Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

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Super S
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Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by Super S »

https://boisedev.com/news/2016/11/13/sh ... dian-store

One thing worth noting is that this was known as the "Beyond 2000" prototype store. It will be interesting to see what the future holds especially since Kmart has left several areas in Idaho such as Boise and Pocatello.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by kr.abs.swy »

It looks like there are a few other Shopkos closing, including two in the Omaha area: http://www.omaha.com/money/two-metro-ar ... 01549.html

And a former Pamida in Hoopeston: http://www.newsbug.info/hoopeston_chron ... fac9a.html

I was in the Meridian store that is closing a few months ago and they had already closed the pharmacy (but not the optical department) with nothing but shelving blocking the former pharmacy counter and some merchandise in the area. I was in there yesterday and the store had been stocked for Christmas. Markdowns were in the 10% to 30% range.

It's too bad this one couldn't hold on. It's at an intersection that I have read is the busiest in the state of Idaho (Fairview and Eagle in Meridian). But there's probably someone that can use that real estate more productively.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by SamSpade »

According to one of my friends, the ShopKo in the Sugar House area of Salt Lake City is also shutting down. I could not find a media report to confirm this, though.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by storewanderer »

I've been in a handfull of (full size) Shopkos in the past couple years in OR, CA, and UT; they just do not seem healthy to me. Clean stores with perfectly friendly employees and clearly better merchandise in the soft/home categories than the usual mass merchandise store, but also low levels of inventory, very questionable pricing, and a serious lack of customers. Really really bad mix, in-stock, and pricing across all consumables categories (pet, cleaning, paper, food). It feels like they gave up trying to drive sales long ago and are working on higher mark ups and very low customer counts. Really tough formula to survive under long term.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by jamcool »

However they have opened their first ShopKo Hometown stores in Arizona, in Springerville and Chino Valley (N of Prescott). Both were former Alco stores.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by storewanderer »

Yes, the Shopko Hometown seems to be their expansion vehicle. They are about to open a store in Ely, NV too, a very underserved isolated market. Yet it seems like they are also closing some of the Shopko Hometown locations that were former Alcos after less than a year of operation.

I was in a Shopko Hometown in some small town in Nebraska a couple years ago; curiously the town also had a Kmart. Really was not impressed with it at all. Yes, it was a little nicer and cleaner than Pamida or Alco but it still was a less than appealing place to shop. Maybe a little bit better than a Family Dollar or a Dollar General but also with drastically higher pricing.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote:I've been in a handfull of (full size) Shopkos in the past couple years in OR, CA, and UT; they just do not seem healthy to me. Clean stores with perfectly friendly employees and clearly better merchandise in the soft/home categories than the usual mass merchandise store, but also low levels of inventory, very questionable pricing, and a serious lack of customers. Really really bad mix, in-stock, and pricing across all consumables categories (pet, cleaning, paper, food). It feels like they gave up trying to drive sales long ago and are working on higher mark ups and very low customer counts. Really tough formula to survive under long term.
I was in the Lacey, WA store a couple years ago and it looked like it was struggling. I can best sum it up this way: It looked like what could happen if Kmart took over a 1990s era Target store. But for what it's worth, Shopko is still open while Lacey's Kmart has closed. But I don't understand the logic of only having one location in the entire western half of Washington...
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by SamSpade »

Super S wrote:I was in the Lacey, WA store a couple years ago and it looked like it was struggling. I can best sum it up this way: It looked like what could happen if Kmart took over a 1990s era Target store. But for what it's worth, Shopko is still open while Lacey's Kmart has closed. But I don't understand the logic of only having one location in the entire western half of Washington...
I have to agree. I was in there earlier this year. It was funny to see, for example, the NorthCrest (in-house Shopko brand) and other brand logos on the walls that were several decades out of date. Also, many Shopko stores are still in the 'shop by color' section model, which Target has remodeled more urban stores out of.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by patter314 »

Shopko's takeover of our former ALCO store in Anthony, KS has been a complete failure. Their high prices and poor store management has chased most of the former ALCO customers away. If this store stays open here much longer it will be a big suprize. Don't know how they can continue to lose money and keep a store open. Have also heard their store in Fairview, OK is also failing. This too was a former ALCO store.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by wnetmacman »

*Disclaimer: I have never been to a Shopko owned store. Ever*

Shopko is a strange company in that they run two distinctly different formats, but try to do so in a similar manner. Their main format, the full line discount store seems to only do well in the extreme northern US, like Kansas and above. With competition from Walmart and Target, they run a distinct fourth. Behind Kmart, largely due to their size.

The secondary format is what I can best describe as the in-between store. It's not as small as Dollar General and Family Dollar, but it's also not quite a full line Walmart-sized store. Their closest competitor would be Fred's Super Dollar and the recently failed Walmart Express, however, in recent years Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS meet the criteria, without discount pricing.

Here's the issue: It's a very flimsy concept. And nobody does it excessively well. Fred's reinvents themselves every time the FOTD (Format of the Day) fails. And recently, that's about yearly. Shopko Hometown largely came about through Shopko's purchase of Pamida. Pamida was originally a franchisee of Gibson Products. (Yes, Gibson's) They were one of the first to pull out of the Gibson organization, and ran for a good number of years, but had began to falter prior to the sale to Shopko.

Here's the problem for the in-between store: They can't co-exist with anyone else. They have to be the only game in town. Most of these stores have pharmacies that carry large amounts of profit for the rest of the store. If another operator like Walgreens or Walmart shows up, they fail. Every time. Because that larger company with lower margins can beat them out on pricing, staffing, and service. So you don't find them in every town, and when you do, they don't always last. When you add an unstable operator like Shopko or Fred's to the mix of the issue, it's a recipe for failure. Capex suffers, as does staffing and stock levels; all of this has been mentioned above.

I would expect that Shopko could soon be a casualty in the market if they aren't careful.
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