Wal-Mart hits So. Calif

Discount Store News, August 20, 1990 by Pamela Meek

Wal-Mart Hits So. Calif.

LANCASTER, Calif. - Wal-Mart staked its claim to the lucrative Southern California retail market this month with its first store here in the Golden State.

The new Wal-Mart, located in this high desert community some 65 miles north of Los Angeles, is the first in a wave of six or seven announced California stores slated to open this year. Company sources told DSN the chain expects to have at least 40 stores in the state by year-end 1991.

"There is an unbelievable opportunity here in this state for the company," Wal-Mart president and ceo David Glass told the opening day crowd, which included a large corporate staff contingent and about 50 vendors.

Prior to the opening ceremony Glass told DSN: "This is a very competitive area here. We are going to have earn our spurs." He said California's long-term potential for WalMart "really depends on what happens in the state."

Glass and other company executives said it is WalMart's attention to customer service that will provide it with a niche in the market.

Officially opened Aug. 1, the Lancaster store represents one of 27 Wal-Mart locations opened during the month. The claim is now just short of 1,500 locations, and by mid-November some 1,542 stores should be in operation.

Regional vp Lew Skelton said the Lancaster store, like many of the new locations, is above the company average, at 116,000 square feet.

In keeping with Wal-Mart tradition, very little advertising was done for the opening of the Lancaster store. Just a special grand opening wrapper around the normal monthly circular was used, according to store manager Bob Shew.

The store did receive, however, heavy local and regional press coverage. Shew said the publicity, along with word of mouth and the familiarity of Wal-Mart among some residents, will help drive the store's business. "People just love Wal-Mart. If we do a good job, the people will keep coming back," he noted.

Initial customer reaction to Wal-Mart was indeed positive. "I think it's great," noted one customer, who said he and his wife both found Wal-Mart's product quality and employee courtesy superior to other discounters.

Another shopper also sang Wal-Mart's praises, and said she was familiar with the chain because her daughter always returned home from trips to Kentucky with bagloads of Wal-Mart merchandise.

Glass said the Lancaster store, like all locations opened by the chin, features some minor area-specific merchandising changes. The company spent considerable time studying the market's needs, Glass said, however he conceded that they are bound to "make a lot of mistakes out here" initially.

Lancaster's assistant store manager Rob Hammond said the "fashion design in apparel is a lot deeper" than normal for both men's and women's. He said the garden center is also merchandised for the area's warm temperature and high desert terrain.

Because California has stricter codes on some paint sku's, the chain had existing vendors supply he store with the necessary environmentally accepted products, according to Celia Blancq, assistant store manager at Wal-Mart's Gretna, La., store. In Lancaster to help set up the store, Blancq said merchandising for the first California location also took into account the market's taste for paint colors, wallpaper designs and dried flowers.

New Pharmacy Prototype

The Lancaster store also features a new pharmacy prototype for Wal-Mart, which now has over 1,000 company-operated pharmacies in operation. The slightly larger department has more room for OTC, vitamins, incontinents and it also provides customers with a better access to the pharmacists.

Wal-Mart's distribution center in Texas is serving the Lancaster store until the company's new DC in Loveland, Colo., opens later this year. However, because of the growth planned for California, Bob Kahn, a member of Wal-Mart's board of directors, said the chain will probably open a distribution center in the central California town of Porterville next year.

Lancaster and nearby Palmdale - which together make up the Antelope Valley - have seen significant growth in the past few years as many onetime Los Angeles residents have looked to the area's cheaper housing market.

Although it takes nearly two hours by car during rush hour to reach downtown Los Angeles, many of the high deset's resident's do indeed work in the major metropolitan area. However, many Antelope Valley residents want to avoid this long drive, Hammond said, so Wal-Mart was able to hire locals fairly easily to staff the store.

Just as the Antelope Valley's population has grown, so too have the number of new retailers. Although some typical neighborhood strip centers have opened in the area, Wal-Mart opted to open its first store in a power center. In addition to the discounter, the center features Costco, Home Club, Circuit City, Marshalls and Food for Less.