The prospect of Wal-Mart making a push into smaller store formats in the US has returned with reports of plans to open an outlet in Los Angeles.

A report in the Financial Times claims the US retail giant has leased a 75,000 sq ft outlet in Torrance. A typical Wal-Mart supercentre is on average around 185,000 sq ft in size.

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The move is an echo of Wal-Mart’s 2008 test launch of four smaller-format Marketside test stores, outlets of around 15,000 sq ft in size, in the Phoenix area.

However, in June 2009, as the economic crisis bit, Wal-Mart decided not to push ahead with a roll-out of the Marketside format.

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