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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
Since Wal-Mart's purchase of the British Asda supermarket chain in the summer of 1999 the British media have generally portrayed Wal-Mart as if it were a supermarket chain. This is quite wrong. Wal-Mart and the other discount department stores mentioned on this page have numerous departments including clothes, shoes, electronics, books, DIY, automotive (car parts, etc), opticians, pharmacy, household items, kitchen appliances, toys, sporting goods and garden equipment. Most chains, including Wal-Mart, have a non-perishable food department selling items with reasonably long shelf-lives and which do not require refrigeration, such as cookies (biscuits), candy (sweets), snacks and soft drinks, but no vegetables or meat. The food department forms one small part of each store, I would judge no more than ten percent of the floor area. Each store often also contains a cafeteria or small McDonald's.
However, in April 2001 we found several large Wal-Mart stores with supermarket-like perishable food departments, including fresh vegetables and frozen food. This department occupied perhaps fifteen to twenty percent of the total floor area of each store and these stores had all the usual departments as well. According to an article in USA Today in June 2002, Wal-Mart has been rapidly increasing the number of its stores which offer a full supermarket section, to the extent that it is now the biggest selling grocery chain in the USA.
The following diagram shows the layout of a typical Wal-Mart store which does not have a full supermarket section. This diagram is very general. Even within the same chain not all stores have the same layout. This diagram omits many smaller departments. The layout of the stores of the other similar chains such as K-Mart and ShopKo tends to be very similar.
Visitors from Britain may wish to travel out with the minimum of clothes and buy what else they need while on holiday since prices tend to be considerably lower in the USA than in Britain. Clothing sizes are different in the USA to Britain.
Shopping malls are also worth a look but can be more expensive. In terms of the type of shops they contain, shopping malls tend to be very much the same the world over.
The discount club warehouse chains such as CostCo and Sam's Club are probably of little interest to a visitor from the UK on holiday since you need to become a member in order to make purchases and items are sold in bulk. Sam's Club is part of the Wal-Mart empire.
Factory Outlets claim to sell items at discount prices but their ranges are restricted to the very expensive "designer" brands, only of interest to the most gullible of consumers in my humble opinion.
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Most recently modified 11-Jun-02