Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by klkla »

rwsandiego wrote: January 17th, 2021, 11:50 pm While Vons had/has some small stores, Albertsons had a lot of old, tiny stores. Many, if not most, were run down by Lucky before the Albertsons/ASC merger. Albertsons did a good job of cleaning them up, but they were still tiny stores.
Those stores were doing high volumes as Food Basket even though they were old and had small parking lots. People were always waiting for an open parking space during peak times. Food Basket had an excellent reputation for pricing in San Diego.
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by klkla »

veteran+ wrote: January 18th, 2021, 5:53 am I did not live long in San Diego but this is what was available to me as a shopper.

Hillcrest neighborhood:

Ralphs Fresh Fare on University Av.

Vons on W. Washington St.



Mission Valley neighborhood:

Ralphs Fresh Fare on Mission Center Rd.

Food4Less 2 blocks away.




NO nearby Albertsons! For such a densely populated area seems to be a scarcity of the 3 big chains.
Albertson's only had 7 stores and 1.2% of the market before picking up the Lucky (former Food Basket) stores. They came to the party very late.
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by Bagels »

Walmart was expected to end 2020 with nearly 15% market share in San Diego -- up from less than a point a decade earlier. They continued to grow even after the Vons-Albertsons merger (which has subsequently lost market share).
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

klkla wrote: January 18th, 2021, 10:26 am Albertson's only had 7 stores and 1.2% of the market before picking up the Lucky (former Food Basket) stores. They came to the party very late.
I'm sure Albertsons had at least 14 stores in San Diego County before Lucky was acquired. These stores were mostly in suburban North County.
These posts on the San Diego grocery market should be split up into a separate topic.
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by klkla »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: January 18th, 2021, 2:43 pm
klkla wrote: January 18th, 2021, 10:26 am Albertson's only had 7 stores and 1.2% of the market before picking up the Lucky (former Food Basket) stores. They came to the party very late.
I'm sure Albertsons had at least 14 stores in San Diego County before Lucky was acquired. These stores were mostly in suburban North County.
These posts on the San Diego grocery market should be split up into a separate topic.
The source I had for market share listed previous store counts and share for the previous two years, as well. That is what it said.
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by Bagels »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: January 17th, 2021, 12:26 pm
rwsandiego wrote: January 16th, 2021, 10:44 pm I think Albertsons is as strong or possibly stronger than VONS in Orange County. They definitely didn't come close to VONS in San Diego.
Yes- Albertsons first SoCal stores were in OC (they acquired some small chain around 1964 or so). After the Lucky "marriage", they were #1 in OC. They invested heavily in OC in the Larry Johnston era, building and remodeling aggressively at the time.
Albertsons had one mid-60's store in Corona Del Mar (Newport Beach) that operated for around 50 years as Albertsons before Haggen bought it.
According to an Orange Country Register article, at the time of the merger, there were 32 Vons/Pavilions (20 & 12, respectively) and 36 Albertsons. Both chains had closed a large number of stores in the Millennium, but Safeway had been much more aggressive in preceding years.

So, the number of stores was fairly close, although without looking it up, I'd bet Albertsons had a significantly larger presence in South Orange County and Vons North County. I suspect this is because Lucky invested heavily in new build stores in the late 1990s, most of which opened under the Albertsons banner. I don't necessarily think Albertsons was the strong brand -- Vons was dumping stores as their leases matured, and many (Laguna Woods, El Toro, etc.) definitely had a much more brisk business than their newer, larger nearby Albertsons.

Still, their OC store fleets were impressive when you consider that the county's population was at 3.1M, and the chains had largely withdrawn (there may have been a half-dozen locations there at the most) from the Latino corridor that accounts for nearly 40% of the county's population.
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by veteran+ »

Bagels wrote: January 18th, 2021, 2:27 pm Walmart was expected to end 2020 with nearly 15% market share in San Diego -- up from less than a point a decade earlier. They continued to grow even after the Vons-Albertsons merger (which has subsequently lost market share).
Wow...........that is sooooooooo sad!

:(
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by Bagels »

veteran+ wrote: January 19th, 2021, 6:50 am
Bagels wrote: January 18th, 2021, 2:27 pm Walmart was expected to end 2020 with nearly 15% market share in San Diego -- up from less than a point a decade earlier. They continued to grow even after the Vons-Albertsons merger (which has subsequently lost market share).
Wow...........that is sooooooooo sad!

:(
Not really. I read an article a couple years ago that cited a group that tracked pricing. In 2010, Ralph’s and Vons everyday pricing was about 10% higher than Walmart, but by 2019 it had grown to nearly 20% at Ralph’s and nearly 30% at Vons. This was for the LA area although In sure SD would be similar.

When you’re charging nearly a third more than your competitor, it’s not a shock that your market share would quickly decrease. Ralph’s/Vons savior in the LA market is that Walmart has struggled with its small format stores (e..g Neighborhood Markets) and building Supercenters isn’t practical due to space, cost and red tape.

On a side note- when did Vons start to get so expensive? Pre or post Albertsons merger?
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

Bagels wrote: January 19th, 2021, 8:20 am Ralph’s/Vons savior in the LA market is that Walmart has struggled with its small format stores (e..g Neighborhood Markets) and building Supercenters isn’t practical due to space, cost and red tape.
Walmart is also viewed as an evil corporation in the LA area.
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Re: Albertson/Vons/Pavilions Pricing

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: January 19th, 2021, 8:20 am
On a side note- when did Vons start to get so expensive? Pre or post Albertsons merger?
Vons has been disgustingly expensive (so has Ralphs) since the early 00's. This is part of why Vons has done so poorly in the remote markets like Fresno and Las Vegas: they had the wrong pricing. If anything both of them have come down on price a little bit, Vons coming down on price since the Albertsons merger (and running much stronger ads).

Ralphs has done price cut programs on and off for the past 15 years but somehow their prices are a lot higher than other surrounding Kroger divisions across the board.

I have no idea how a survey got them as being within 10% of Wal Mart at any point, I have never seen that. I've seen that with some (most, actually) Kroger divisions, in the past.

Not on topic here but Wal Mart- basically has one set of prices used across the US for center store items that come out of a Wal Mart warehouse. Their prices used to really vary by store but that stopped recently. A can of Del Monte Corn is $1.14 nationwide at any Wal Mart. A Marchan Ramen is 18cents at any Wal Mart. A can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce is 50cents nationwide at any Wal Mart. A 32oz 70% Rubbing Alcohol is 1.76 at any Wal Mart (most grocers charge more than that for a 16ounce). Where Wal Mart varies its pricing is on DSD items- things like bread, etc. are priced by state- for instance a Thomas English Muffins package is $1.98 in Nevada, 2.78 in California- same price at any Wal Mart. Then on items like milk and eggs Wal Mart varies its pricing by store based on price surveys the individual store does of surrounding competition so there are a lot of wide swings there on those items between locations. In short, while others selling grocers run with higher prices in California across the board than in surrounding states, California consumers are getting excellent pricing at Wal Mart on center store items. The price difference on grocery center store between Wal Mart and its competition, is much greater in California, than outside California. Still, sale prices at major grocers often will beat Wal Mart's pricing.
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