Question: how do you increase the selling space in a store without extending the store itself? Answer: put in a mezzanine. That, at least, is the solution proposed by the UK's number three food retailer Asda as part of a far reaching programme of store redevelopment and openings.
Asda, which is owned by the US chain Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is one of several parties currently preparing a bid for smaller rival Safeway, but it clearly has big plans for expansion regardless of whether that bid is successful.
Ten new stores will open in 2003, while two other stores, in the northern towns of Wigan and Sheffield, will be refurbished and converted to the larger superstore format. A further five stores (Weston-Super-Mare, Cumbernauld, Govan, Linwood, and Bromsgrove) will be extended, adding a total of 87,000 square feet of sales space, while the outlets in Sheffield, Cumbernauld and Govan will also get mezzanines, a format successfully trialled at the group's York outlet.
The new stores will be in Bournemouth, where an old outlet will be replaced, Leicester, Basingstoke, Oldbury, Crawley, Sutton, where a former Tesco store is being converted, Stevenage, where the store will be on the campus North Hertfordshire College, and Harlow. The two other stores - which will be replacements for older stores but covering an existing catchment area - will be chosen from three options in Widnes, Chesser (Edinburgh) and Halifax.
The total cost of the expansion programme will be £360 million (£535m).
Tony DeNunzio, president and chief operating officer of Asda Wal-Mart, said: "This year's store expansion programme is great news for the areas where we are opening stores. Not only will we be providing new jobs and boosting local economies, but more people than ever before will be able to take advantage of our every day low prices."
DeNunzio also explained how the mezzanine concept worked. "The section of the store that is to sit underneath the new sales floor is boarded off and the space cleared. Merchandise from this area is housed in an area in the store car park. Work then carries on behind the hoarding with no disruption to customers.
"Once constructed, merchandising units are then placed back both on the mezzanine and the sales floor beneath. Units are then stocked with product, travelators tested and the hoarding is dismantled to reveal a totally new section of the store, split on two levels.
"Travelators will be used to transport customers, and their trollies, from the existing sales floor up to the mezzanine. Trollies are equipped with specially designed wheels which 'lock' once on the travelator to stop shopping rolling away."