Walmart 2023 Closings

[Romr123]

Couple of things about the Walmart closing in Overland Park, KS. This store at 103/Metcalf actually dates back to Safeway/Food Barn--was probably built along with the strip center in the very early '80s and was essentially the furthest south they operated in Johnson County at the time (Olathe excluded). Metcalf is a major n/s route (4 lanes either direction) and this store wasn't terribly convenient for n/s access (off 103rd it was fine). The last Safeway/Food Barn was built further south at 119/Metcalf in 1988 anchoring a pretty big strip center, with the first Kentucky Fried Chicken/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell in the out-lot facing Metcalf.

Metcalf south between 103rd and 435 was always a weird set of developments with kind of odd landlords with awkward but big spaces (like the Oriental Rug sellers, the Patio furniture/pool table store, Toys R Us, Office Depot...the kind of place back in the day the S&H Green Stamp store would locate etc etc etc). It wasn't really a shopping destination--you went there for specific items or specific restaurants. Exactly the kind of spot WM would have put a store 20 years or so ago.

The years haven't made it any more convenient, and 103rd for about a mile each side of Metcalf isn't heavily developed with residential (as I recall more city parks/golf courses, some multifamily).

The WMNM location 2 miles north is in a more central, more convenient location (closer to downtown Overland Park, Kansas off 91st street) so is denser, easier accessed, and altogether better. Believe it was in an old Service Merchandise or some other non-food retailer (as the development was in the very early 90s centered on a big new-build Schnucks on the grounds of the Glenwood Theatre).

[ClownLoach]

Here we go again... The Sam's Club in Grapevine, TX that was destroyed by a tornado last year was being rebuilt, but today it is being reported that the store has been permanently closed as part of Sam's "growth strategy." Translation: all the surrounding stores have been running double digit comp sales increases, which would turn into double digit negative comps after the store reopened. They're probably satisfied with how the other local stores are doing now and decided to just forget about reopening. The employees apparently were all split up and sent to other surrounding clubs. My guess is that it will just become another e-commerce facility for them once rebuilt, that way they don't have to account for any changes in comp sales and basically allow that comp sales figure to benefit from this act of God. I'm going to go out and guess that the entire Walmart corporate bonus structure is predominantly based on comp sales increases, which in turn encourages the leadership to make boneheaded decisions that waste tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to get a larger annual check.

Sam's Club has announced today that the Grapevine, TX location will be reopened in late 2024. They posted a social media video nationally about it, filmed with a Santa Claus actor in front of the boarded up, tornado destroyed store.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Two Walmart closures in San Diego County:

2121 Imperial Ave, San Diego
605 Fletcher Pkwy, El Cajon

Imperial Ave store (Neighborhood Market) is in Logan Heights. Fletcher Pkwy store (Div 1) is in the Parkway Plaza mall. I suspect both closures are theft related.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/bu ... ego-stores

[storewanderer]

Two Walmart closures in San Diego County:

2121 Imperial Ave, San Diego
605 Fletcher Pkwy, El Cajon

Imperial Ave store (Neighborhood Market) is in Logan Heights. Fletcher Pkwy store (Div 1) is in the Parkway Plaza mall. I suspect both closures are theft related.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/bu ... ego-stores

"The workers at these two stores — 125 employees in San Diego and 232 in El Cajon — will have the opportunity to relocate to another nearby location."

Those are pretty good employee counts for a neighborhood market and a Div 1 Store...

The article says they could not negotiate leases. Maybe another lowball thing going on.

The Neighborhood Market looks to be 10 minutes by freeway to another Wal Mart property, so this is definitely a market exit of sorts.

[Alpha8472]

The El Cajon Walmart was a mall Walmart. It had 2 levels of shopping and giant shopping cart escalators. It constantly broke down.

There were also elevators which were expensive to maintain.

The mall entrance was very wide. If it were a single door, you could limit grab and run shoplifting. However, this wide entrance was way too wide and you could not stop the frantic free for all.

[ClownLoach]

The El Cajon Walmart was a mall Walmart. It had 2 levels of shopping and giant shopping cart escalators. It constantly broke down.

There were also elevators which were expensive to maintain.

The mall entrance was very wide. If it were a single door, you could limit grab and run shoplifting. However, this wide entrance was way too wide and you could not stop the frantic free for all.

That El Cajon store shows on Google it was open 7am to 7pm? I think that speaks for itself if accurate about the neighborhood, and logistics must have been a nightmare being two stories and a dying mall.

The San Diego store on Imperial, all I can say is look at the 360° street view on Google maps. Everything about it is wrong, no parking, small industrial neighborhood, long distance from the residential high rises.

Both look like they were desperate attempts to expand in San Diego from back when they were in growth at all costs mode in California. This has become Walmart's biggest problem, the fact that they have so many non-prototypes in California which cannot execute Walmart procedures and operations on the expected (low) payroll due to logistical complications, non standard layouts and equipment etc. Go outside of California and pretty much every Walmart is identical, but here no two are even close to the same because they tried so hard to shoehorn these stores into these centers.

Not surprised either is closing, but I would not say this represents any kind of exit from San Diego where they have many very successful stores including a neighborhood market that according to the Intel I received is a million dollar a week store.

[storewanderer]

Quite a drive to the next Wal Mart from either of these closing stores. I go by the "every 10 minutes" model. They do still have stores 10 minutes away though. These two closures leave some holes.

7 PM closing time is something they do with closing stores sometimes. I suspect this was a recent change for the liquidation sale.

Wal Mart needs to get out of these many non-standard prototypes in CA (and wherever else they did them) and seems to be doing so over time. They just do not work for anyone. The only one that sort of kind of works from my perspective as a customer is the 90k square foot Supercenter model; it isn't bad and seems to have what I'd expect it to have. I suspect internally and from a logistics standpoint that 90k square foot Supercenter prototype is also a disaster.

Target is learning the hard way about non-standard prototypes too and it is going to be a very costly, painful lesson for them. It will be a drop in the bucket compared to Canada but it will have far reaching impacts on their company.

[ClownLoach]

Quite a drive to the next Wal Mart from either of these closing stores. I go by the "every 10 minutes" model. They do still have stores 10 minutes away though. These two closures leave some holes.

7 PM closing time is something they do with closing stores sometimes. I suspect this was a recent change for the liquidation sale.

Wal Mart needs to get out of these many non-standard prototypes in CA (and wherever else they did them) and seems to be doing so over time. They just do not work for anyone. The only one that sort of kind of works from my perspective as a customer is the 90k square foot Supercenter model; it isn't bad and seems to have what I'd expect it to have. I suspect internally and from a logistics standpoint that 90k square foot Supercenter prototype is also a disaster.

Target is learning the hard way about non-standard prototypes too and it is going to be a very costly, painful lesson for them. It will be a drop in the bucket compared to Canada but it will have far reaching impacts on their company.

Walmart systems, equipment and processes are engineered to the point where they can normally predict "to the minute" the labor required for every job. These California non-conforming stores have to throw those metrics out the window, and when labor was $10/hr PT they could make it work "well enough" and the higher volumes justified the additional labor. But now that they're paying around $20/hr and the jobs are FT with benefits they can't make it work. To make it worse the fact the stores are so high volume means they actually de-leverage labor expenses, as they have bad logistics and back rooms too small to work efficiently. Product gets touched multiple times before it gets stocked. They would actually be more profitable if the stores lost sales volume in many cases. All this translates to the fact that the Walmart model doesn't scale up, which is a problem considering the competition can make this work including Target.

[storewanderer]

Walmart systems, equipment and processes are engineered to the point where they can normally predict "to the minute" the labor required for every job. These California non-conforming stores have to throw those metrics out the window, and when labor was $10/hr PT they could make it work "well enough" and the higher volumes justified the additional labor. But now that they're paying around $20/hr and the jobs are FT with benefits they can't make it work. To make it worse the fact the stores are so high volume means they actually de-leverage labor expenses, as they have bad logistics and back rooms too small to work efficiently. Product gets touched multiple times before it gets stocked. They would actually be more profitable if the stores lost sales volume in many cases. All this translates to the fact that the Walmart model doesn't scale up, which is a problem considering the competition can make this work including Target.

I think they are better off just accepting their working model and accepting the fact that their model doesn't scale up. Similar to how Costco and Sam's generally accept their model (they need a big giant flat store).

[Alpha8472]

Walmart converted several old stores into Supercenters in the San Jose and Milpitas, California areas. They are tiny and cramped. They are too small to support such crowds. The shopping experience is claustrophobic and it is difficult for employees to restock the store.

Perhaps a better model would be for a non-supercenter with an expanded selection of groceries. Adding a mediocre Deli, Bakery, is not needed. It just takes up space and makes it a mess.