Walmart opens smaller footprint store, plans expansion

Walmart opens smaller footprint store, plans expansion
Tags: Store Design & Layout, Supermarkets & Grocery Stores
June 5, 2011

According to ABC News, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has opened a small, drugstore-sized store in Gentry, Ark., demonstrating its plans for smaller locations.

The Walmart Express store is less than one-tenth the size of the super centers. The company is testing the smaller store prototype for use in rural and urban markets, with a Walmart Express scheduled to open in Chicago later in the summer.

If the test is successful, the company plans to open about 350 per year throughout the United States, a pace similar to its opening rate of the super centers in 2005 and 2006.