Climbing the Wal

As Walmart's same store sales growth has slowed down, some interesting insights have been done on the reasons behind it. I found one such insight on Reveries.com website based on an article in Wall Street Journal by Gary Williams. One thing that I found interesting was "The pricing gap between Wal-Mart and rivals has narrowed, and more customers are now choosing convenience over wading through a supercenter". I used to wonder if I was the only one who got lost and confused in a gigantic WalMart super center. There was just too much signage and the one in my neighbourhood was so crowded that it would be difficult to find an associate to help out. Which brings in another interesting point - on an average (as per a study which I need to dig up and link it here) a shopper spends 22 mins in a Wal Mart store but how much of that is spent searching and how much is spent doing aisle crossover (which is what the super centers are counting on to up their avg top line sale)? I wonder if this is a fundamental issue with the supercenter format itself? As life becomes faster (can it get any more faster???), if its time for more smaller lifestyle dedicated convinience based formats? Do I see a Tesco lurking somewhere!!!!!