Here is another Woolworth store in Mexico. This one is located in the Roma Norte neighborhood south of the Mexico City financial district. This is the first of several Mexico City posts that will be spread out alongside the normal USA posts. This is a 2-level location that is slightly larger than the previous location in Juarez that we visited in 2018.
Despite the age of the exterior, the interior was very modern and up to date. The store was fairly busy, I did my best not to photograph people but it was nearly impossible.
Woolworth Mexico was purchased in 1997 keeping the company alive in Mexico while all stores in the USA closed. (Links included below) The company has grown slowly and features 35 Woolworth stores and three Café W's. The parent company is named Grupo Comercial and features 2 chains Locura and Del Sol. The company also owns another restaurant chain called Noreste Grill. Just a slight warning, The Noreste Grill website will have you craving some Mexican food, lol.
Candy counter right at the entrance to the store.
And tons of snacks too, if you manage to resist the candy counter. The cash registers are past the shelves below the word 'cajas'.
The aisles are slightly wider and the store is larger than the Juarez location.
A good bit of Football merchandise. The photo on the edge of the display is kinda off though.
A view of the store from the first floor escalator.
The electronics department on the second floor.
Even though the electronics department is tiny, it has a good variety for the space. Even car stereo equipment can be found here.
Lots of headphones.
Fans and some other home items are next to the electronics department.
The escalator view from the second floor.
Price scanner on the second floor.
These mini digital price cards are all over the store.
View of one side of the store to the other.
Another view of the escalators.
A somewhat hidden staircase just past the electronics department.
The view of the first floor from the stairs.
The first floor is mostly clothes with health/beauty, and snacks. The second floor has everything else.
Tons of shopping bags are available for about 50 cents. Just past the bags is the shoe department.
A random display to show how clothes are set up in addition to the normal clothes racks.
Dress shirts and ties, not what you would think to see at a Woolworth store.
Another area that I forgot to mention on the first floor. Gifts and seasonal items.
Hope you enjoyed this look into a modern 2019 Woolworth store. More articles coming soon.
This Woolworth looks like what a modern US Sears should have looked like if Lampert had any retail skills at all. Oh well, at least Woolworth in Mexico looks like a viable business. This location kind of looks like a vintage downtown type Sears from the 1930s like the old Main St. Sears in Houston before the siding that was put on it in the 1960s. The interior of the Woolworth looks a bit like the N. Shepherd and Main St. Sears in someways as well, but obviously the store setups are much more modern at the Woolworth.
ReplyDeleteThe variety of the goods in this Woolworth is somewhat like what one would have found in an old US Woolworth, but there is more emphasis on clothing at the modern Woolworth for sure. That NFL sign in English is a bit odd given that all the stuff on it is for Mexican soccer teams. Perhaps they got that from an American retailer or something? Did they actually have any NFL stuff?
The TV display is about as impressive as what you'd see at a US Walmart or Target. In fact, they may have even more TVs than those bigger stores. As we saw in the earlier pictures of Mexican retailers, there are no shortages of party speakers and stage gear being sold here. Some of those electronics appear to be Tozai grade stuff unfortunately, but I suppose that's about what one would expect at a Woolworth.
I wonder why more US retailers don't use those LCD price tags. I think Kohl's uses them and Sears uses them for appliances. I reckon those can be controlled wirelessly to easily adjust prices for sales and so forth, but there must be some reason why US retailers have not adopted them very quickly.
It's quite impressive now neatly organized the shelves and displays are at this store. I noticed that about the Mexican department stores you showed us last year as well. US retailers would be wise to learn some lessons, but I don't expect things to get much better over here unfortunately.
It would be nice to have a store like that here in the US, but oh well. This, like the Mexican Sears, will have to be enjoyed from a distance I suppose. This store seems like a cross between the old Woolworth's we had and the Kmart-like Woolcos which have been gone for a very long time now.
I did not see any NFL stuff at the store. It is possible that the NFL items were stocked at one point. The 2018 NFL game was cancelled in Mexico City and moved to Los Angeles, so maybe they pulled the NFL stuff after that happened. The Sears stores I visited had some NFL items, one even had a repro game ball from the 2017 game. I think a game is scheduled to happen there this season as well. Hopefully they don't mess up the field in the stadium again and cause the NFL to once again cancel the game.
DeleteOne thing that retailers in Mexico don't skimp on is employees. You can easily find help in most retailers. Help usually finds you there. Walmart is the one exception, even though I only visited one location in Mexico in 2018. It was not much different from Walmart is the USA.
There were a few name brand items, but you are right it was mostly Tozai grade manufacturers. The electronics department had a lot of headphones even though I only got a photo of a small part of the selection. As you may already know, Mexico City has a lot of residents that walk, bike, and take public transportation around. A lot of the items were geared towards smaller families or singles in the store. I guess it makes sense since there are not a lot of single family homes in the inner city.
Mexican retailers can teach several lessons to retailers here in the USA. Keeping the store clean and organized at all times, bulk up the staff of the store, and offer more of a variety of products are just a few. The LCD price tags look so much neater than the stickers in my opinion.
I think they did an excellent job of capturing the feel and product selection that we would find in a modern day Woolworth. Brands are hit and miss though, I would be leery of buying certain items there. Either way, they have an excellent store and I hope to visit again in a few years when I go back to Mexico.
I was looking at the photos again and I see some NFL stuff in the third to last picture. There are some NFL beer glasses there for sale. They all have Cowboys, Raiders, and Steelers logos on them. I suppose I'm not surprised. The Steelers are always very popular and the Cowboys and Raiders are very popular in Mexico. I suppose the Cowboys are popular everywhere unfortunately.
DeleteYou make a good point about Mexico City having a lot of apartment dwellers and so forth. Perhaps Woolworth in Mexico is pretty agile in tailoring their merchandising towards those living in smaller places and those living in single-family homes. Most US retailers are designed for suburban areas and probably don't have the proper merchandise for those living in smaller areas.
Perhaps Mexican retailers can take advantage of plentiful inexpensive labor, but it's not like US retailers can't hire a few more workers to help make the stores a nice place to shop. B&M retailers have to work hard to make shoppers want to spend their money at their stores and not online. Unfortunately, too many US retailers have given up maintaining a nice shopping environment.
Ugh, yeah I saw some Cowboys jerseys in other places in Mexico City. Patriots and Texans jerseys were also around town.
DeleteMexico City is in a transformation period much like the inner cities of many USA cities. A lot of older neighborhoods are hip again, but are being changed by high rise developments similar to what we see here. The residents are faster to protest from what I have seen, but these projects rarely get stopped. Some of the architecture in these new high rises rivals what we have here in the USA.
One of the issues with retailers is that they pay low here in the USA. Your better employees are going to Costco and Target to get higher wages. The rest of the labor pool is split amongst restaurants, gas stations, small businesses, retailers, and grocers. Even if there were more workers in the stores, it may not translate into better store experiences. Higher pay and better in-store management practices have to be part of the equation. Stores like Sears have a huge uphill battle to fix their employee morale. Sears stores like the one at Deerbrook have employees that look like they have given up, but at Pasadena the employees are motivated and are actively moving around.