Kroger closing Brownwood, TX

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storewanderer
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Kroger closing Brownwood, TX

Post by storewanderer »

I didn't know they had rural stores like this... pretty old looking store... and very small.

This appears to be the only one in a 90 mile radius with the next closest being in Granbury.
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Re: Kroger closing Brownwood, TX

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: January 8th, 2018, 11:23 pm I didn't know they had rural stores like this... pretty old looking store... and very small.

This appears to be the only one in a 90 mile radius with the next closest being in Granbury.
According to Kroger's Fact Book, this is the only "outlier" store in the Dallas Division. It's definitely crazy it survived this long, as it seems to date a few years before Greenhouse, opening in 1978 (the 40-year mark suggests a lease). For a small-town store though the Kroger had some very stiff competition. Just half a mile away is the Walmart Supercenter, which always affects little grocery stores like this, but next to the Walmart is an Aldi, and if you turned right at US-183, there's a United Supermarkets that opened 2 and a half years ago.

This all plays into my doubts I've had recently about Kroger purging rural stores. I even think it's no longer implausible that the local Kroger stores in Bryan-College Station are sold off given their distance from the rest of the Houston stores and H-E-B's continued market share increases.
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Re: Kroger closing Brownwood, TX

Post by wnetmacman »

See my comments in the Peoria section. This one has been an outlier for years, managing to slip by the higher-ups to stay open.

http://www.retailwatchers.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1694
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Re: Kroger closing Brownwood, TX

Post by architect »

pseudo3d wrote: January 9th, 2018, 7:35 am This all plays into my doubts I've had recently about Kroger purging rural stores. I even think it's no longer implausible that the local Kroger stores in Bryan-College Station are sold off given their distance from the rest of the Houston stores and H-E-B's continued market share increases.
Although I certainly wouldn't rule out Kroger leaving BCS entirely, the Brownwood store is an entirely different animal. The Brownwood Kroger is an antiquated store which has likely been unable to survive the impact of United opening a newer, nicer store just down the street. Compounding the struggle for Kroger are the high costs of distribution for a single isolated store west of DFW. In addition, even though the local economy is relatively strong due to oil & gas production, the economy is largely tied to an industry which is very cyclical, making the economic outlook for the town risky at best. At the end of the day, Kroger should have closed this store years ago.

On the other hand, the two BCS Kroger locations are not far from Huntsville (a store which was replaced recently and shows no signs of closing), and are roughly the same distance from Houston as the Beaumont stores and certainly the stores in southern Louisiana. Although HEB will soon be outnumbering Kroger 5:2 in the market, Kroger's two remaining stores seem to be pulling consistent business, and actually are favored by some local shoppers who want an alternative to HEB. Plus, from a marketing standpoint, college towns are some of the most valuable opportunities for retailers as it introduces a constantly changing influx of potential shoppers; shoppers who hopefully will get in the habit of shopping with said retailer and continue to shop with them in whatever city they move to post-college. Even though rumors have been floating around for the last couple of years with no new store coming to fruition, I expect that we will see Kroger developing at least one additional store in south/west College Station over the next few years, along with potentially a store in west Bryan. Their development plans as a whole have just been somewhat stagnant over the last couple of years due to a depressed stock price largely driven by the threat of Amazon.
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Re: Kroger closing Brownwood, TX

Post by pseudo3d »

architect wrote: January 9th, 2018, 4:22 pm
pseudo3d wrote: January 9th, 2018, 7:35 am This all plays into my doubts I've had recently about Kroger purging rural stores. I even think it's no longer implausible that the local Kroger stores in Bryan-College Station are sold off given their distance from the rest of the Houston stores and H-E-B's continued market share increases.
On the other hand, the two BCS Kroger locations are not far from Huntsville (a store which was replaced recently and shows no signs of closing), and are roughly the same distance from Houston as the Beaumont stores and certainly the stores in southern Louisiana. Although HEB will soon be outnumbering Kroger 5:2 in the market, Kroger's two remaining stores seem to be pulling consistent business, and actually are favored by some local shoppers who want an alternative to HEB. Plus, from a marketing standpoint, college towns are some of the most valuable opportunities for retailers as it introduces a constantly changing influx of potential shoppers; shoppers who hopefully will get in the habit of shopping with said retailer and continue to shop with them in whatever city they move to post-college. Even though rumors have been floating around for the last couple of years with no new store coming to fruition, I expect that we will see Kroger developing at least one additional store in south/west College Station over the next few years, along with potentially a store in west Bryan. Their development plans as a whole have just been somewhat stagnant over the last couple of years due to a depressed stock price largely driven by the threat of Amazon.
They are building an expansion to the Bryan store (plans filed at least, which may ultimately fizzle out) so there's that, and they are getting a good crowd (the Rock Prairie Kroger is usually packed despite being in my opinion somewhat mediocre overall). The Huntsville store has the benefit of being on I-45 and contiguous to other Kroger stores to Conroe, The Woodlands, and further south. Again, I don't think that they will or are likely do it, but I just don't think it's implausible anymore. It isn't a fair comparison at all to Brownwood, but sometimes I gotta wonder...
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