BENTONVILLE - Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s first standalone convenience store, which opened quietly last weekend just down the street from the retailer’s world headquarters, looks like a convenience store in front but feels more like a Wal-Mart inside.
Customers can get gasoline at one of eight pumps, all covered by a single white canopy inset with several lighted yellow Wal-Mart “spark” logos.A covered walkway leads customers into the store, where they can buy routine convenience-store and staple items - candy, sodas, beer, milk and bread - plus made-to-order meal items and meals from a local butcher shop.
The store, dubbed Walmart To Go, also is stocked with fresh fruit, sandwiches, salads, pizza and more, such as soy and almond milk, fresh flowers, 32 flavors of fresh coffee and selections from Ella’s line of organic baby food. The fresh, dry and frozen food sections are considerably larger than what one would find in a traditional convenience store.
The 5,000-square-foot store at 1300 S. Walton Blvd. is being tested in Wal-Mart’s backyard so the retailer can monitor and tweak operations and because “it fills an unmet need right here on this corner,” Wal-Mart spokesman Deisha Barnett said during a grand opening at the store early Wednesday.
“We know every community that we operate in, but we absolutely know this community, and we can more quickly assess what the community might need, what items would be more popular,” Barnett said. Customers who want their food even faster can download Wal-Mart’s Fast To Go app from iTunes to order meals for pickup at the store.
There are no current plans to open any other convenience stores, Barnett added, but “if there is a need for something like this in another community,we’d absolutely consider it.”
The National Association of Convenience Stores’ 2013 State of the Industry Report, based on 2012 data, estimates that it costs about $3.3 million to build, furnish and stock a new convenience store. The price tag is a drop in the bucket for a global retail giant with annual net sales of some $473 billion.
“They care whether or not it makes money, but they don’t need it to,” said Steve Montgomery, president of b2b Solutions LLC, a convenience store consulting firm. “They can experiment with one store. It could operate at a loss forever and it wouldn’t make any difference in their [profit and loss statement].”
Montgomery classified Walmart To Go as “a headquarters store,” more for the benefit of its thousands of Bentonville Wal-Mart employees rather than other customers. The company has supplied a shuttle to take employees to and from the convenience store from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. this week. The store is open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and employs 14 workers.
What differentiates Walmart To Go from other convenience stores is that the world’s largest retailer can leverage its mass buying power to offer considerably lower prices, Barnett said. Prices are the same as those at the supercenter several blocks away, she said.
The price of unleaded gas at Walmart To Go on Wednesday was $3.25, the same as most convenience stores in Bentonville that day.
Inside, prices between stores varied a great deal. A gallon of skim milk was as low as $3.48 at the Wal-Mart store, $4.29 at a nearby Casey’s General Store and $4.99 at the Kum & Go convenience store on Central Avenue near Interstate 540. A pack of Marlboro reds in a box was $5.57 at the Wal-Mart store, $6.66 at Casey’s and $6.45 at Kum & Go.
A 30-pack of Busch beer was $16.28 at the Wal-Mart store $19.99 at Casey’s and $19.49 at Kum & Go. Sodas in all sizes and packages were also considerably less expensive at Walmart To Go.
The Bentonville concept store has about 3,500 different items, which is not unusual for a convenience store, Montgomery said. Wal-Mart’s next largest store is its Express format, which offers about 10,000 different items.
So far, the most popular item in the convenience store has been f’real brand milkshakes, smoothies and frozen cappuccinos, said store manager Kelly Williams. The shake makings are stocked ina stand-alone “blending bar,” and customers make them to their specifications in a dozen different flavors by touching an interactive computer screen. Wal-Mart sells them for $2.50 each.
“We can’t keep them in stock,” Williams said. Customers have been seen carrying out as many as six at a time.
Bentonville Butcher & Deli, directly across the street from the store, is said to be the first vendor to have operated independently inside a Wal-Mart. The butcher shop has a meat counter inside a Neighborhood Market in Fayetteville and inside a market in the vicinity of Pinnacle Country Club.
And now, at Walmart To Go, the business will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a deli counter for selling meats and the like. There’s six or so seats at a stainless steel bar at the front of the glass front store for dining in.
Business, Pages 27 on 03/20/2014