BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Small is big. And big is big, too. It's just a matter of perspective. Supermarket retailers such as Tesco, Wal-Mart and Safeway are opening smaller-format stores, while some convenience retailers such as Kum & Go are building bigger units. In what many industry observers are calling a move to take on Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market convenience/grocery stores, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is preparing to launch its convenience store-sized Marketside retail concept in four cities southeast of Phoenix. And Safeway is joining in with a small-format store called The Market.
Last year, Wal-Mart's British supermarket rival Tesco entered the U.S. marketplace, opening Fresh & Easy stores in California, Arizona and Nevada. Tesco is seeking to woo U.S. shoppers with smaller stores that emphasize ready-to-eat meals and fresh produce. Marketside is described as "the neighborhood market for busy people with a taste for fresh and delicious food," according to a Reuters report.
Wal-Mart is now hiring store managers to work at Marketside, new smaller-format stores it is preparing to open in Arizona. The company has launched www.workformarketside.com, a website that currently lists job openings for Marketside managers and assistant managers in four Arizona cities. The site says Marketside will "simplify the daily challenge of creating an enjoyable meal by providing inspiring choices, while also offering everyday favorites at great prices in an easy-to-shop environment."
Store application plans call for the stores to occupy roughly 15,000 square feet. That is less than half the average size of Wal-Mart's 134 Neighborhood Market grocery stores, and a small fraction of the size of its 3,400 Supercenters, which combine grocery stores with general merchandise and can be more than three times the size of a football field.
Nick Agarwal, spokesperson for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, said the retailer tests lots of different formats. "We'll no doubt announce more in due course, but not at this stage," he told Reuters.
A story in The Financial Times, citing planning documents, said that Marketside locations will also prepare and serve food, and include a kitchen, food counters and seating for up to nine people.
Wal-Mart said it would pursue a "passion for fresh and delicious food" and "the highest level of customer service" in new small grocery stores that will be competing head-on with Fresh & Easy, according to the Times report. The retailer told the newspaper that Marketside will be "dedicated to helping our customer answer the question 'What's for dinner?'."
But unlike Tesco, Wal-Mart is also planning to prepare and serve food at its in-store delicatessen, a new direction for the retailer that mirrors the approach of more up-market retailers such as Whole Foods Market.
Tesco, based in London with U.S. headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., has opened more than 60 Fresh & Easy stores since November around Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and is currently in the midst of a three-month pause in its rapid rollout, during which it expected to make adjustments to its store presentation and marketing. It has plans to open another 200 stores by the end of 2009.
Also, the independent Fresh & Easy Buzz grocery-industry blog said that Pleasanton, Calif.-based Safeway Stores Inc. held the grand opening of the retailer's first small-format grocery store in Long Beach, Calif., last Thursday. It is the first of a number of the small-format stores, named The Market that Safeway plans to open in California, and elsewhere, said the report.
The Long Beach store incorporates the "Vons" logo along with "The Market" store name in text.
The small-format store is 15,000 square feet. It contains a selection of basic grocery items, fresh foods and fresh, prepared foods.Safeway owns a restaurant named Citrine in Redwood City, Calif. The grocer uses the restaurant and its chefs to create fresh, prepared foods for Safeway's Lifestyle format supermarkets, and now the small-format "The Market" stores, according to the blog.The small-format grocery retailing scene is starting to heat up, Fresh & Easy Buzz said.Meanwhile, c-stores may be headed in the opposite direction. West Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go LC, for example, said recently that it will be focusing on building larger-format locations and has begun divesting smaller units.
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