3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:W-D never seemed to capitalize on new growth either. Before their meltdowns, Albertsons and Kmart both pushed new stores in growth areas, while Winn-Dixie did nothing. Even in the early 2000s when Florida was growing fast, W-D never took advantage of growth like Publix did. I feel like they could've done a lot more in 2002, when they closed down the Texas division (which was too spread out and featured generally small stores)...like also pulling out of Atlanta instead of wasting time with the Save Rite format, closing more former Jitney Jungle stores (which by 2005 was obvious that many of those stores were not going to work out), giving up on Thriftway (a Cincinnati chain that they acquired in 1995 but didn't close until 2004), selling leases, and then pushing modern stores closer to its base.
The Jitney/Delchamps purchase was a big mistake. Had it worked out, it only would have truly expanded them in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, places where they were already failing. (One of the three we're talking about in this thread, Slidell, was a Delchamps store.) However, most of those stores ultimately failed miserably, owing to being smaller and lower functioning than even the company that bought them. JJ hadn't pushed into Louisiana much, but they had built 3-4 Delchamps Premier stores, which WD passed on, another mistake.
pseudo3d wrote:But hindsight is 20/20, and it seems that Winn-Dixie never did recover from bankruptcy, with the BI-LO merger and subsequent creation of Southeastern Grocers doing nothing really great for the chain (I had some hope when Randall Onstead was in charge, but that didn't work out). Despite what McLeod says I'm still not sold that Down Down is working, and the continued closures instead of openings of W-D seem to confirm that.
True, as I mentioned above about jumping the shark. I am not convinced that Randall Onstead was the answer, as nothing really improved under him. Ian McLeod appears to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. Things are changing, but only to make the company smaller. I think SEG may be joining other retailers in a historic fall sooner than later.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by buckguy »

I remember my first visit to a Winn-Dixie, way back in their better days. I was still astonished at what an inept operator they were. It was former Kroger greenhouse, to which they'd done nothing except pull shelves. The perishables were a joke and hardly anyone was minding the store. Virtually any time, I visited a WD during the intervening years, there seemed to be something significantly wrong with the execution. As long as the Davis family received their monthly dividend checks, they apparently didn't think about investing very much in the stores or keeping up with the competition. They really could not sustain the Marketplace model and if they'd kept their basic, low end stores, Walmart would have have done in this market share anyway. A&P, despite decades of problems, could operate much better stores. The buying and selling of WD and its parent hasn't helped, but unlike a lot of other chains, it's almost a footnote on their history of mismanagement. The best thing that could happen would be for a liquidation. The vultur capital people won't like it and the employees will suffer, but there really isn't much that can be done.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by pseudo3d »

buckguy wrote:I remember my first visit to a Winn-Dixie, way back in their better days. I was still astonished at what an inept operator they were. It was former Kroger greenhouse, to which they'd done nothing except pull shelves. The perishables were a joke and hardly anyone was minding the store. Virtually any time, I visited a WD during the intervening years, there seemed to be something significantly wrong with the execution. As long as the Davis family received their monthly dividend checks, they apparently didn't think about investing very much in the stores or keeping up with the competition. They really could not sustain the Marketplace model and if they'd kept their basic, low end stores, Walmart would have have done in this market share anyway. A&P, despite decades of problems, could operate much better stores. The buying and selling of WD and its parent hasn't helped, but unlike a lot of other chains, it's almost a footnote on their history of mismanagement. The best thing that could happen would be for a liquidation. The vultur capital people won't like it and the employees will suffer, but there really isn't much that can be done.
Marketplace might've worked had they built more and modernized it for the 1990s. The Marketplace format was a good change for the mid 1980s, but by the 1990s, it wasn't an acceptable format at the pace and size they were building (and they rarely did innovating or hopping on market trends--I did find an article that mentions a Dallas Winn-Dixie built a store with an in-store chef and a food court from 1994). A lot of the worse stores have closed, and I think that if they closed or sold more stores (including BI-LO) and invested the rest in operations and renovations, they could at least prep it for a sale. Unfortunately, I think McLeod is just wasting time and resources (I don't expect the converted Harveys or Fresco y Más stores to stick around for long) trying to make it some sort of "Aldi and Walmart alternative, but with full service departments" hybrid and instead of a reasonable alternative to Publix (which is probably what's keeping a lot in business in Florida, admittedly), and not actually making the hard decisions it needs to thrive, like knowing when to fish or cut bait on the farther-out stores like the Louisiana stores. The west of Mississippi stores are definitely at risk with the market exit of Lafayette, but I doubt even the Baton Rouge and New Orleans stores have much staying power, with Baton Rouge facing competition against Rouses, Walmart, and Albertsons, all of which have added stores or completed renovations in recent years. Yeah, Winn-Dixie has done alright in New Orleans where other supermarkets have not, but if it ultimately didn't save A&P, it won't save Winn-Dixie.

Hard to imagine that even in 1999, Winn-Dixie had over a thousand stores in operation.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by storewanderer »

It is actually surprising a chain like Winn Dixie got as large as it did. I can't really understand how they did it since they never seem to have been a very good operator...

I have to assume the only reason they have continued this long is nobody wants to acquire them. When you look at the stores on a market by market basis you can see why. There are good stores here and there, nice stores, well stocked and well executed stores even, and then there are the zombie stores. Winn Dixie reminds me of a very large version of Save Mart in California. Decades of neglect and just not getting it. Pricing is not where it should be. Stores that are suffering from the lack of capital. Maybe Winn Dixie can merge with Save Mart. The current path of Winn Dixie (decreasing prices, format conversions to cater to ethnic groups that surround the IMMEDIATE locations) is actually a little better than the current path of Save Mart who is doing remodels on a random basis that don't make much sense, completely mismerchandising numerous lower middle class neighborhood locations with too many specialty items that do NOT sell and pricing those items higher than Safeway or Whole Foods, continually missing the mark on pricing, focusing on things like ugly new logos (their ugly Lucky California logo is now purple on the paper bags...), and terrible quality prepared foods.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by Knight »

Southeastern Grocers is closing stores chain-wide.

Winn-Dixie
Anniston, Alabama
Jacksonville, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Columbus, Georgia

Harvey's Supermarket
Albany, Georgia

BI-LO
Charlotte, North Carolina
Columbus, North Carolina
Bluffton, South Carolina
Boiling Springs, South Carolina (not publicly announced)
Fort Mill, South Carolina
Orangeburg, South Carolina

I am hearing more store closings are on the way. They may involve underachieving stores that recently lost pharmacy departments in 2016.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by architect »

pseudo3d wrote:
buckguy wrote:I remember my first visit to a Winn-Dixie, way back in their better days. I was still astonished at what an inept operator they were. It was former Kroger greenhouse, to which they'd done nothing except pull shelves. The perishables were a joke and hardly anyone was minding the store. Virtually any time, I visited a WD during the intervening years, there seemed to be something significantly wrong with the execution. As long as the Davis family received their monthly dividend checks, they apparently didn't think about investing very much in the stores or keeping up with the competition. They really could not sustain the Marketplace model and if they'd kept their basic, low end stores, Walmart would have have done in this market share anyway. A&P, despite decades of problems, could operate much better stores. The buying and selling of WD and its parent hasn't helped, but unlike a lot of other chains, it's almost a footnote on their history of mismanagement. The best thing that could happen would be for a liquidation. The vultur capital people won't like it and the employees will suffer, but there really isn't much that can be done.
Marketplace might've worked had they built more and modernized it for the 1990s. The Marketplace format was a good change for the mid 1980s, but by the 1990s, it wasn't an acceptable format at the pace and size they were building (and they rarely did innovating or hopping on market trends--I did find an article that mentions a Dallas Winn-Dixie built a store with an in-store chef and a food court from 1994). A lot of the worse stores have closed, and I think that if they closed or sold more stores (including BI-LO) and invested the rest in operations and renovations, they could at least prep it for a sale. Unfortunately, I think McLeod is just wasting time and resources (I don't expect the converted Harveys or Fresco y Más stores to stick around for long) trying to make it some sort of "Aldi and Walmart alternative, but with full service departments" hybrid and instead of a reasonable alternative to Publix (which is probably what's keeping a lot in business in Florida, admittedly), and not actually making the hard decisions it needs to thrive, like knowing when to fish or cut bait on the farther-out stores like the Louisiana stores. The west of Mississippi stores are definitely at risk with the market exit of Lafayette, but I doubt even the Baton Rouge and New Orleans stores have much staying power, with Baton Rouge facing competition against Rouses, Walmart, and Albertsons, all of which have added stores or completed renovations in recent years. Yeah, Winn-Dixie has done alright in New Orleans where other supermarkets have not, but if it ultimately didn't save A&P, it won't save Winn-Dixie.

Hard to imagine that even in 1999, Winn-Dixie had over a thousand stores in operation.
I definitely agree with this analysis. Although the Marketplace format was well-suited for expansion when it was first developed in the 1980's, by the 1990's it was already outdated, particularly in expansion markets where the company saw some of their strongest competition ever (particularly in Texas). If this says something, only a few former Winn-Dixies remain in operation in Texas under other banners, mainly Kroger and Brookshires, and these stores have only been able to remain relevant due to being in areas with little/weak competition. Also, the company's unwillingness/inability to invest in their existing store base left them without any markets which they were truly "winning" the battle, per se. The fact that Winn-Dixie also catered downmarket from Publix also left them particularly vulnerable to competition from Walmart. Although the acquisition of BI-LO added numbers to the company's ranks, it also have proved to be a distraction as the problems which plagued BI-LO are very different than Winn-Dixie.

Unfortunately, I fully anticipate that SEG will be history in the next few years, almost entirely due to mismanagement. The stores in major metro areas are simply not drawing in the traffic which they need to sustain the company as a whole (particularly when competing head to head against Publix), and without the major market stores, operations over a wide geographic area (as is currently taking place) are just not economically feasible. When this happens, it will leave many smaller communities/neighborhoods across the region devastated with no traditional grocer. I expect that a few selected Florida stores could be candidates for acquisition by Albertsons (Safeway) if their current pilot stores continue to perform well. Publix will likely be interested in few, if any of the stores due to their poor condition and locations (outside of potentially certain Louisiana Marketplace stores if they are in areas which Publix plans to expand anyway). In Florida, there is clearly a reason why Publix has not moved into certain neighborhoods in which SEG currently operates.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by pseudo3d »

architect wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:
buckguy wrote:I remember my first visit to a Winn-Dixie, way back in their better days. I was still astonished at what an inept operator they were. It was former Kroger greenhouse, to which they'd done nothing except pull shelves. The perishables were a joke and hardly anyone was minding the store. Virtually any time, I visited a WD during the intervening years, there seemed to be something significantly wrong with the execution. As long as the Davis family received their monthly dividend checks, they apparently didn't think about investing very much in the stores or keeping up with the competition. They really could not sustain the Marketplace model and if they'd kept their basic, low end stores, Walmart would have have done in this market share anyway. A&P, despite decades of problems, could operate much better stores. The buying and selling of WD and its parent hasn't helped, but unlike a lot of other chains, it's almost a footnote on their history of mismanagement. The best thing that could happen would be for a liquidation. The vultur capital people won't like it and the employees will suffer, but there really isn't much that can be done.
Marketplace might've worked had they built more and modernized it for the 1990s. The Marketplace format was a good change for the mid 1980s, but by the 1990s, it wasn't an acceptable format at the pace and size they were building (and they rarely did innovating or hopping on market trends--I did find an article that mentions a Dallas Winn-Dixie built a store with an in-store chef and a food court from 1994). A lot of the worse stores have closed, and I think that if they closed or sold more stores (including BI-LO) and invested the rest in operations and renovations, they could at least prep it for a sale. Unfortunately, I think McLeod is just wasting time and resources (I don't expect the converted Harveys or Fresco y Más stores to stick around for long) trying to make it some sort of "Aldi and Walmart alternative, but with full service departments" hybrid and instead of a reasonable alternative to Publix (which is probably what's keeping a lot in business in Florida, admittedly), and not actually making the hard decisions it needs to thrive, like knowing when to fish or cut bait on the farther-out stores like the Louisiana stores. The west of Mississippi stores are definitely at risk with the market exit of Lafayette, but I doubt even the Baton Rouge and New Orleans stores have much staying power, with Baton Rouge facing competition against Rouses, Walmart, and Albertsons, all of which have added stores or completed renovations in recent years. Yeah, Winn-Dixie has done alright in New Orleans where other supermarkets have not, but if it ultimately didn't save A&P, it won't save Winn-Dixie.

Hard to imagine that even in 1999, Winn-Dixie had over a thousand stores in operation.
I definitely agree with this analysis. Although the Marketplace format was well-suited for expansion when it was first developed in the 1980's, by the 1990's it was already outdated, particularly in expansion markets where the company saw some of their strongest competition ever (particularly in Texas). If this says something, only a few former Winn-Dixies remain in operation in Texas under other banners, mainly Kroger and Brookshires, and these stores have only been able to remain relevant due to being in areas with little/weak competition. Also, the company's unwillingness/inability to invest in their existing store base left them without any markets which they were truly "winning" the battle, per se. The fact that Winn-Dixie also catered downmarket from Publix also left them particularly vulnerable to competition from Walmart. Although the acquisition of BI-LO added numbers to the company's ranks, it also have proved to be a distraction as the problems which plagued BI-LO are very different than Winn-Dixie.
Winn-Dixie in Texas, as wnetmacman has noted before, was a rather odd operation with scattered markets. They had a number of stores in D-FW (even a DC and a whole division), but even in the early 1990s didn't even dent the top 5 according to that other thread where I posted about Kroger in DFW (the top five in 1992, just prior to the Skaggs/Albertsons purchase, was Jewel-Osco, Tom Thumb, Kroger, Minyard, and then Albertsons--the J-O name being the short-lived rebrand of Skaggs Alpha Beta). The only other markets I know of outside the immediate D-FW area (not counting North Texas, as I do understand there were a few in Oklahoma) were Waco (three stores, all of which were former Safeway/AppleTree stores) and Bryan-College Station (2 stores, though one closed in the late 1990s). None of them dominated the grocery market even during their peak (though the Waco ones fended off Albertsons) and none remain as grocery stores today (two became offices almost immediately, one became an Atwoods Ranch & Home, one became a furniture store, and one remained as a string of Mexican supermarkets, but is now vacant). 2002 put a merciful end to a division that should've been aborted in the 1990s, really.

Louisiana made sense as a market even after 2005, but a lack of investment has essentially doomed the Louisiana division, and it needs to be cut before it brings the rest of the company down. But knowing Winn-Dixie, they'll probably kill it too late and do further damage to the base of operations.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by Knight »

pseudo3d wrote:Marketplace might've worked had they built more and modernized it for the 1990s. The Marketplace format was a good change for the mid 1980s, but by the 1990s, it wasn't an acceptable format at the pace and size they were building (and they rarely did innovating or hopping on market trends--I did find an article that mentions a Dallas Winn-Dixie built a store with an in-store chef and a food court from 1994).
This would be the Food Pavilion concept found in select Winn-Dixie Marketplace stores in the mid-1990's. These stores existed in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
pseudo3d wrote:A lot of the worse stores have closed, and I think that if they closed or sold more stores (including BI-LO) and invested the rest in operations and renovations, they could at least prep it for a sale. Unfortunately, I think McLeod is just wasting time and resources (I don't expect the converted Harveys or Fresco y Más stores to stick around for long) trying to make it some sort of "Aldi and Walmart alternative, but with full service departments" hybrid and instead of a reasonable alternative to Publix (which is probably what's keeping a lot in business in Florida, admittedly), and not actually making the hard decisions it needs to thrive, like knowing when to fish or cut bait on the farther-out stores like the Louisiana stores. The west of Mississippi stores are definitely at risk with the market exit of Lafayette, but I doubt even the Baton Rouge and New Orleans stores have much staying power, with Baton Rouge facing competition against Rouses, Walmart, and Albertsons, all of which have added stores or completed renovations in recent years. Yeah, Winn-Dixie has done alright in New Orleans where other supermarkets have not, but if it ultimately didn't save A&P, it won't save Winn-Dixie.

Hard to imagine that even in 1999, Winn-Dixie had over a thousand stores in operation.
I think Winn-Dixie had nearly 1,178 stores prior to 2000. At the present, Publix has 1,145 stores in a smaller footprint.

I think Southeastern Grocers executed bad decisions under McLeod to turn away customers instead of making the necessary decisions to remain competitive. Bad decisions include banner conversions to Harvey's Supermarkets and Fresco y Más, the closing of pharmacy departments in underachieving stores, and not exiting specific markets.

Southeastern Grocers should exit Louisiana and Mississippi. Rouse's. Walmart, and Albertson's are present indeed. Additional supermarket competition could arrive with Publix.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:Winn-Dixie in Texas, as wnetmacman has noted before, was a rather odd operation with scattered markets. They had a number of stores in D-FW (even a DC and a whole division), but even in the early 1990s didn't even dent the top 5 according to that other thread where I posted about Kroger in DFW (the top five in 1992, just prior to the Skaggs/Albertsons purchase, was Jewel-Osco, Tom Thumb, Kroger, Minyard, and then Albertsons--the J-O name being the short-lived rebrand of Skaggs Alpha Beta). The only other markets I know of outside the immediate D-FW area (not counting North Texas, as I do understand there were a few in Oklahoma) were Waco (three stores, all of which were former Safeway/AppleTree stores) and Bryan-College Station (2 stores, though one closed in the late 1990s). None of them dominated the grocery market even during their peak (though the Waco ones fended off Albertsons) and none remain as grocery stores today (two became offices almost immediately, one became an Atwoods Ranch & Home, one became a furniture store, and one remained as a string of Mexican supermarkets, but is now vacant). 2002 put a merciful end to a division that should've been aborted in the 1990s, really.
Outside of what you mention, WD also had stores in:

Longview (3 locations, but only 1 by the end)
Carthage (closed 1991)
Marshall (an extremely expanded store)
Henderson
Jacksonville (Marketplace)
Gun Barrel City
Athens
Kilgore (former Safeway)
Denton (Marketplace)
Wichita Falls
Abilene
Sweetwater
And several others in between; these are the ones I can verify.

The Texas division was originally Kimbell, Inc., which became Buddies later. It was a special purchase; WD had been barred from acquisitions by the FTC until 1976; this was the middle finger to them at that point.
Knight wrote:This would be the Food Pavilion concept found in select Winn-Dixie Marketplace stores in the mid-1990's. These stores existed in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
The Lafayette store closing had an abbreviated Food Pavilion, since it wasn't built as a Marketplace. It was removed in 2001-2002.
Knight wrote:I think Winn-Dixie had nearly 1,178 stores prior to 2000. At the present, Publix has 1,145 stores in a smaller footprint.

I think Southeastern Grocers executed bad decisions under McLeod to turn away customers instead of making the necessary decisions to remain competitive. Bad decisions include banner conversions to Harvey's Supermarkets and Fresco y Más, the closing of pharmacy departments in underachieving stores, and not exiting specific markets.
That was their height. I don't just blame McLeod, though the company has made sure to pin everything on him. WD has never treated pharmacy whole-heartedly. The Banner conversions are a temporary solution to a permanent problem.
Knight wrote:Southeastern Grocers should exit Louisiana and Mississippi. Rouse's. Walmart, and Albertson's are present indeed. Additional supermarket competition could arrive with Publix.
Albertsons only competes directly in three cities: Lafayette (well, for now), Baton Rouge and Hammond. Walmart is a threat to all of them. Rouses is expanding. I expect them to get at least one of these stores.
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Re: 3 more Louisiana Winn-Dixies to close

Post by klkla »

This article as more information. It looks like 20 stores are closing:
http://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-f ... tructuring

- Closing 20 stores
- Laying off some store department heads (no details given)
- Renovated 90 of it's 730 stores last year (12.3%)
- Sales fell 7% last year
- Same store sales down 3.6%
- Blames WalMart and other competitors, deflation and changes in food stamp program.
- Trying to refinance it's debt (never a good sign especially when interest rates have been so low for so long).
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