Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
mbz321
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by mbz321 »

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

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.

I just thought I would add this is now Target's expansion model. Target only opened (or in the process of opening) one full-line store in 2016 (suburbs of Allentown, PA), and it looks like there is only one planned for 2017 as well. SuperTarget seems to be dead, and they seem to just be focusing on opening smaller stores in Urban areas where the only immediate competition may be a pharmacy or a convenience store (although they seem to be putting a CVS Pharmacy counter in at least some of the recent stores they have opened). The services offered seem to 'Target' the local community and vary by store going by this:
https://corporate.target.com/about/shop ... e-openings
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by SamSpade »

mbz321 wrote:
I just thought I would add this is now Target's expansion model. Target only opened (or in the process of opening) one full-line store in 2016 (suburbs of Allentown, PA), and it looks like there is only one planned for 2017 as well. SuperTarget seems to be dead, and they seem to just be focusing on opening smaller stores in Urban areas where the only immediate competition may be a pharmacy or a convenience store (although they seem to be putting a CVS Pharmacy counter in at least some of the recent stores they have opened). The services offered seem to 'Target' the local community and vary by store going by this:
https://corporate.target.com/about/shop ... e-openings
https://corporate.target.com/press/rele ... and-229270
Guess that Target "Express" ended up working well with City Target washing out. Personally, the Portland Galleria store is pretty boring at its size so I can only imagine what these 24,000-50,000 sf stores will be like.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by TempoNick »

I was recently in a Shopko Hometown in Iowa last week.

I was not impressed. The store was dimly lit, it was in an old metal building, it looked kind of grungy and the prices were high. Two small refrigerators that were on display were grungy--I can't believe nobody had the initiative to take some 409 and some paper towels and clean the stupid things.

The store decor was cheap department signs and gondolas around the perimeter backwalls all the way up to the ceiling.

I didn't see much in there that you can't get at Bomgaars, the farm/fleet store just down the street. It looked like a loser to me.

I know what's going on here. The chain is owned by private equity and they try to do everything on the cheap. Once a real retailer comes to town, they can't compete because their owners refuse to put any money into the operation.
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Re: Meridian, Idaho Shopko closing

Post by storewanderer »

Sounds like any old Dollar General or Family Dollar in a small town. I am assuming the store you visited is a former Pamida, or is it a former Alco?

The issue though is DG/FD are hard discount stores. The metal building, dim lighting, poor cleanliness, and such go with the territory in those hard discount stores.

Shopko is not a hard discount store. Shopko is high priced. Part of being high priced is having a better shopping environment.

Shopko and Pamida were "joined" once by private equity in the 00's, then separated because it didn't work out; they were just too different. Now the "rejoining" and Shopko Hometown rebranding that followed will make a separation quite a bit harder than when both were different brands. We will see what happens in the future but I think Shopko will just keep slowly shrinking its large format store count and the store count of Shopko Hometown will yo-yo for a while pending the economy and competitive forces.
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