Honey, I Shrunk the Superstore

The Big Box stores are getting smaller:
Best Buy and
Staples both announced this week that they are either shrinking the footprint of new store locations, or will sublet space in existing stores. This follows last week’s announcement that both Walmart and Target are testing out ”
small box” stores as a way to open in cities where “big box” stores have been banned.

While pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS are expanding their store sizes, store size shrinkage seems to be a lot more common. Up in my neighborhood, for example, the Stop & Shop chain removed “Super” from its moniker and is opening grocery stores that are about 40% smaller than existing ones.

And a Staples around the corner from me downsized by about 5,000-sq.-ft. about five years ago. Even a Best Buy the next town over that opened last decade went into a smaller-than-supersize location and merchandised it based on local customers’ buying patterns.

But with ecommerce and mobile commerce making such a big dent in overall sales, it makes sense that the superstores are shrinking. I have a nephew who works for a wireless vendor out of a Best Buy store in Texas, and he tells me customers walk in, compare prices on their iPads and iPhones, and make a purchase at Amazon.com. It’s happening there, it’s happening everywhere.