No, this is not a post about litigation between Walmart and Target, and more importantly it is a post that will not mention the topic consuming reporters, bloggers and myself over the past week. This post is about the urban strategies of rural and suburban companies.

From Fast Company:

Walmart and Target may have seemingly saturated the suburbs with locations, but both have struggled to thrive in cities. Now the big-box retailers are radically rethinking the size of their stores. Target announced that it will open its first small-footprint outposts in L.A. and Seattle next year, with plans to push quickly into 12 other cities. Walmart, which has experimented with smaller prototypes called Neighborhood Market and grocery-specific Marketside, plans on opening two dozen microstores in San Francisco and 30 to 40 small-format storefronts across the U.S. before the end of 2012. But tailoring scaled-back offerings to diverse neighborhoods while still delivering low prices could prove tough, says Brian Sozzi, retail analyst at Wall Street Strategies. “Logistically, it could be a nightmare,” he says. “But will they undercut mom-and-pop shops? You bet.”

That should be you betcha’…!

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at 1156 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Competitors, Despoilment, Fresh & Easy, Marketside, Mom and Pops, Target, Tesco, Walmart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.