FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. ? The tiny Walmart Express on the campus of the University of Arkansas stocks mainly what appeals to college students: candy, frozen pizza and soft drinks, NPR reports. The retailer will be adding as many as 40 Express and midsized grocery stores in 2011.
Walmart?s strategy is two-fold: to compete with dollar stores and drugstores, and to have a presence in smaller shopping areas, such as urban locations. Some new stores will have pharmacies, too.
?The new format will feature an assortment of fresh food, dry grocery, consumables, health and beauty aids, over-the-counter medicines, and limited general merchandise,? said David Tova, Walmart spokesman in a statement.
Some pharmacies are not too concerned. Mel Collier, owner of a drugstore chain, said his pharmacies offer more than just prescriptions. ?We offer the personal service, we have free delivery,? he said. ?We do the things that they're not going to do. We're going to have the personal patient interaction ? and it's just not something Wal-Mart's known for.?
Independent stores should be concerned about Walmart coming to town with its new format. ?If the Wal-Mart initiative is successful, of course, it will have a competitive effect on small urban retailers of less than 20,000 square feet ? of which there are lots of stores, like green grocers,? said Nelson Lichtenstein, who wrote The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.
Lichtenstein added that dollar stores should also be watching the expansion closely. ?Those are the ones that are really cheap. They?re dirty, they?re understaffed, they?re in strip malls,? he said. ?But they're now expanding. This is a function of the terrible economic conditions for many American consumers. And Wal-Mart wants to meet that challenge.?
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