January 14, 2008 – Business Management Article

Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, will open small-format grocery stores named ‘Marketside’. These stores to be set up in Arizona will be roughly 20,000 square feet in size to begin with. This in comparison to Neighborhood Markets, Wal-Mart’s existing stores which are almost double in size. Neighborhood markets sell fresh produce and other groceries and are much smaller than a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Wal-Mart’s Marketside stores (smaller Neighborhood Markets) will compete with competitor and British retailer Tesco. Tesco recently entered in the U.S. retail market setting up ‘Fresh & Easy’ markets. Some of the Marketside stores Wal-Mart plans to open are quite close to where Tesco is planning its grocery stores.

Wal-Mart’s ‘Marketside’ logo

Wal-Mart entered the grocery market in 1988. Since then Wal-Mart has grown into being the single largest grocer in the U.S. and has a market share of around 20 per cent. Wal-Mart’s new Marketside stores are the first new store banner to be used by Wal-Mart in the US in two decades.

Wal-Mart has unveiled its logo for Marketside, its new store format to take on UK’s Tesco’s new small-format Fresh & Easy discount grocery stores. Wal-Mart though says that the stores represent just another variation on its existing neighborhood market format.

Reports suggest that Wal-Mart’s Marketside logo includes lower-case green lettering, next to a stacked pile of pile of fresh food items – a fancy tomato, egg and grape.

Related Reading:

Retailing, Tesco, Wal-mart. Marketside logo