Wal-Mart goes small against Tesco

It looks like Phoenix's East Valley is going to be the main front in the Tesco v. Wal-Mart showdown. Wal-Mart is opening small grocery outlets this summer in a direct challenge to Tesco's Fresh & Easy:

Wal-Mart will open small-format grocery stores in Arizona this year under the trade name, “Marketside”, going head to head with the new Fresh & Easy markets being rolled out in the US by Tesco, the UK grocer.

The new pilot stores are about 20,000 sq ft, a 10th of the size of the Supercenters that have been driving Wal-Mart’s growth over the past two decades.

The retailer has secured leases on four properties south-east of Phoenix, some of them only a mile from locations where Tesco is setting up its 10,000 sq ft discount grocery stores.

The stores, likely to be open by the summer, are the first new concept launched by the retailer in the US for a decade, and are being developed as the company slows its planned growth of Supercenters.

Too bad I don't still live in Phoenix -- this could be fun to watch.