Preoccupations: A Big-Box Store Can Have a Sense of Community, Too

The average grocery store in the U.S. measures under 50,000 square feet. Home Depots average about 100,000 square feet, and the typical Costco or Walmart Supercenter—generally considered the biggest of all big box retailers—runs 100,000 to 150,000 square feet. But a new breed of home improvement store in the Midwest blows them all away. Menards, a Wisconsin-based home improvement chain founded in 1958, has been introducing a new store model throughout the Midwest that measures well over 200,000 square feet.

(Ninja M.)

Add Best Buy to the growing list of retailers turning to smaller stores to boost slumping sales.

(eviloars and frankieleon)

The original Borders store opened 40 years ago in Ann Arbor, Michigan as an independent bookseller, and after today its flagship two-story, 37,000-square-

The street has been lauding Rona Inc.’s board for successfully wooing grocery turnaround veteran Robert Sawyer to helm the wayward home improvement retailer, but one analyst wonders how the company’s future store strategy will fare outside of Quebec. Mr. Sawyer “is a man of action, focused on execution,” said retail analyst Keith Howlett of Desjardins Securities in a note to clients, questioning how the ex-Metro Inc. chief operating officer will handle a critical pillar of Rona’s future strategy, the rollout of urban “proximity” stores.

Remember how big-box stores with all their wide-open spaces and gleaming aisles of brand-name merchandise stacked to the ceiling wiped out the little guys in the past 15 years? How these predatory “category killers” and their triple whammy of competing on price, selection and service decided who died, survived or thrived in Canada’s retail industry? Well, it appears consumers are rethinking their love affair with these giant outlets. In fact, the business of retail in Canada is in such a state of upheaval that scale and price matching no longer guarantee success.

More than 20 years after leaving college because she ran out of money, the writer earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology.