And a belated - although we think we have thanked you before but like with those good things you mention that inevitably come to an end, many good things also deminish over time, in our case memory - we thank you for listing us among the few in your blogroll as favorites. A high honor. OK, since it’s your swan song… “favourites and honour.”

{Will you be remaining at the pasture called Planet Retail…but leaving the grazing land called ‘Bryan’s Blog’…or departing both the pasture (PR) and the leased plot (the blog)?}

We have heard a rumor (OK, rumour) that you may be moving to Bentonville, Arkansas as the curator of the Sam Walton/Walmart museum and historical center, which another rumor has it will have a close relationship with the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and Center in Little Rock. After all, Sam was a Clinton man (George Bush Sr. lost him when he couldn’t figure out that supermarket scanner) and Hillary was a Walmart board member. By the way, according to our sources, that infamous little blue dress worn by Miss Lewinsky was not ‘George’ brand.

If this is true - and we have not yet confirmed it - we respectfully suggest one of your first tasks as curator should be to preserve one of the ‘marketside by Walmart’ stores that, as we’ve both predicted, and as we’ve recently written about again in this story[http://freshneasybuzz.blogspot.com/2010/09/walmart-plans-to-close-its-arizona.html], will soon be history.

May we respectfully suggest you preserve the Mesa, Arizona ‘marketside by Walmart’ unit. Why? Having visited all of the stores a number of times, for some reason the coffee, although identical in brand and content, has always seemed to taste better in that particular store, compared to the other units. That’s as good a reason as any, after all.

If our source is wrong about your new position at the Walton Center, we are sorry. We aren’t trying to start a rumor. (Opps, rumour.) However, if correct, we hope you will consider “Saving a marketside’ (store).

As you know, very little in food retailing is really new.

As such, 20 or 30 years from now a retailer that either doesn’t exist today, or has only a few stores in some small part of the United States - maybe even in a tiny southern city better known for Elvis-loving and deep-fried food than it is for power retailing - might have grown so big that it’s looking for a new format to test.

If so, the preservation of ‘marketside by Walmart’ would not only be the right thing to do from a historical perspective, it could also have very practical implications.

For example, the hypothetical retailer mentioned above, 20-30 years hence, just might try harder than Walmart did to make the format and stores a success, not to mention test it in an urban location or two, along with doing so in the four Metro Phoenix Arizona suburbs. Water under the bridge now though.

Who knows? But if you preserve a marketside store - again assuming the rumor (damn, rumour) about your new position is true - you just might end up going down in U.S. food and grocery retailing history. That would be a huge achievement - not to mention one no British grocery chain has yet to accomplish. Well, at least in a positive way.

In closing, without a doubt you’re going to experience blogging withdrawl. In fact, it’s probably already starting to hot you a bit, perhaps in the physical form of frequent air typing, and/or intellectually - you hear or read something, particularly about Walmart, and say to yourself: “I’m going to blog on that,” only to then realize you have ended your blog. If so, we would be honored (and in your case, honoured) to invite you to drop us a note at freshneasybuzz@yahoo.com if you ever have the desire to write a guest piece in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

We are a simple little blog - although we have some mightly readers - so we can’t offer you cash for your blog posting, although PR probably didn’t either. But we can offer you well-read outlet should you desire. (Some editorial control of course:)

We’ve never offered a guest blogger slot before, in the nearly 3 years the blog has been around - not even to a Yankee - but in many ways it seems fitting our first offer should be extended to a subject of the Queen and a cross-pond hopper.

And, by the way, the good thing about our offer is - It is an offer you CAN refuse, unlike so many in life, that are the opposite.

Cheers!

Thanks for the semi-occasional postings on this blog. I enjoyed looking forward to them, and found them very informative. I always enjoyed the dry British humor. Sorry for the lack of artful responses and comments that would have made the blog even better.

On a final note, any comment on the rumors that Walmart is ending its MarketSide by Walmart stores in the Arizona market?

“One accusation that has been levelled at Walmart by a couple of analysts – and this is something that has a degree of resonance – is that some of Walmart’s missteps in range rationalisation have been caused by a lack of shopper insight and/or customer data. Walmart asserts that it surveys 500,000 customers a month, which allows it to get robust actionable, statistically significant data all the way down to the store level. One is forced to wonder, however, how many fewer mistakes would have been made if Walmart had a loyalty scheme and dunnhumby at its disposal.”