Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by storewanderer »

http://www.satprnews.com/2017/02/10/ftc ... lbertsons/

Looks like they are trying to sell one of the stores off to Saars.

Interesting it is already a closed store, the article does not specify that fact.
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by Brian Lutz »

When this particular store (the Lake Stevens one on Highway 9) closed all of the fixtures were left in place, so another operator that buys the store could have it up and running again pretty quickly.
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by Brian Lutz »

To follow up on this, I have heard reports that workers have been sighted inside this store within the past week or so, which I presume means we should expect to see the Saar's store open here soon. Given the fact that all the shelves and fixtures were kept in place when the old store closed I don't think they'd have much work to do to get it reopened.
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by Brian Lutz »

There has been some discussion of the new store in Lake Stevens on one of the local Facebook groups, and even before the store has opened here the reaction to this store among the community seems to be overwhelmingly negative, with many openly wishing for the store to fail and close quickly. Is Saar's reputation really that bad?
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by storewanderer »

Looking at the history of Saar's they seem to open and close stores fairly often... while they have quite low prices, it seems you often get what you pay for. I find the stores have been generally cluttered and not too clean looking. They seem to be very well stocked (perhaps overstocked) and have some attractive pricing, though.

Almost like they occupy closed chain supermarkets for a little while until something else comes along and wants the space (?)? I am not familiar with what happens to spaces after they close. I know they have closed a couple of former QFCs in recent years...
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by SamSpade »

Brian Lutz wrote:Is Saar's reputation really that bad?
I don't know a lot about the demographics of Lake Stevens. Saar's tries to position itself like WinCo Foods, but in neighborhoods rather than a "long drive destination" store. So, depending on L.S. perception, they may not want a "low cost" grocer to open there. You notice the banner ad position on their website is emphasizing "Rock Bottom" prices. (and one of the flippers is for inexpensive Western Union money orders)

In the south end of the Seattle area, I remember the Rainier Beach Saar's that took over an old QFC. It had the pre-Kroger QFC decor, cheap and ugly produce, and all its health and beauty products locked up by the registers. This part of South Seattle is unfortunately perceived (whether true or not) to be a poor neighborhood. The Saar's is now gone and replaced with a Dollar Tree and empty retail space. The only nearby store (really) is a nice-enough Lifestyle Safeway.
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by storewanderer »

I have not been too impressed by Saar's operations. What impresses me more about Saar's is they keep trying. They keep trying to open stores (even if they don't seem to stay open long) and fill voids left by the other chains. Many other small chains like this have faded out of business or down to 1-2 stores because they just kept doing things "the same old way" but Saar's keeps on trying new things and new locations. They try different merchandising strategies (some of them are really heavy on ethnic food, be it Hispanic or Asian), they try to compete on price, they order from both Unified and Supervalu in an effort to get the best deal, they do those big volume buys on not so good looking produce, etc. Seattle is a really tough market, lots of competition, quite a few demographic shifts in the past 10-15 years, rapidly escalating costs of doing business, and this chain keeps trying. They really deserve credit for their efforts.
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Re: Supervalu closes divested Albertsons in Lake Stevens and Woodinville, WA

Post by Brian Lutz »

The new Saar's store in Lake Stevens opened its doors on Friday. I took a look at the place yesterday, and from what I saw the meat and produce prices were pretty good, but center store prices are VERY high (as in quite possibly even higher than Safeway on a lot of items, and that's saying something.) Decor (what little of it there is aside form obnoxious promo signs all over the place) seems to be leftovers from the County Market store. On top of this the store only has 6 checkstands, which doesn't seem like much for a store that size. They seem to still be using the turntable checkstands left over from the old Albertson's store. A lot of Hispanic products on the shelf though, which suggests something closer to an ethnic grocery store than a more mainstream one.

All in all, I don't think WinCo will be losing much sleep over them. For that matter, I don't see them exactly thriving in this format. The strategy seems to be to price everything the same as everyone else or higher, throw all sorts of "Rock bottom prices!" signs all over the place and hope people actually believe it.
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