Crucial times for Shoppers

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. No non-grocery posts.
BatteryMill
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

storewanderer wrote: November 15th, 2020, 12:46 pm That is how they handled Farm Fresh too. Some of those are still open under independents. The results were not good. I think some already shut down and reviews online were awful and photos of store conditions under the independents were a nosedive from previous photos when they were corporate stores.

McKay's is curious as they were not previously a UNFI supplied store. I wonder if they are using UNFI to supply these two Shoppers Stores? They do not reference these two Shoppers Stores on their website. There seems to be a Facebook page for the Waldorf Store which is still getting postings from the UNFI Shoppers... and referencing to that website, ads, etc. But the UNFI Shoppers website no longer lists the Waldorf Store as one of its locations.

It is not clear if McKay's reopened the California, MD (Lexington Park) store yet.
Wow. Two of the Lee-owned stores (Norge and Virginia Beach) have closed within the past year. I'm just hoping this does not happen to anyone that gets ahold of the Shoppers name, and that the remaining Farm Freshes have a chance to see gains as well.

Interesting note about such Shoppers store Facebook pages, they are all subscribed to the main UNFI Shoppers page. From what I've observed, I have not seen any posts published by McKay's; I have also seen pages of recently closed stores still running as usual.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: November 19th, 2020, 4:39 pm
Wow. Two of the Lee-owned stores (Norge and Virginia Beach) have closed within the past year. I'm just hoping this does not happen to anyone that gets ahold of the Shoppers name, and that the remaining Farm Freshes have a chance to see gains as well.

Interesting note about such Shoppers store Facebook pages, they are all subscribed to the main UNFI Shoppers page. From what I've observed, I have not seen any posts published by McKay's; I have also seen pages of recently closed stores still running as usual.
I think Farm Fresh is down to 2 stores according to the farmfreshva.com website unless that is one operator's site and other operators have different websites. The Newport News Farm Fresh appears to be more of an Asian-focused store now. The other one looks like in recent photos that it is not really being run like a usual chain conventional store, lightly stocked.

The Shoppers Facebook pages must be on auto-pilot. I wonder what happens if you go into the McKay's Shoppers and try to get those promotions being discussed on the Shoppers Facebook.

Maybe UNFI lets the stores keep the name Farm Fresh or Shoppers in an effort to make it easier for the new operators to take the stores over. Signs aren't cheap. And if you are shutting down the chain anyway I guess the name is considered to no longer be worth maintaining an image for. Too bad.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

storewanderer wrote: November 19th, 2020, 6:28 pm
I think Farm Fresh is down to 2 stores according to the farmfreshva.com website unless that is one operator's site and other operators have different websites. The Newport News Farm Fresh appears to be more of an Asian-focused store now. The other one looks like in recent photos that it is not really being run like a usual chain conventional store, lightly stocked.

The Shoppers Facebook pages must be on auto-pilot. I wonder what happens if you go into the McKay's Shoppers and try to get those promotions being discussed on the Shoppers Facebook.

Maybe UNFI lets the stores keep the name Farm Fresh or Shoppers in an effort to make it easier for the new operators to take the stores over. Signs aren't cheap. And if you are shutting down the chain anyway I guess the name is considered to no longer be worth maintaining an image for. Too bad.
I do know the remaining Richmond store is/was the only store of one operator, with Lee owning the rest out east (three stores I believe).

Well, the main page is still active, it's mostly the store pages being automatically generated and not something Shoppers/Facebook staff take care of. Also to note, the Twitter feed has not been updated since December of last year, though the support team does occasionally reply to customers.

Indeed, I've heard stories about signage costs - Wegmans adding apostrophes to fix their grammatical error, for instance, would float them $500k across the chain. There have been sporadic reports over the past few years which made customers believe that Shoppers is shutting down wholesale, when the chain has persisted past these timeframes. Some may believe the chain's done for, but I hope the remaining stores will do well as always.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: November 21st, 2020, 12:30 pm There have been sporadic reports over the past few years which made customers believe that Shoppers is shutting down wholesale, when the chain has persisted past these timeframes. Some may believe the chain's done for, but I hope the remaining stores will do well as always.
It has been interesting Shoppers has kept going for as long as it has. The one I went into last year was clean, well stocked, had newer self checkout equipment, had already upgraded to EMV Contactless for tap card/phone transactions, and really showed no signs of a chain that was on the way to being closed. The store had decent traffic as well. Then again, the Shop N Save I went into in St. Louis 4 or 5 years ago didn't show signs of a chain on the way to being closed either... these stores looked MUCH better than the Albertsons Stores that Supervalu ran- in every way: cleanliness, store condition, pricing, staffing levels.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

storewanderer wrote: November 21st, 2020, 9:38 pm It has been interesting Shoppers has kept going for as long as it has. The one I went into last year was clean, well stocked, had newer self checkout equipment, had already upgraded to EMV Contactless for tap card/phone transactions, and really showed no signs of a chain that was on the way to being closed. The store had decent traffic as well. Then again, the Shop N Save I went into in St. Louis 4 or 5 years ago didn't show signs of a chain on the way to being closed either... these stores looked MUCH better than the Albertsons Stores that Supervalu ran- in every way: cleanliness, store condition, pricing, staffing levels.
Sure has, even this recent turn of events has it going longer. They do clean their stores nicely, but that might be the larger powers that be helping it out. It just so happens that these are rather interchangeable brands.

That being said, another update in regards to this year's news: The first store closed as part of this new policy is in Lorton, VA which shuttered a few weeks ago. It is unknown who they've sold to thus far.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

McKays has reopened the California, MD Store after what appears to be an extensive remodel under the McKays banner.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

storewanderer wrote: June 23rd, 2021, 10:24 pm McKays has reopened the California, MD Store after what appears to be an extensive remodel under the McKays banner.
Contrary to the Waldorf store which retained the Shoppers name. I'd be willing to wager that this is because it's more comfortably in McKay's home market than Waldorf which is closer to Shoppers' base.

In other news: UNFI is now indefinitely holding on to Cub and Shoppers. What will be the trajectory for the chains after this?

https://www.supermarketnews.com/retail- ... ytime-soon
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by buckguy »

It may be that they like the positive cashflow and will simply maintain the status quo for now. Chains used to maintain absurdly small footprints in some makets for decades (Acme in Pittsburgh, for example) without any apparent strategy, so there is some precedent for doing this. Some chains in declined also have followed a similar pattern---A&P kept a small footprint in DC for quite a long time during their final decline and the locations I saw did steady business, but didn't have a lot of competition in their immediate areas. Shoppers' current footprint includes a lot of areas that aren't growing but also aren't necessarily drawing new competition for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if they kept their current footprint until the economy picks up and it becomes easier to find buyers for their stores.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by mjhale »

BatteryMill wrote: June 24th, 2021, 5:57 pm
Contrary to the Waldorf store which retained the Shoppers name. I'd be willing to wager that this is because it's more comfortably in McKay's home market than Waldorf which is closer to Shoppers' base.
Am I understanding this correctly that McKay's now owns the Shoppers store in Waldorf but is still operating it under the Shoppers name? Google Maps marks the store as Shoppers (featuring McKay's). I wonder how much of the Shoppers operation McKay's kept in the Waldorf location? I wouldn't want to walk into a Shoppers branded store only to find out it is really a McKay's inside.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

mjhale wrote: June 28th, 2021, 6:07 pm
BatteryMill wrote: June 24th, 2021, 5:57 pm
Contrary to the Waldorf store which retained the Shoppers name. I'd be willing to wager that this is because it's more comfortably in McKay's home market than Waldorf which is closer to Shoppers' base.
Am I understanding this correctly that McKay's now owns the Shoppers store in Waldorf but is still operating it under the Shoppers name? Google Maps marks the store as Shoppers (featuring McKay's). I wonder how much of the Shoppers operation McKay's kept in the Waldorf location? I wouldn't want to walk into a Shoppers branded store only to find out it is really a McKay's inside.
Mostly the same decor, although some service departments/other offerings may be lacking vs. UNFI Shoppers. Most of the Compare Foods acquisitions have retained the Shoppers interior as well.
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