Store visits

Walmart’s recently opened Neighborhood Market in Chicago demonstrates the retailer’s latest thinking in terms of smaller format development focused on the needs of urban shoppers. With a high degree of local relevancy, the product and service offer has been designed to capitalise on the immediate residential population and city workers.

This is Booths’ first metropolitan store, adding a range of special services to target the office workers of MediaCity, alongside the retailer’s traditional strengths in premium retailing.

Kensington High Street was first store to be remodelled as part of M&S’s £600m investment programme, designed to create a more inspiring and easier to shop store experience. We assess the improvements made to the new style food hall.

Rewe Center in Munich is REWE Group’s blueprint for all future stores in the Rewe Center format. The retailer experiments with colours, shapes and visual fixtures and offers innovative retail theatre and an upmarket shopping experience.

We visit one of Albert Heijn's largest stores in the Netherlands, which excels with its store layout, in-store communication, private label offering and non-food.

Brazil’s drugstore sector is growing fast, with the consumer boom feeding the appetite for branded goods. We visited a leading player, Droga Raia, that is expanding organically and through acquisition to increase share.

We recently visited the new Tesco Extra store in Dudley, West Midlands. The new store showcases many interesting new features, including an impressive health and beauty department. The store takes global hypermarket evolution one step further.

We visited this Delhaize supermarket, located in the affluent Belgian town of Brasschaat, in August 2011. With a number of other retailers in the area providing strong competition, the store has made clear efforts to adapt itself to the local market.

In August 2011, IGD was invited to see the Delhaize City format in action. We visited a store located in the heart of Brussels with a number of categories aimed at attracting urban consumers, including an impressive food-to-go offer.

We recently visited Albert Heijn in Brasschaat, Ahold’s first store to open in Belgium, to examine how it compares to local competitors and what features have been adapted to fit the market.