Wal-Mart announced this week that it will begin developing aggressively its “Neighborhood Market” store in areas between Supercenters.  Neighborhood Markets have been around for over ten years but exist in only a few locations. This footprint is 42,000 square feet, about 25% the size of a Supercenter.

One news article speculated that the smaller format would enable Wal-mart to penetrate urban markets and places where the political winds have historically been unfavorable to Wal-Mart.  This is good guess, but off the mark.

The difference between a “regular” Wal-mart and a Supercenter is, essentially, groceries.  The Neighborhood Market is closer to a “grocery story plus” than to a general merchandise store.  The critical distinction is that grocery stores serve rooftops within much smaller radii than a general merchandise store.  Accordingly, Wal-Mart can fill in the gaps between Supercenters with Neighborhood Markets where the primary stock is food.

Would it also enable Wal-mart to penetrate those areas of historic Wal-Mart hostility?  Possibly.

In a previous post (Wal-mart vs. History) I commented that Wal-Mart’s attempt to place a store either in or near Virginia’s Wilderness Battlefield would very likely have been received differently if the name “Wal-Mart” had been replaced with the name of another large box retailer of equal size, such as Target.  Wal-Mart is its own lightening rod.

My guess is that there are some places Neighborhood Markets won’t get the rezoning green light simply because the local populace knows they are owned by Wal-mart.  Opposition will solidify around ownership, but the arguments will be couched in terms of traffic, crime and noise.