Despite its aspirations to continue its assault on global retailing, Wal-Mart will always be the "community retailer" in the US, says ceo for its stores division Tom Coughlin. He says his strategy has a wide enough remit to ensure success for all three of Wal-Mart's formats ­ the Supercentre, discount store and Neighbourhood Store format, currently on trial with seven new stores in Bentonville (see p36). And with 1,762 domestic Wal-Mart stores and 765 Supercentres, Coughlin says there's plenty of room for more. This year he's planning to build 40 more discount stores, 165 new Supercentres and at least another seven Neighbourhood stores. All adding up to a further 34 million sq ft in sales space, or a percentage growth of eight ­ in one year alone. Coughlin says the Supercentre format has proved a sceptical Wall Street wrong ­ analysts panned the idea when the first outlet ­ selling food and non food in the same store for the first time ­ opened in Washington, Missouri in 1988. Doubters questioned whether Wal-Mart would grasp the complexities of the food supply chain. Logistics will stay as the lynchpin of effective growth in Wal-Mart's food sales. Logistics executive vice president Mike Duke is planning to open 11 distribution centres in the next few months, creating nine million sq ft of extra warehouse space. Wal-Mart has just spent "millions" on a new one million sq ft distribution centre near its Bentonville headquarters ­ all part of the drive to keep widening the gap between it and the competition, says Duke. "Lightning reaction to store replenishment is the key to our success," he says. In 1999 its centres shifted 2.7 billion boxes of product to its stores. "This expansion of 11 centres is the largest in the company's history." Coughlin says: "The work that goes in to make sure the products are on the shelves is almost irrelevant to our consumers ­ but they'll shop elsewhere if they can't buy from us. And that seriously hinders our growth plan." {{COVER FEATURE }}