Firstly, more than half of Walmart’s revenue comes from groceries.
Secondly, before Walmart started selling groceries, it was a discount store–its roots are very firmly in the old “five and dime” category.
Department stores are places like JC Penney’s, Macey’s, etc.
Most of our Walmarts devote a tiny fraction of their store to groceries. It’s like an afterthought. We do get groceries there but it’s very infrequent. When I go to Walmart, I’m almost always looking for something not at all food-related.
It’s a store with different departments; furniture, clothes, auto, garden, toys, tools, paint, electronics, appliances, pets (we bought a fish and a tank for our daughter there once).
It’s a department store.
When Walmart first appeared in my area, this is what it looked like—a Walmart Discount Store. Wikipedia says that " At its peak in 1996, there were 1,995 Walmart Discount Stores,[151] but as of July 31, 2022, that number was dropped to 367.[2][3]"
All the Walmarts that I have seen lately have been Walmart Supercenters, with a full-size grocery section. " As of July 31, 2022, there were 3,572 Walmart Supercenters in 49 of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.[2][3]" (So, there are currently almost 10 times as many of these as of the kind you’re apparently familiar with.)
As for Walmart being a “department store”: Wikipedia says:
The term “department store” predates these kinds of discount superstores, so they’re not what most people think of when you say “department store.”
ETA I would add that a store like Walmart sells many different kinds of merchandise, in different areas of the store, but I don’t know whether they’re formally organized into different “departments,” labeled as such, as much as a traditional department store would be. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a traditional department store.
Contrarian theory: Grocery stores have a stressful job, and like to unwind on the weekend by robbing gas stations.
Officer: Did you see who did it?
Individual #1: Yes. I think it was the one they call… Kroger. AKA Kwickie Mart Community Grocers… AKA Econofoods… AKA The Sticky Icky Icky…
It’s complicated.
In many parts of the country Walmart is the biggest “grocery store” in terms of food sold.
Also in many parts of the country all or almost all Walmarts are supercenters, even if they do not say “Supercenter” on the building. It means they have the equivalent of an entire conventional grocery store embedded in the store. There are over 4000 stores that Walmart internally classifies as Supercenters and only ~400 that are Discount Stores (the OG Walmart) and another ~400 that are neighborhood markets (basically just a grocery store).
There are other parts of the country where the predominant format is still the discount store, but that is a shrinking footprint.
In much of the country grocery stores price “against” Walmart as ONE of the reference points. For example Randalls and HEB in Austin TX will price against both Walmart and each other. Neither will be, on average, as cheap as Walmart on food, and certainly not on paper, cleaning, etc. Note that I do not have any specific knowledge of these chains. I chose them specifically because I don’t. My experience is with other geographies and companies.
For the vast majority of the US population there are 2, 3 or more grocery stores closer to home than the nearest Walmart Supercenter. That convenience will support quite a price disadvantage in its own, and on top of that many grocery stores have a quality perception and/or reality on fresh food that will support an even larger differential.
The JCPenney I remember didn’t seem any more divided than the local Walmart. And the intercom would sometimes talk about various departments. The electronics department and jewelry department were the most sectioned off, having specific staff and a checkout. (So does the pharmacy, but you have to buy stuff in that section, so I consider it more like the extra stores.)
The discount stores I consider to be more like Dollar General or such, with a deliberately limited selection. Walmart is more a department store that advertises based on price.
They are, in the sense that the different areas are labeled as such.
I’m only talking about the stores I shop at (Auburn and Covington, south of Seattle).
Yes, the Kroger Marketplace stores in Dayton are good. But Kroger is headquarter in Cincinnati, not Dayton.
Around here, Kroger goes by Harris-Teeter. I think in California, it goes by Ralph’s.
These are all local chains that Kroger absorbed and kept the local branding for.
Macy’s/Bloomingdale’s used to do this too. In Cincinnati, it was Shillito’s. In Dayton, it was Rike-Kumler. In Columbus, it was Lazarus, etc. At some point they started combining branding and then got rid of local branding altogether.
Walmart and Target are discount stores, not department stores. Target’s original parent company, Dayton Hudson, was a department store. Department stores are places like Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, J.C. Penney, Lord and Taylor, etc.
I consider Target a department store (as I would KMart, Venture, Zayre of olden days), and Wikipedia characterizes it as a big box department store, so that’s good enough for me.
Actually those are called hypermarkets.
It is a department store and a grocery store together.
Isn’t that more a European term? I’ve only heard it in that context with places like Tesco and Auchan. From what I’ve seen of hypermarkets, Walmart could qualify, as well as a local place like Meijer. My Target’s grocery section isn’t anywhere near extensive enough to be a full-fledged grocery store, so I wouldn’t consider it a hypermarket. Super Targets (do those still exist?) would.
I don’t think so, since the examples of hypermarkets are American stores and Fred Meyer is considered to be the original one.
The term itself does derive from the French hypermarché, but it was describing a type of store that had been around for decades and originally appeared in the US.
Well, my first experience with such a term was with “Hypermart”, which was a Wal-Mart offshoot in the late 80s. Pretty much it was an excessive version of the Wal-Mart grocery store hybrids you get now. It was basically a Wal-Mart (of the time) and a grocery store all under one roof with a bunch of other establishments, as well (fast food, eyeglasses, pharmacy, etc.). Surprisingly, that offshoot didn’t last very long, but lots of its elements were blended into variations of the Wal-Mart theme.
As far as “department store” goes, one difference is obvious to customers - in an old- style department store like Macy’s , you do not fill up a shopping cart and get on line in a central area after you have finished all of your shopping. There are cashiers located in different departments although you might not have to pay for items in the department where you got them ( or you might have to)
The first time I went into a Walmart in Topeka KS of all places I thought it was the equivalent of the Price Club (now Costco) without the bulk packaging and membership requirement. They had tires & batteries, an optician and several eateries.
Next time I saw a Walmart it was just a regular discount store. 35 years ago they were trying all kinds of variations. Seems like they are headed for Walmart Supercenter as the backbone of the US business.
Right, that is what growing up and most of my life I understood as a “department store” (back home, “tienda por departamentos”) – you shopped department by department. And you may have actual dedicated salespeople for (at least some of) the departments e.g. makeup/perfumes, menswear, shoes, etc.
Knowing Kroger and Safeway, I feel it’s safe to say they are well-poised to capitalize on their respective core incompetencies.
Whatever you may think of them as a customer, in the industry Kroger are seen as the gold standard in mid-market grocery chains. Their financial performance over the last 5-10 years is pretty spectacular.
Albertsons a lot less so. They’ve had a lot of chopping and changing in strategy and generally inconsistent execution.
I think Kroger Marketplace and Harris Teeter are pretty great. Safeway can be a roll of the dice. Some Safeways are very run down and not very clean.