Walmart launches sleek new store designs to attract more footfall

Walmart is bringing in a new strategy to bring in shoppers. The multinational retail corporation, which is known for its low-priced groceries, has now turned five of its SuperCenters into flagship stores after remodelling. The new features of the store include brighter lights, pet supplies, colourful displays of makeup and more. Walmart’s new look is a part of its effort to sell more discretionary items, including jeans, baby strollers, and lipstick. These items have a higher profit margin than groceries, as mentioned in a report by CNBC. Last summer, Walmart tested the sleeker model at one of its big-box stores in Springdale, Arkansas.

All of Walmart’s flagship stores have been launched in the last three months- in North Bergen and Teterboro in New Jersey, Quakertown in Pennsylvania, Yaphank in New York and Hodgkins in Illinois. A remodelled store in Secaucus, New Jersey, is scheduled to debut next month. The retailer is remodelling its outlets, and copying some store features of its rival Target Corporation.

The retailer firm has remodelled around 500 stores in the United States as of the third quarter, which ended 31 October. It did nearly 600 remodels last fiscal year. The move comes when more high-income households are shopping at the retail giant. According to Walmart Chief Financial Officer (CFO), John David Rainey, 75 percent of the company’s market share gains in food have come from households that earn more than $100,000 annually.

The company anticipates that the same-store sales are going to be higher in the US but profit margins will be lower as shoppers purchase more food and less discretionary items. But according to a CNBC report, Walmart’s snazzier look is winning over converts, according to data from analytics firm Placer.ai, which takes anonymized data from mobile devices to estimate overall visits to any location.

Visits to the Walmart store in Springdale, Arkansas, which was the original prototype for the remodelled store, have increased more than what an average Walmart or Target location gets. In the fourth quarter, the outlet received 31.2 percent more visits than the average Walmart received during the same period. It received 66.6 percent more footfall than the average Target store during that time.

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