Retail Watchers

Costco has something like 10 new store projects going in NorCal. It is quite interesting. I think they're trying to play chess to prevent Sam's Club from doing any expansion in the market. After Sam's Club closed two stores in metro Sacramento it doesn't bode too well. I think Costco may be hitting...

Did the purchase price.change? I don't see that anywhere.

I saw the same thing in the Portland market as well over the weekend. They look like they are out of business.

They made some fundamentally bad decisions as they grew and this ultimately constrained their options. Thrifty-Payless was losing money. Correction, Thrifty Payless was a profitable $5 billion company before the Rite Aid acquisition. Happy to share the history of that company but don't post that th...

Jack In The Box had kiosks in their San Francisco Bay Area stores up until around 2016 or so. Customers hated them. Nobody used them. They didn't take cash, and it was complicated to order. Most of the time it was so frustrating that you would just order the bare minimum and pay. Ordering with a ca...

Interesting story: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2024/04/fred-meyer-albertsons-internal-documents-show-fierce-competition-in-portland-before-merger-talks-we-must-stay-hungry.html Fred Meyer, Albertsons internal documents show fierce competition in Portland before merger talks: ‘We must stay h...

More closures today on the bankruptcy docket. 17 stores. Most in CA/PA. Still no more in OR/WA. I think OR/WA have been spoken for in their current form. Also hearing multiple stores are getting told they are closing this week... which are not on any lists yet (I guess we will see those on a list n...

Interesting story: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2024/04/fred-meyer-albertsons-internal-documents-show-fierce-competition-in-portland-before-merger-talks-we-must-stay-hungry.html Fred Meyer, Albertsons internal documents show fierce competition in Portland before merger talks: ‘We must stay hu...

It's not as clear from the desktop website, but MoC has updated their logo and font families to reflect some of their new movements in "local" food and branding. They definitely are branding the "Oregon-ness" so clearly not moving into SW Washington state (or elsewhere) soon. Fr...

The Home Depot in Tigard, Oregon went 100% self-checkout in the main part of the store. Pro is still staffed. Is this a test or a chain-wide trend? This is just an equipment change, and implementation of a complicated strategy that they call Assisted Checkout which is not quite self service but not...