space across the company? What exactly are they going to do with all this walled off floor space? Certainly it isn't going to sit empty. Maybe it is going to be expanded online order fulfillment or warehouse space after all. Maybe the pickup hub will really be drive up and it is going to be integrated into the garden center or the auto area. I've never seen Walmart downsize a store like this before. Have they done this elsewhere during a remodel or otherwise? Definitely something new from Walmart with this one.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by Alpha8472 »

I have seen some Walmart stores wall off an area and turn it into an online Pickup area with refrigerators and space to store online orders.

I have also seen some Walmart stores use part of the back warehouse to store online pickup orders. They use a door that opens to the outside as a walk up window of sorts for order problems. This way, customers do not need to walk around the entire store and go inside for a pickup problem.

One store turned a large abandoned McDonald's into an online Pickup storage area.

It is better to use the floorspace wisely and not have huge areas where items that do not sell well sit there.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by storewanderer »

There is a Wal Mart in Carson City, NV on Market Street that is currently remodeling and they built what were actually temporary walls (didn't look temporary for the 2 months they were there) over where sports/hardware used to sit. It turned out behind those temporary walls, they were building new walk in refrigerator and new walk in freezer. This was one of the later Supercenters and it is probably about 160k.

The new decor package is interesting. On the grocery side, this decor looks very nice on the walls. Actual cut out letters, real wall letters (not sure I've seen much of that historically in Wal Mart decor). On the general merchandise side they go cheap and go with hanging plastic or paper or something signs for the departments, looks super cheap, compared to how the grocery side looks. Granted what they did in grocery is certainly cheap too, but it looks quite good.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by jipper »

Interesting updates. Our Walmart Neighborhood Market has a real problem with filling online orders - there is really no space to put the pickers' trolleys, so they line them up in the dog food aisle at the back of the store. If you want something from the shelves behind the carts, either you get some help or squeeze through. It is truly an inconvenient set up, at least if you need dog food.

Meanwhile, the Supercenter got an extension of its own for their online order pick up HQ. No trolleys lined up there.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by architect »

mjhale wrote: September 5th, 2022, 9:39 pm I was in the Sterling, VA Walmart Supercenter today. The store is located near Dulles Town Center Mall in a large retail area. The store was originally further south off Route 28 at Waxpool Road. They moved to their current location in 2003 to build the first Supercenter in the area. Loudoun County balked at 24 hour operation for several years but finally acquiesced and the store became a Supercenter in 2009. At the time the press releases said the store was 220,000 sq feet. Trust me the place is huge. The store is currently in the process of being remodeled to the current interior and with a store pickup hub thing. What is interesting is that on the GM side of the store they walled off the last six aisles or so in the automotive/hardware area along the back wall which has created a long hallway to get to the auto center. Before the auto center was immediately off the sales floor. They have also walled off an area that is from the hallway to the auto center all the way to the front walkway that goes to the registers or the garden area encompassing floor space that was to the right of the GM action alley. Embedded in this area that is walled off is the new pharmacy. The pharmacy is moving from being adjacent to grocery to the more traditional location on the right side of the store. The walled off area near automotive has no access to the customer and no visible doors for staff to access it. The walled off area to the right of GM action alley is accessible for now as they are using it for clearance merchandise that isn't being sold anymore. None of the mass clearance though that others have described. You can tell this area isn't going to be for customer use long term as there is only a small eight foot wide opening to it and the floors are not finished (lumpy and bumpy) like the rest of the store (polished concrete). Despite all of this I can find no evidence of a store pickup hub as their initial signage about the renovation indicated. The total of the walled in areas has reduced the floor space by probably a quarter or just a bit more. This has left the store kind of cramped in a way it wasn't before. The other smaller purpose built and expanded Supercenters in the area don't feel cramped even though they are in the 120,000-160,000 sq foot size. Has Walmart figured out that these massive 200,000+ sq foot Supercenters just aren't efficient? Is Walmart admitting in a way that they overbuilt in overall floor space across the company? What exactly are they going to do with all this walled off floor space? Certainly it isn't going to sit empty. Maybe it is going to be expanded online order fulfillment or warehouse space after all. Maybe the pickup hub will really be drive up and it is going to be integrated into the garden center or the auto area. I've never seen Walmart downsize a store like this before. Have they done this elsewhere during a remodel or otherwise? Definitely something new from Walmart with this one.
I have seen this at numerous Supercenter stores in the DFW area, including multiple locations in Plano along with one in Grapevine. For the most part, it appears that the downsizing is resulting in the dropping of some departments (sewing and crafts), and the downsizing of others (sporting goods, hardware, etc.). For the most part, it appears the locations selected for this downsizing are one of two extremes, either lower-volume with space to give or in locations where the store in question is the only store within an immediate area (such as the aforementioned Grapevine store), necessitating online fulfillment capacity.

Interestingly, Walmart is not the only retailer in the area taking this approach. Albertsons recently renovated a large Tom Thumb in Plano, blocking off approximately 1/3 of the store for a fulfillment center. Additionally, HEB's upcoming Plano store features a large fulfillment center which is essentially a separate box from the store itself.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by BatteryMill »

Mediocre for Walmart to completely cut out certain departments and dedicate a decent chunk of the salesfloor to online pickup. I mean sure, a dedicated area is necessary for such an operation (and in today's retail world), but does anyone think it'll attain enough volume to serve its purpose? I'm not a fan of the online age for cutting into, and molding physical retail space.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by buckguy »

Walmart’s model always has seemed to be built on volume, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they are dropping or downsizing low volume departments, especially those where they compete with relatively healthy big boxes with wider selections. As more of their volume shifts online, they’ll be looking for ways to increase fulfillment in their stores.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: September 6th, 2022, 1:14 pm Mediocre for Walmart to completely cut out certain departments and dedicate a decent chunk of the salesfloor to online pickup. I mean sure, a dedicated area is necessary for such an operation (and in today's retail world), but does anyone think it'll attain enough volume to serve its purpose? I'm not a fan of the online age for cutting into, and molding physical retail space.
Clothing is being noticeably downsized in these remodels. Not only is it losing space, but the space it is keeping, is being configured in a way to display less product.

To give an example in many Wal Marts there is basically a, let's call it, large front to back square area of the store that contained all of clothing, shoes, baby/kids, baby consumables, and part of electronics. This "square" area is being reconfigured to also house pets and fabric/crafts. Basically baby and baby consumables is being pushed into the "middle" (cuts into what was kids clothes, which cuts into what was men's clothes; men's clothes seems to be getting hacked severely, also of course jewelry is severely downsized).
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by Alpha8472 »

I passed by a local Walmart in the San Francisco Bay Area last night and there was so much clothing on clearance that it was clogging the aisles and taking up much of the Men's department. It seemed like most of it was Women's and Children's clothing. There is way too much clothing. People are not spending on clothes like they used to.

The other store that I mentioned earlier created an online Pickup storage area with walls and refrigerators out of much of the Men's Department. The Men's Department is much smaller now. They got rid of the sports teams merchandise. The store is not a Supercenter, but it has lots of groceries being stored for online Pickup.
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Re: Walmart Downsizing Stores?

Post by buckguy »

Men’s clothing is less profitable than women’s but should be something that does well for Walmart because men’s clothes are less subject to periodic changes in fashion which means fewer opportunities for making purchasing mistakes. It’s more a matter of having things in season in the right sizes and keeping basics like socks and underwear in stock.

Relying on food means they keep volume in bad times, but at the expense of of profits because the markups are lower and they have equipment and rotation to manage. Food, along with the smaller markets give them a fall back when other areas of their business aren’t doing well but in the long run it’s part of why they are overall stagnating and have for quite awhile.
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