Albertsons NorCal change

California. No non-grocery posts.
pseudo3d
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Re: Albertsons NorCal change

Post by pseudo3d »

Alpha8472 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 4:57 am The Safeway stores in my area have increased staffing at night. There are now a few more people to restock shelves at night.
The result is less out if stock items.

The stores are also selling giant teddy bears for $79 as well as putting bikes for sale on top of the refrigerated aisles. Not kidding.
I do remember seeing giant teddy bears at Randalls last time around Easter, and at my local Kroger there's a row of them hanging from the balcony (the Kroger has a bunch of offices on the upper level that operate the local stores, and the corridor from the offices overlook the entire store). As for stuff on top of refridgerated aisles, I think that's an Albertsons idea, they have done it to ACME for a number of years (in fact, I think ACME had that idea first).
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Re: Albertsons NorCal change

Post by mjhale »

lola42 wrote: December 3rd, 2017, 3:11 pm Have there been any visible changes in operations?
I'm in the Washington DC area. I've noticed over the past few months that Safeway has had a huge increase in the amount of random displays junking up the aisles and the big pallets of random stuff along the back aisle where there is typically more space. I don't mind the pallets and larger displays in the back aisle. It is mostly sale and promotional items so it is kind of like action alley at Walmart. But all of the little displays in the aisles are just bad. They junk up the aisles and make them hard to negotiate. It is like a one way bridge when two baskets come towards each other at a lot of the displays. On the service side the employees are generally fairly disengaged and seem to have no real enthusiasm about their job. Service isn't bad but it isn't great either. The register situation varies widely between stores. It seems they are staffing the front ends at stores without self-checkouts better than they have in the past. But peak times are still a struggle. Bakery and deli selection varies quite a bit between stores as does quality. The store closest to me had bread and rolls on display that were straight out burned on portions of the product. When you factor in that Safeway is second most expensive to Harris Teeter in the market you begin to wonder why you should shop there. Whoever is running the show needs to get pricing more in line with service and product levels because Safeway isn't Wegmans, Whole Foods or Harris Teeter but is priced almost like the latter two. They also need to do something with the interiors. The store I usually go to was an early Lifestyle conversion so it is going 10+ years with the same decor. It is starting to look old and out of date. There is plenty of competition around here and I'm not sure how Safeway is going keep up against the others.
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