United rebrands Albertsons Market

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pseudo3d
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United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by pseudo3d »

United Supermarkets is rebranding the "Albertsons Market" stores it took over from Albertsons as United Supermarkets officially and only using the Albertsons Market name in New Mexico. Makes sense, as no new stores (in TX) opened under Albertsons Market, and it still leaves that name to be used if they wanted to go into Oklahoma (which has its own United Supermarkets, probably distantly separated).

https://www.oaoa.com/news/local/article ... 6f62b.html
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Re: United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by storewanderer »

They will need to do some store remodels to get them out of the Albertsons LLC decor.

I was surprised they spent money to redo signs in the first place to this "Albertsons Market" branding.

United seems to continue to do its own thing, other than having the Safeway private label program in place, they don't run any of the other programs from the main chain at all. They are on different register systems and ordering systems as well as the rest of the chain.
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Re: United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by dcpeachy »

Except that Midland and Odessa are in Texas, not New Mexico. There's been nothing so far about changing the NM stores to United. in fact, they've remodeled two Albuquerque stores completely and added Albertsons Market signage to a couple of others. United coming to Albuquerque would be a totally new banner, without any of the history they have here.
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Re: United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by storewanderer »

I don't see them rebranding New Mexico to United. They should try to slip a Market Street into one of the better parts of Albuquerque and see how it would do.

How are they doing in New Mexico with the United-Albertsons format anyway? What I saw in Alamogordo looked like it was struggling and while Rudioso was doing well, it seemed to lack competition. Pricing is way lower than a Southwest Division Albertsons in these United-Albertsons locations and merchandising is quite different. But for some reason I think I preferred the Southwest Division's stores; they seemed to have more fresh product and cleaner stores than the United-Albertsons locations I saw.
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Re: United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: June 14th, 2020, 8:38 pm I don't see them rebranding New Mexico to United. They should try to slip a Market Street into one of the better parts of Albuquerque and see how it would do.

How are they doing in New Mexico with the United-Albertsons format anyway? What I saw in Alamogordo looked like it was struggling and while Rudioso was doing well, it seemed to lack competition. Pricing is way lower than a Southwest Division Albertsons in these United-Albertsons locations and merchandising is quite different. But for some reason I think I preferred the Southwest Division's stores; they seemed to have more fresh product and cleaner stores than the United-Albertsons locations I saw.
They opened a Market Street in Santa Fe in a converted Albertsons (and it is a complete remodel, even changed the lighting and flooring). As for others, the Ruidoso has a Thriftway a mile away and its Albertsons was a former Lawrence Brothers IGA, meaning it had a built-in customer base and a proven location (it even looks like it was built as something else originally). The Alamogordo location on the other hand was a new-build that faces with a Lowe's Market down the street, and an overall weaker economy (not a tourist draw like Ruidoso is).
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Re: United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by dcpeachy »

The remodeled stores in Albuquerque do a better job using the space than the older Jewel-Osco/Lucky-SavOn stores did. That being said, the stores that haven't been touched are blah at best, with large areas of filler merchandise.

Doing a quick comparison of the ad prices between Albuquerque (United) and Gallup (Albertsons/Safeway single ad), sale prices are higher in Gallup. They also rely more heavily on coupons and gimmicks than the Albuquerque stores do.

They have a fairly low bar to meet in terms of competition here. The only other traditional grocer with wide coverage (other than Walmart) is Smith's, which operates stores of varying quality.
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Re: United rebrands Albertsons Market

Post by storewanderer »

It looks like most of the stores are remodeled into a rather hasty LLC remodel, but a couple of the former Raleys didn't get remodeled out of Raleys decor (probably a wise move).

I have some old photos. The Raleys interiors there were so nice (actually nicer than what they were doing in CA I thought, but similar).

Could have sworn I found one "untouched" Lucky there but I guess they were all repainted.


https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id= ... lbuquerque

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id= ... o%20rancho

Seemed like Raleys only did a half hearted effort in Taos.
https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id= ... &text=taos
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