ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

Ten years ago Walmart superstores opened everywhere.  Over the past three years, Target stores added groceries to their already large product assortment.  Best Buy became the ultimate electronics store stocking everything from TVs to electric scooters.  The theme? Large stores offering anything a consumer might want in a single location and on every street corner.

These giant superstores were not only opening in major metropolitans, but expanding into smaller cities and towns.   The big-box stores began threatening mom and pop shops, leading to an outcry in communities about the economic impact a huge retailer such as Walmart creates in their cities.  The reasons were numerous including the threat to the local business community, as well as Walmart’s notorious reputation in regards to overall employee welfare.

After years of growth, the retail landscape is in the midst of major change. In March 2011, Walmart announced plans to open hundreds of “Express” stores in both rural and urban communities.  The new stores are expected to tailor their product offerings to the local markets.   Walmart Express stores will be approximately 15,000 square-feet compared to the company’s superstores, which average 108,000 square feet!  The company hopes to open these stores in key markets such as New York, San Diego, and Washington D.C.

Other retailers including Target, Office Depot, and Best Buy announced plans to introduce smaller store formats.  Target will call its new stores CityTarget and will offer food, fashion, and apartment essentials.  Like Walmart, Target’s goal is to offer a more urban-friendly store format.

Office Depot, whose stock value has struggled, plans to regain strength by listening to customer complaints about difficult shopping experiences and lack of sales help.  The office supplier will open new stores that have smaller formats and will offer the chains’s best-selling products, emphasize printing and copy services, and technology.

Best Buy, the US’ largest electronics chain, plans to open 150 smaller stores by the end of the year.  Best Buy’s main objective: to focus on more profitable and fast growing categories such as tablets and smart phones.

The main point of all of this is that less may be more these days when it comes to retail.  Consumers don’t necessarily want to walk through a gigantic superstore to pick up a few items.  The continuing growth of the e-commerce channel and its more than abundant breadth of products have only increased the speed of this transition.  The choices and selection in stores may have possibly reached a point of too much.

Medialine launches the i7AN-G, the latest in its line of Android-powered tablets.

This model comes in a portable 7" format, bridging the line between smartphones and tablets further by allowing users to do phone calls by using their current SIM card.

It carries a dual-core 1Ghz processor, complete with 3D hardware acceleration, while the 1024 x 600 resolution 7" screen uses IPS technology for wide viewing angles. Being a capacitative touchscreen it also handles multitouch input.

The OS is Android 2.2, with Flash 10.1 support-- soon upgradable to version 3.0.

Connections come through 3G and wifi, as well as Bluetooth. Internal storage comes in either 4, 8 or 16GB eMMC memory-- expandable through micro-SD slot to up to 32GB.

The device also includes x2 cameras (2.0M front, 3.2M back) and GPS, and is already available for ordering.

Go Medialine

Discussions on the sale of Maplin end with the potential buyers pulling out, according to The Telegraph-- with a key reason being the retail sales slowdown across the UK.

The newspaper believes a trio of parties was interested in buying Maplin-- Blackstone, CVC Capital Partners and Advent International-- for a sum that could have reached up to £400M.

Maplin owners Montago will now probably hold on to the business for at least another year, in hopes of the retail sector returning to earlier health. The worsening economy even hit Maplin's online presence, the newspaper reports.

Its 2010 totals show pre-tax losses of £32.7M (from sales of £213M)

The electronics retailer specialises in off-brand niche CE, even if its successs comes through the sale of novelty gadgets (such as a solar-powered briefcase).

Go Maplin Electronics Pull Sale in Face of High Street Gloom (The Telegraph)

Go Maplin

In a bid to follow on Apple's retail example Sony starts revamping its stores, with a new self-branded store in Los Angeles' high-end Century City Mall.

The LA store is the first in what Sony calls "Sony Style" stores, with design by architecture firm Klein Dytham echoing Apple's retail concept (complete with sleek lighting fixtures and hardwood floors).

The company hopes such a renewed retail presence ("It's not an electronics store", Sony's Phil Molyneux tells the Wall Street Journal) will bring new interest in its various properties.

The new design uses Sony products to reinforce the brand-- Bravia TVs play Sony studios' films, while PS3 consoles run Sony games.

The store also offers Apple-style tech support and classes, as well as showcases for future products. One such product is the "Ray Modeler", a tube creating a 360-degree 3D image.

Should the concept be a success, one expects Sony to adopt it across its stores in both Europe and the US.

Go Sony Style at Century City

Go Sony Revamps Retail Stores (WSJ)