Hypermart
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| Test project subsidiary | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Project discontinued Buildings closed, sold, or converted to Wal-Mart |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Products | Food, clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics and housewares. |
| Parent | Wal-Mart |
| Website | None |
Hypermart USA was a demonstrator project operated by Wal-Mart in the 1980s and 1990s, which attempted to combine groceries and general merchandise under one roof at a substantial discount. The hypermart concept was modeled after earlier efforts from other retailers, notably French retailer Carrefour, and the Midwestern US retailer Meijer.
All stores used a floorplan that exceeded 220,000 square feet (20,000 m2). They featured a mini-mall, food court, arcade, bank, and other kiosk operations. The ones in Kansas City and Topeka featured McDonald's, Subway, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in their food courts.
The prototype did not go as well as planned. Wal-Mart was unaccustomed to operating such massive stores, and an economic recession had brought on a decline in retail sales. Although the stores were profitable, sales projections were too optimistic and the company did not anticipate the great heating and cooling costs, the resistance of customers towards parking and congestion issues.
The first Wal-Mart Supercenter, which used a floorplan in the 125,000 sq ft (11,600 m2) range, was opened in 1988 in Washington, Missouri. As the Supercenter proved to be a much more profitable experiment, Wal-Mart renamed the stores "Wal-Mart's Hypermart USA" in April 1990, and eventually began either converting them to Supercenter operations or closing them.
The Hypermart USA concept was officially discontinued in 2000, when Wal-Mart announced it was converting the Kansas City Hypermart USA into a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The former Kansas City store, then a Supercenter, ultimately closed in January 2007. The original Hypermart in Garland, Texas closed in May 2008. The Topeka, Kansas, hypermarket, located on Southwest Wanamaker Road, is still open, although its exterior has been remodeled as well as the Arlington, Texas, location on S Cooper Street.
Garland, Texas (December 28, 1987)
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