Tom Murray/Business Insider, Rachel Askinasi/Business Insider
- Walmart isn’t just the largest retailer in the United States — it’s also the largest retailer in the world, with e-commerce sites and sister stores in countries like China, South Africa, India, and the UK.
- In the UK, Walmart acquired Asda — a UK-based supermarket that’s the third largest in the nation — for $10.8 billion in 1999.
- We decided to see firsthand how similar the two sister stores actually are, so we visited an Asda Superstore in Sittingbourne, Kent, in the UK, and a Walmart Supercenter in Secaucus, New Jersey, in the US. Both are the most common model of each respective store.
- While Walmart is definitely an "everything" store, the Asda we visited seemed like more of a supermarket than the Walmart we went to. Walmart had a deli counter, bakery, and walls of packaged meat, but Asda had fishmongers, butchers, and a place for DIY pizza.
- After visiting both locations, we thought Asda was a better supermarket, while Walmart was a better hardware-meets-home-goods store.
- While both stores were fairly simple to navigate and offered a ton of variety for the products they did have, if you’re coming to the states from the UK, don’t walk into Walmart expecting to find as many ready-made lunches as you would in Asda.
- Similarly, don’t expect to find Walmart’s giant, colorful cereal selection on the shelves at Asda.
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We decided to pit two sister retailers against one another to see what the shopping experience was like at both: Walmart, the largest retailer in the US …
Rachel Askinasi/Business Insider
Source: Business Insider, Forbes
… vs. Asda, the UK supermarket Walmart acquired for $10.8 billion in 1999.
Tom Murray / Business Insider
Sources: Wall Street Journal, Statista
Asda is the UK’s second largest grocer, controlling 15% of the market. Specifically, we visited the Asda Superstore in Sittingbourne, Kent, in southeast England …
Google Maps
Source: The Guardian
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Rachel Askinasi)