Walmart Neighborhood Market opened its doors Nov. 6 at the intersection of Imperial Highway and La Mirada Boulevard, less than a mile from campus. Students who shop at the Walmart Supercenter locations in La Habra and Sante Fe Springs now have an additional supermarket option that is closer to campus.
David White, store manager of the new store in La Mirada, said the neighborhood market store offers a more convenient shopping option for customers looking to get in and get out.
Freshman art major Lydia Wildes said she usually goes to the Walmart in La Habra. However, she is more inclined to visit the new store because it is closer to Biola.
Junior communications major Jessi Ziegler said she would feel safer shopping closer to Biola at night.
“It’s good that it’s closer for late night shopping. The Walmart further down Imperial is really sketchy at night,” Ziegler said.
Neighborhood Market vs. Supercenter
Walmart Neighborhood Market is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. This particular layout offers a smaller shopping space at around 35,000 square feet. Traditional supercenters offer 182,000 square feet of space according to Walmart’s corporate website.
Neighborhood Market stores offer groceries, health and beauty aids, household items and a pharmacy, according to their website. Unlike the supercenters, they do not offer electronics, toys, apparel or home furnishings.
However, this limited product variety suits the needs of some Biola students. For freshman kinesiology major Jayden Chavez, all he buys at the La Habra store is groceries. He finds that having the neighborhood market store offer the same products at a closer location is a lot more convenient.
Community oriented
The opening of the store included a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a presentation of $7,000 in grants to local organizations, including La Mirada High School, La Mirada Community Foundation and La Mirada Kiwanis.
“I’m getting myself involved in the community, whether that’s the chamber [of commerce] or the Kiwanis group. Walmart is a staple here, and I am going to be a staple here. We hope to support the community and what they need,” store manager White said.
The new store employs up to 65 full and part-time employees, many of whom are residents of the La Mirada community, White said. Although he lives in La Puente, three of his four assistant managers live in La Mirada.
Healthy competition
Some students felt their loyalty toward a particular store outweighed the cost of its products. For Wildes, she chooses to shop at Walmart because she is already familiar with the store.
“I go to Walmart because I know Walmart and am comfortable with Walmart. I’ve never gone to Stater Bros.,” Wildes said.
Since Stater Bros. market is exclusively in Southern California, Chavez chooses Walmart for its familiarity.
“I didn’t even know what Stater Bros. was,” Chavez said, explaining that there are no Stater Bros. stores in his home state of Arizona.
The first Walmart Neighborhood Market layout opened in 1998, and there are approximately 300 stores nationwide, according to a press release by the Milagro Group. However, the La Mirada Neighborhood Market is the first of these stores to have been newly constructed. Other neighborhood market stores have merely moved in to otherwise vacant storefronts.
