Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by wnetmacman »

It really sounds like SEG is doing anything to try to drum up business. At Thanksgiving, our local stores had a promotion where if you bought $25 worth of groceries, you got any size turkey for $6. Which was great, except they ran out of ALL brands of turkeys. Then, after the weekend, they ran another with the same deal with a $6 ham. You can't run strictly on promotions unless that's your format. WD and Bi-Lo don't run that format.

The Store-of-the-day doesn't work. I think they will be closing or selling stores soon.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:It really sounds like SEG is doing anything to try to drum up business. At Thanksgiving, our local stores had a promotion where if you bought $25 worth of groceries, you got any size turkey for $6. Which was great, except they ran out of ALL brands of turkeys. Then, after the weekend, they ran another with the same deal with a $6 ham. You can't run strictly on promotions unless that's your format. WD and Bi-Lo don't run that format.

The Store-of-the-day doesn't work. I think they will be closing or selling stores soon.
I take it that the "Down Down" campaign has disappeared. So much for that!

At this point, SEG is still salvageable...they need to dump their bad stores, including ones they've converted into low-end concepts, invest in the good stores (and they do have nice stores), and trot a leaner but better SEG out to Kroger or Albertsons so Lone Star Funds can get a return on investment. Otherwise they'll end up like A&P but with a terrible store base.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by veteran+ »

pseudo3d wrote:Despite SEG talking them up, the Fresco y Más stores appear to be underwhelming. The Yelp review of the original store never got beyond three stars, and other reviews seem to indicate that the store really isn't ready for primetime.

A comment on the latter article seems to indicate what I expected, that despite SEG's claim of marketing toward demographics, FyM and Harveys seem to be the loser stores on a track to oblivion, as an aging but renovated recently Winn-Dixie at S.W. 16th Ave. & Coral Way wasn't rebranded (and it is indeed old, dating back to at least 1956 as a Kwik-Chek), presumably because it's still a profitable, good store (though Yelp reviews indicate otherwise).

I'm also going to call SEG out and actually learning from the Hialeah store and making improvements, because they haven't been open long enough to really see what works and what doesn't. I'd be surprised if any of these stores are open a year from now.
I know that former Kwik Chex very well. It was never a nice looking store. As the neighborhood changed from lower and middle class white to Cuban, that store got worse.

Cubans are very loyal to Sedanos and Publix. In this area Publix might as well be called Sabor (their hispanic format). Hardly any Publix employees in the area stores speak english.

Besides the garish Taxi Cab look of these Fresco Y Mas stores, I have lots of doubts for their success.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by pseudo3d »

veteran+ wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:Despite SEG talking them up, the Fresco y Más stores appear to be underwhelming. The Yelp review of the original store never got beyond three stars, and other reviews seem to indicate that the store really isn't ready for primetime.

A comment on the latter article seems to indicate what I expected, that despite SEG's claim of marketing toward demographics, FyM and Harveys seem to be the loser stores on a track to oblivion, as an aging but renovated recently Winn-Dixie at S.W. 16th Ave. & Coral Way wasn't rebranded (and it is indeed old, dating back to at least 1956 as a Kwik-Chek), presumably because it's still a profitable, good store (though Yelp reviews indicate otherwise).

I'm also going to call SEG out and actually learning from the Hialeah store and making improvements, because they haven't been open long enough to really see what works and what doesn't. I'd be surprised if any of these stores are open a year from now.
I know that former Kwik Chex very well. It was never a nice looking store. As the neighborhood changed from lower and middle class white to Cuban, that store got worse.

Cubans are very loyal to Sedanos and Publix. In this area Publix might as well be called Sabor (their hispanic format). Hardly any Publix employees in the area stores speak english.

Besides the garish Taxi Cab look of these Fresco Y Mas stores, I have lots of doubts for their success.
I think that one of the many, many problems of FyM is that it doesn't use the Winn-Dixie name, unlike Publix Sabor which does.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:I think that one of the many, many problems of FyM is that it doesn't use the Winn-Dixie name, unlike Publix Sabor which does.
It wouldn't matter what name was on the door. Putting the WD name would probably *stop* more customers.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:I think that one of the many, many problems of FyM is that it doesn't use the Winn-Dixie name, unlike Publix Sabor which does.
It wouldn't matter what name was on the door. Putting the WD name would probably *stop* more customers.
I bring it up because the first (and for a while only) review on the Fresco y Mas store in Hialeah did point out that the store had loyal Cuban/Hispanic customers. That's not to say that the WD doesn't have problems, I think that their relatively rushed rebranding of Sweetbay really hurt the customer base of that store.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by veteran+ »

wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:I think that one of the many, many problems of FyM is that it doesn't use the Winn-Dixie name, unlike Publix Sabor which does.
It wouldn't matter what name was on the door. Putting the WD name would probably *stop* more customers.
I agree.

The majority of loyalty and brand equity for Cubans has been Publix and Sedanos.

Ween Deecee only as a last resort (lol) and there are many historical reasons for that.
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Re: Winn-Dixie's new concept: Fresco y Más

Post by pseudo3d »

veteran+ wrote:
wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:I think that one of the many, many problems of FyM is that it doesn't use the Winn-Dixie name, unlike Publix Sabor which does.
It wouldn't matter what name was on the door. Putting the WD name would probably *stop* more customers.
I agree.

The majority of loyalty and brand equity for Cubans has been Publix and Sedanos.

Ween Deecee only as a last resort (lol) and there are many historical reasons for that.
Winn-Dixie got that bad in the past? :shock:

Either way, I don't think that rebranding to a fly-by-night looking disaster is the best choice for the brand. Off-topic, but yesterday, Winn-Dixie came up with a conversation with friends, and someone admitted that they once believed Winn-Dixie to be a fictional name created for Because of Winn-Dixie. I had a harder time to convince one of my friends that Winn-Dixie had TWO local stores locally.
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