Kroger

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storewanderer
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Kroger

Post by storewanderer »

What is going on with Kroger? Their Smiths Thanksgiving ad was terrible in my market and their pricing on various staple like yams, turkey, cranberries, pans, sparkling cider, sugar, flour, pumpkin, etc. items was above just about every competitor except Raleys and even then most of their prices were actually equal to Raleys not so great prices. They did do a funny thing with the frozen turkey which was printed in the ad .47/lb with $25 purchase as Limit 1, they used a sharpie on the sign that Kroger corporate sent in, and changed it to Limit 2 but if you got 2, then you had to do a $50 purchase.

Walking through a couple of their stores tonight, they were VERY well stocked. It was clear to me that while they were definitely busy, they did not sell nearly as much as last year and they are going to have major shrink in a couple days.

Most interesting was out in Sparks. Safeway had more customers than I've ever seen in the store, clearly understaffed, very poorly managed with no management presence in the store at 7 PM, lines down the aisles with only half of the registers open and a head clerk attempting to run things but it was way beyond what one person could try to do, no staffing in meat, deli closed at 7 PM, and numerous out of stocks in center store and dairy. Lots of full carts going out. Bakery and produce looked fantastic and full. They ran a very strong ad and beat the heck out of Smiths prices on numerous items in all categories and some items they had priced quite high that were not in the ad (like $5.50 Libby 29oz pumpkin) they actually put on sale after the ad broke down to a competitive 2.99 price point which is lower than Smith's 3.99 everyday price as Smiths didn't even bother to put 29oz Libby Pumpkin on sale. Clearly customers responded to the Safeway ad but they did not execute well at all in the store (but they have a second chance with product quality). The Sparks Smiths while busy as well, and also much better staffed, and better stocked, was not as busy as Safeway and the carts did not seem nearly as full there. This is the first time in years I've seen the Safeway busier than Smiths out in Sparks.

Smiths prices on various staple items are also well above competitors. Gallons of milk are 2.89-3.09 and WinCo and Wal Mart both range 2.32-2.83 on gallons of milk. They never used to let WinCo or Wal Mart beat them on milk.

Kroger is starting to look like Albertsons in about 2001 or Safeway in about 2004 from a price perspective. Clearly pricing with profit in mind and not minding if they give up volume. This strategy never ends well.
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Re: Kroger

Post by Super S »

While I can't speak for other areas where Kroger operates, Fred Meyer seems to be doing OK in my area. Prices are usually competitive and on some items such as milk are the same as WInCo. It seems that the Fred Meyer format would generate more volume so they could be better on price.
storewanderer
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Re: Kroger

Post by storewanderer »

I was in OR recently and the Fred Meyer prices generally resembled Smiths, maybe a little higher in bakery, meat, deli and produce and a little lower in center store. Non food pricing seems to be quite high. Albertsons pricing there was sky high which I didn't fully understand but this is nothing new since Supervalu (way higher than Safeway on shelf pricing) so next to them the Fred Meyer pricing looked great.
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Re: Kroger

Post by Brian Lutz »

There's a bit of a weird incentive for Fred Meyer to keep their prices down here in that they have QFC as their "premium" brand with higher prices to match. In general that means Fred Meyer needs to keep their prices below QFC's prices. There used to be a time when the difference in quality between QFC and Fred Meyer was much more significant, but these days there's much less difference as they seem to try to move Fred Meyer upscale and remodel QFC stores to more generic Kroger decor (the Fresh Fare decor package still holds up pretty well, but they've been replacing it in a lot of stores.) One thing you'll see frequently in the Fred Meyer stores is promos for 99 cent half gallons of milk, Not the kind of thing that necessarily gets people into the store, but definitely something they will pick up when they're in.

That said, I'm not in QFC often these days but it seems like they are generally comparable (or in some cases lower) to Safeway on a lot of items, but then again Safeway is generally very expensive..
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Re: Kroger

Post by SamSpade »

:?: Does Kroger charge too much for ClickList / drive up pickup? :?:
Idaho Falls residents are taking advantage of grocery pick-up
Notice, neither Smith's nor Fred Meyer have added the pick up option here.
Instacart is apparently available in Idaho Falls, though.

Walmart's pickup is free with $30 minimum order. (They don't deliver because I believe their "trusted partner" is Postmates)
"Rosie" at Broulim's is $2 for pickup (reasonable cost for the time savings).
"Rosie" is $8-10 for delivery.

Bonneville County has about 114,000 residents, most in the immediate Idaho Falls - Ammon area.

Interesting twist in the article: a large assisted living business using the service for the groceries going to their various centers. It allows them to save on labor even though they had to switch dollars from WinCo Foods to Walmart.
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Re: Kroger

Post by CalItalian »

Ralphs must have a lot of turkey leftovers post Thanksgiving. One store near me, National & Sawtelle in West L.A. (Westdale location) has had the .47 lb Kroger frozen turkey (with $25 minimum) offer everyday since the Thanksgiving ad. Actually, it's in the Ralphs ad for all locations this week. I've never seen a turkey offer from Thanksgiving repeated after Thanksgiving at any chain.

But Ralphs has the best ham offer for Christmas. .57 lb. for a Farmer John half ham. No minimum purchase.
Vons/Albertsons is .55 lb. with a $25 minimum purchase (Cook's ham).

Ralphs Clicklist (and I don't understand why they still call it Clicklist when months ago they announed they had changed the name to Ralphs Grocery Pickup) has a digital coupon for a FREE Kroger Turkey (16 lb. average) with $50 minimum. There are still only 10 Ralphs locations that are Clicklist locations.

Post-Thanksgiving Ralphs, Vons, Albertsons and Pavilions all discounted their fresh turkey's 50% or more. I actually saw 16 lb. and larger fresh turkeys just priced at $5 at one Vons about a week after Thanksgiving. I was surprised there were so many leftover turkeys this year.
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Re: Kroger

Post by storewanderer »

I too saw a lot of fresh turkey available the week after Thanksgiving for as low as $5 each (Raleys- some of those were regularly $40+).

I have noticed Kroger ran some better ads the past couple weeks (mostly with the digital "hoop") so I am guessing they had lousy numbers at Thanksgiving.

Only 10 Ralphs have Clicklist? Up here in northern Nevada there are two (of six total) Smiths with it already one in Reno and one in Sparks. Maybe Ralphs is having trouble getting space in its parking lots to do this Clicklist thing. Sort of like so few Ralphs have a fuel station which is pretty standard in the rest of Kroger... It may not be so simple as to just do it... maybe it needs special permitting if it is like a drive through or something (here, they are just a regular parking space with a sign, not a drive through).

The pick-up services probably need to be free to get any traction. Kroger will continue to do all kinds of interesting things to "show progress on digitial initiatives" like a very slow, calculated expansion of stores with "pick up" so they can claim digital sales rose 50%+ the last quarter. They can make their weekly ad pages smaller to save money. They can cover up part of the service deli case in medium volume stores to save money. They can keep increasing their everyday prices. Until they get back to reality and stop throwing good money after bad, this picture will continue to be difficult to watch. Places like Wal Mart don't care if they lose money on these services. They have enough other things going on to cover. What I don't get is Wal Mart has online pick up via walmart.com then a separate program at grocery.walmart.com. I guess for walmart.com pick ups you have to go into the store, but for the grocery.walmart.com pickups you can go to the parking lot and stay in your car. It is also confusing as there are certain items at walmart.com that are not at grocery.walmart.com at the same store. I don't really get it.
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Re: Kroger

Post by CalItalian »

storewanderer wrote: December 17th, 2018, 8:18 pm I too saw a lot of fresh turkey available the week after Thanksgiving for as low as $5 each (Raleys- some of those were regularly $40+).

I have noticed Kroger ran some better ads the past couple weeks (mostly with the digital "hoop") so I am guessing they had lousy numbers at Thanksgiving.

Only 10 Ralphs have Clicklist? Up here in northern Nevada there are two (of six total) Smiths with it already one in Reno and one in Sparks. Maybe Ralphs is having trouble getting space in its parking lots to do this Clicklist thing. Sort of like so few Ralphs have a fuel station which is pretty standard in the rest of Kroger... It may not be so simple as to just do it... maybe it needs special permitting if it is like a drive through or something (here, they are just a regular parking space with a sign, not a drive through).

The pick-up services probably need to be free to get any traction. Kroger will continue to do all kinds of interesting things to "show progress on digitial initiatives" like a very slow, calculated expansion of stores with "pick up" so they can claim digital sales rose 50%+ the last quarter. They can make their weekly ad pages smaller to save money. They can cover up part of the service deli case in medium volume stores to save money. They can keep increasing their everyday prices. Until they get back to reality and stop throwing good money after bad, this picture will continue to be difficult to watch. Places like Wal Mart don't care if they lose money on these services. They have enough other things going on to cover. What I don't get is Wal Mart has online pick up via walmart.com then a separate program at grocery.walmart.com. I guess for walmart.com pick ups you have to go into the store, but for the grocery.walmart.com pickups you can go to the parking lot and stay in your car. It is also confusing as there are certain items at walmart.com that are not at grocery.walmart.com at the same store. I don't really get it.
Ralphs Westchester LAX is the closest location to me with Clicklist. It's just down the street from the entrance to LAX airport. The parking lot has something akin to an alley in the middle of it that runs the lenth of the shopping center. I hate that parking lot as space is pretty tight. They have 2 dedicated Clicklist spaces. You can either get on your cell phone or go in the store to pick up your order from there.

The next closest location, and the only other one on the Westside or South Bay, is nearby in Ladera Heights. That's a huge shopping center with a double sized Ralphs (was both a Ralphs and Sav-on but back in the 80s Ralphs purchased the Sav-on). They have a nice dedicated area for Clicklist pickup.

Those 10 Ralphs Clicklist locations are the originals. They've never expanded.
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