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Giant Eagle Market District

Posted: September 4th, 2018, 7:38 pm
by storewanderer
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.

Re: Giant Eagle Market District

Posted: September 6th, 2018, 11:37 pm
by storewanderer
Driving around somewhere west of Indianapolis and Northwest of the airport I noticed a freestanding GetGo gas station and c-store on a lot. It seemed to be identical to the one paired with the Market District up in Carmel mentioned above.

I wonder if this will be a site of another Market District store in the future.

Re: Giant Eagle Market District

Posted: September 7th, 2018, 9:33 am
by BillyGr
storewanderer wrote: September 6th, 2018, 11:37 pm Driving around somewhere west of Indianapolis and Northwest of the airport I noticed a freestanding GetGo gas station and c-store on a lot. It seemed to be identical to the one paired with the Market District up in Carmel mentioned above.

I wonder if this will be a site of another Market District store in the future.
I remember seeing at least one spot where it appeared they had taken over an existing gas station - they did have a store there, but a block or two up the street.

May have been an area where that was easier than getting permits to build one on the store property, but they have run one without the other next to it.

Re: Giant Eagle Market District

Posted: September 7th, 2018, 5:00 pm
by storewanderer
BillyGr wrote: September 7th, 2018, 9:33 am
storewanderer wrote: September 6th, 2018, 11:37 pm Driving around somewhere west of Indianapolis and Northwest of the airport I noticed a freestanding GetGo gas station and c-store on a lot. It seemed to be identical to the one paired with the Market District up in Carmel mentioned above.

I wonder if this will be a site of another Market District store in the future.
I remember seeing at least one spot where it appeared they had taken over an existing gas station - they did have a store there, but a block or two up the street.

May have been an area where that was easier than getting permits to build one on the store property, but they have run one without the other next to it.
The site I saw was absolutely a new build GetGo, not a takeover of an existing station (unless they did a raise and rebuild).

So I looked and there are two GetGo stations in the western part of Indianapolis metro in suburbs. But the only Market District is up in the northern suburb of Carmel.

It will be interesting to see what happens with them long term in that market. Kroger seems to be very well run in Indianapolis.