US retail giant Wal-Mart is opening its first small convenience store in Chicago today (27 July) amid hopes of finally cracking the urban US market, Reuters reports.
The new Walmart Express store is located in the city's Chatham neighbourhood, and is less than one-tenth the size of a traditional Wal-Mart supercentre.
Wal-Mart plans to open four more Express outlets in Chicago, as well as three larger stores and two more supercentres.
The retailer tested the Walmart Express format last month in rural parts of Arkansas and North Carolina, and said it was 'very, very pleased' with early results.
Wal-Mart is opening up smaller stores in a bid to reverse two years of declining sales at existing US discount stores, and to win back shoppers on limited budgets, Reuters said.
'I think it's fair to say there's a multibillion dollar growth opportunity in a lot of these cities and Wal-Mart just hasn't had the right format to penetrate,' Natalie Berg, global research director at Planet Retail, told the news agency.
'If they can't get the store economics right then the format really doesn't have a future,' Ms Berg added. 'There's going to be a lot of pressure on keeping costs down.'
