Albertsons Oregon

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storewanderer
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Albertsons Oregon

Post by storewanderer »

After the positive comments I made about a visit to an intermountain store last week, I went to the Oregon City Albertsons last night.

Store looked okay, other than the lack of customers. Clean, well stocked. The prices were an absolute joke. They have items flagged as "low priced everyday" selling at 20-25% above Safeway prices. Not even close to Fred Meyer prices. Maybe, I thought, they had some good specials going on. Well, not really. And forget picking up anything else if you do pick up on their specials. The meat department had some "buy 1 get TWO" free promotions on various "seasoned" meats. Chicken leg quarters (2.99/lb), Boneless Pork Chops (8.99/lb). What a deal, not. Retail on those items at Safeway is about 50% less. I was especially interested in that high pork price so I took a look at the unseasoned Boneless Pork Chops, these were "buy one get one" free. 7.99/lb that way.

I decided to grab a bottle of water and head out. Well, .99 for a 1 L Albertsons Water. Wow, the gallon must cost about that. No, wrong, Albertsons Gallon Water $1.49. Gallons of water are under $1 at every other store up here.

I also thought of picking up a box of microwave popcorn. I got a 3pk of the Essential Everyday stuff last weekend at the intermountain store at .88 sale price 1.99 regular price. I took a look in this place at the same item, same item cost 2.69 and there was no sale price. Forget that too.

Today, I decided to check out the Wilsonville Albertsons thinking perhaps the pricing in the Oregon City Store was somehow, very screwed up. The Wilsonville Albertsons is a very nice Jewel interior store. Same terrible center store pricing. The store was largely deserted (perhaps 5 customers inside), while the Fred Meyer across the street was very busy (at least 6 up front registers open plus a line for self checkouts). Well, the "buy one get two" free pork was 9.99/lb at that one, and they had some cubed steaks and petite sirloins seasoned and "buy one get two" free too, at the low low price of 8.99/lb too. What do these guys think? Do they think the customer is stupid, inept, or what? This type of deceptive pricing needed to be stopped years ago, yet it is continuing.

I do not expect Albertsons to remain in the Oregon market after what I saw. Safeway looks like a paradise compared to them.

I am very curious why they have fixed pricing in the intermountain division, but not in Oregon/Washington. They have a lot more competition in Oregon/Washington so this does not make sense to me.
Super S
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Re: Albertsons Oregon

Post by Super S »

Albertsons used to play a game with "buy one, get one free" specials in their ads. One I remember several years ago when I lived closer to Albertsons: A package of Chips Ahoy cookies which sold for around $2.00 suddenly was $3.99 for that special, then went back down to around $2.00 when the special was over. They doubled the price for the special. So if you buy two you don't really save anything. Albertsons used to do this with many BOGO items.

I would think that with the end of the preferred card, Albertsons would start lowering prices to more reasonable levels to try to regain business. I hope at least they are making an effort to clean up the dirty stores. Higher prices would be a bit more justifiable if Albertsons had clean, modern stores and better service. But the last few times I have visited a Portland-area Albertsons, they were failing on all counts. In some instances you could go into a 7-Eleven and find better prices and cleaner stores. Seriously.
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Re: Albertsons Oregon

Post by klkla »

store wanderer wrote: I am very curious why they have fixed pricing in the intermountain division, but not in Oregon/Washington. They have a lot more competition in Oregon/Washington so this does not make sense to me.
The intermountain division was previously Cerebrus and they have had more time to finesse pricing and product mix.

The Pacific Northwest stores were under SuperValu control until very recently. If they decided to cut prices immediately the effect on cash flow would be awful because it would not result in the necessary increases in customer count right away and the stores would be generating negative cash flow.

In time they will start striking that balance between pricing/sales/profit but it takes time.

Here in Southern California I've seen a big improvement in merchandising and customer service recently which is where they have to start. Probably the same in PNW.
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Re: Albertsons Oregon

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote:Maybe, I thought, they had some good specials going on. Well, not really. And forget picking up anything else if you do pick up on their specials. The meat department had some "buy 1 get TWO" free promotions on various "seasoned" meats. Chicken leg quarters (2.99/lb), Boneless Pork Chops (8.99/lb). What a deal, not. Retail on those items at Safeway is about 50% less. I was especially interested in that high pork price so I took a look at the unseasoned Boneless Pork Chops, these were "buy one get one" free. 7.99/lb that way.
OK - am I missing something?

You say that the prices are about 50% less at Safeway than the prices you quote from Albertsons.
So that would mean the chicken is around $1.50/lb and the pork $4.50/lb?

So, buy 3 lbs of each at each store - Safeway chicken = $4.50 Pork = $13.50
- Albertson chicken = $2.99 Pork = $8.99
Looks like the Albertson ones are quite a bit less. The only way it would be a worse deal at Albertsons is if you didn't want 3lbs.

Now, some of the other items are probably higher, but those buy 1 get 2 don't seem to be.
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Re: Albertsons Oregon

Post by storewanderer »

The problem is to be doing these "buy one get two" specials with regular retails that are obviously VERY inflated. I do not think Albertsons has a very positive price image with customers. This only reinforces that Albertsons prices are way above standard store prices and also goes against the "at a fair price" portion of Joe's old mission that this Cerberus group is supposedly following.

The net cost *after* you "buy one get two" may come out slightly lower than Safeway's *regular* price, but, what good is this? What does this tell the customer? This tells the customer well Albertsons pork was priced double Safeway's pork but this week (month?) it was buy one get two free or buy one get one free. But that customer will then think wait a minute, what about when the sale ends? Do I want to pay that or do I just go to Safeway? And what if Safeway has a sale going (which they did) on their already much lower regular prices?

The merchandising and customer service in the stores looks fine. There are so few customers in them, it isn't very hard.
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Re: Albertsons Oregon

Post by StoreLiker2006 »

Can we all look back on Albertson's Pacific Northwest-area dominance, in its prime, the 1980s? I also mean to ask you this in terms of any pictures you may have of these stores then.

Albertson's operated these stores in January 1987 in the Portland (OR) area of the Pacific Northwest:

SUPER STORES
17120 SE Powell Blvd. (opened 1981; closed 2008)
2950 NE Hogan Dr. (at Stark St.), Gresham (opened 1983; closed 2008)
8155 SW Hall Blvd., Tigard (Greenway Center) (opened 1983)
6055 SW 185th Ave. (at Farmington Rd.), Aloha (opened 1984)
12102 SE Division St. (opened 1986; closed January 2012)

OTHER STORES
1350 NE 122nd Ave. (opened 1959; closed 2006)
4405 NE Cully Blvd. (opened 1959)
5415 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy. (Raleigh Hills) (opened 1960)
2605 SW Cedar Hills Blvd. (Cedar Hills) (opened 1960)
909 N Killingsworth St. (opened 1960; sold 1989)
250 SE 10th Ave. (Hillsboro) (opened 1964; moved to 888 NE 25th Ave. circa 1990)
610 NE 181st Ave. (at Glisan St.) (opened 1964; moved to 451 NE 181st Ave. in August 1987)
3232 SE Harrison St. (Milwaukie) (opened 1964; moved to Milwaukie Marketplace, 10830 SE Oak St. in 1989)
16199 SW Boones Ferry Rd. (Lake Grove) (opened 1965)
940 SE 39th Ave. (at Belmont St.) (opened 1966; sold 1989)
4715 SE 39th Ave. (at Holgate Blvd.) (opened 1966; sold 1989)
12060 SW Main St. (Tigard) (opened 1976)
15810 SE McLoughlin Blvd. (Oak Grove) (opened 1977 at Holly Farm Center; closed January 2004)
2323 SE 82nd Ave. (at Division St.) (opened 1978; moved to Eastport Plaza, 4140 SE 82nd Ave. in 1997, closed 2005)
1809 Molalla Ave., Oregon City (Southridge Center) (opened 1980; moved to Berryhill Shopping Center, 19007 S Beavercreek Rd. in 1990)

Based on the amount of stores closed or sold to other companies, Albertson's really needs to get tough here, competitively, in the Portland/Vancouver area. By 1990, very few of the pre-1970s locations seemed to exist.

Anyway, the Super Stores (sized 35,000 sq. ft. or more) were a big deal: they stocked many other goods beyond food, such as housewares, small appliances and home electronics. They seemed to follow Safeway's own "superstore" concept that that chain pioneered around 1976.

~Ben (StoreLiker2006)

UPDATE 8-31-2021: Fixed location of Glisan St. stores from 122nd Ave. to 181st Ave.
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