Save Mart using attorney to keep competition out of Visalia

[storewanderer]

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/articl ... 01/3080328

Save Mart is lucky nobody was watching them and trying to keep them from taking all of the stores in town over when they bought the Albertsons and Fleming F4L Stores in Visalia.

Save Mart needs to spend more time trying to compete and less time trying to use legal and political processes to keep competition out. They are so scared of competition it is laughable. Then again given the type of store they run I can understand completely.

[krogerclerk]

Laws restricting store size work best in densely developed urban areas such as San Francisco and the bay area, but are less realistic in the less dense central valley. Most of the size restrictions to food stores in SoCal and the bay area are targeting stores that are very large, and carry a majority non-food inventory(hypermarkets in general and Walmart Supercenter in specific).

Save Mart itself needs to extensively modernize its store base and improve both its pricing and fresh food quality. They overextended by acquiring the NorCal division of Albertson's, leaving them with little ability to invest in the existing store base and promotions. This has been a downfall that has been the death of many regional chains, often aided by entering an unfamiliar markets, SaveMart had experience in the bay area from having acquired the Fry's units in the 80's. But more mid range markets like Sacramento seem to escape their operating capability, expecting markets to either operate the same as the central valley or the bay area.