Giant Eagle Market District
Posted: September 4th, 2018, 7:38 pm
Despite some indifferent at best experiences with Giant Eagle in Ohio, I decided to take a look at their Market District in Carmel, IN outside Indianapolis.
This is a very nice store. It is also a very well executed store. The perimeter areas looked fantastic. The produce looked to be very top quality and pricing was generally reasonable if not even a little lower than most in price. It also has a lot of lower pricing on center store items than those Giant Eagles I went to in Ohio.
Had they been interested in expanding, it may have made sense for them to pick up some Marsh locations. Maybe they got outbid.
I wonder if they will add more stores in the market or if this single store location will be the only one. Based on the customer traffic I saw, I don't think the store is doing the volume it needs to do. It was not dead by any means, it is just, for the store's size, it did not feel very busy. They were also selling gas way below market at their gas station and on top of that offering a 10 cent per gallon "Summer Advantage Card discount" with no minimum purchase requirement. The c-store attached to the gas station was one of the nicer c-stores I've seen as well.
I was also glad to see the Market District Self Checkout did not require an "Advantage Card" to be scanned to begin the transaction. I was able to scan my items and go like every other self checkout at other stores. Unlike at those Ohio Giant Eagles where I had to get a clerk to come scan a store card in order to begin using the self checkout. I didn't even have any sale items in Ohio so it didn't matter.
This is a very nice store. It is also a very well executed store. The perimeter areas looked fantastic. The produce looked to be very top quality and pricing was generally reasonable if not even a little lower than most in price. It also has a lot of lower pricing on center store items than those Giant Eagles I went to in Ohio.
Had they been interested in expanding, it may have made sense for them to pick up some Marsh locations. Maybe they got outbid.
I wonder if they will add more stores in the market or if this single store location will be the only one. Based on the customer traffic I saw, I don't think the store is doing the volume it needs to do. It was not dead by any means, it is just, for the store's size, it did not feel very busy. They were also selling gas way below market at their gas station and on top of that offering a 10 cent per gallon "Summer Advantage Card discount" with no minimum purchase requirement. The c-store attached to the gas station was one of the nicer c-stores I've seen as well.
I was also glad to see the Market District Self Checkout did not require an "Advantage Card" to be scanned to begin the transaction. I was able to scan my items and go like every other self checkout at other stores. Unlike at those Ohio Giant Eagles where I had to get a clerk to come scan a store card in order to begin using the self checkout. I didn't even have any sale items in Ohio so it didn't matter.