Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: May 26th, 2021, 10:49 pm Unique store interiors? Maybe recently. They used one variation with a lot of yellow, orange and wood paneling for 20 years. That was followed by a horrible design with gray everything for many years. New and interesting interiors are a fairly recent development for this company. But I haven't seen anything that was groundbreaking. Just variations of existing designs in the industry.

I agree their service quality is better than Kroger, but that's a pretty low bar. There are many grocery companies that have far better service than Albertsons and Kroger.

They came pretty close to becoming a KMart-like disaster when they dissolved the original company and sold if off in pieces to SuperValu, CVS and Cerberus Capital Management. The latter is responsible for the success of the current company.
I really think Kroger was on the road to literally creaming them up until about four years ago when Kroger started to centralize everything and the operation of the various Kroger Divisions out west really started to get noticeably worse and quality of fresh departments took a serious nosedive (after getting noticeably better for many years).

More recently Albertsons has added labor to the stores, improved promotions, improved merchandising, better developed its online offer most notably ending the old Safeway policy of higher prices online than in-store (not clear if they did this in every market), and seems to be putting out a much stronger fight on price than they used to (again this does not seem to be happening in every market though).

Neither chain really does what a superior regional like Hy-Vee, a superior small family chain like Harmon's in Utah, or the niche chains like Trader Joe's does, but at this point in time I find myself much more satisfied with the Albertsons/Safeway operation than Kroger on quality, store operation, and even pricing. And I can't believe I have reached that point.

Fred Meyer still seems to run a higher quality operation than Ralphs or QFC which are frankly awful on quality for the prices they charge and service they offer, and Smiths tries hard at the local level in Reno area but seems to be given a lot of lousy fresh product to work with and trouble staying in-stock.

But I find Albertsons/Safeway to pretty consistently run a quality produce, bakery, and deli operation up and down the west coast. Center store is stocked pretty well since the pricing isn't great and they seem to do a decent job having overstock on sale items. There are some variances by region but generally speaking they run with quality product.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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klkla wrote: May 26th, 2021, 10:49 pm They came pretty close to becoming a KMart-like disaster when they dissolved the original company and sold if off in pieces to SuperValu, CVS and Cerberus Capital Management. The latter is responsible for the success of the current company.
I think the rebranding of Lucky and acquisition of Shaw's (from Sainsbury's) is actually what led to their sale in 2006.
Larry Johnston's incompetence didn't help them.

If I were running ABS in 2006, I would've sold the unprofitable NorCal, Florida, Texas, and Denver divisions, similar to what Safeway did in the 80's, and just left the company as is after those sales
Last edited by retailfanmitchell019 on May 26th, 2021, 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 26th, 2021, 11:00 pm
klkla wrote: May 26th, 2021, 10:49 pm They came pretty close to becoming a KMart-like disaster when they dissolved the original company and sold if off in pieces to SuperValu, CVS and Cerberus Capital Management. The latter is responsible for the success of the current company.
I think the rebranding of Lucky and acquisition of Shaw's (from Sainsbury's) is actually what led to their sale in 2006.
Larry Johnston's incompetence didn't help them.

If I were running ABS in 2006, I would've sold the unprofitable NorCal, Florida, Texas, and Denver divisions, similar to what Safeway did in the 80's, and just left the company as is after those sales
Albertsons could have fixed NorCal in 2006 by going back to the Lucky banner and running it like Lucky was run. Of course a block of the stores did end up back to the Lucky banner, but run like a Save Mart. I suppose it worked out for them in the end since they ended up with Safeway NorCal instead which is/was a stronger operation than Lucky NorCal ever was.

The only reason things went the route they did was because Bob Miller actually wanted to run grocery stores and kept those 200 poorly performing stores in the Southwest, FL, and TX going when they couldn't find buyers for them... and watching Supervalu crash and burn knew he could take those stores over, apply some common sense to the operation, and turn them around. Supervalu ran the stores way worse than Larry did. With different management in place I'm not sure the company would have dissolved in 2006.
Last edited by storewanderer on May 26th, 2021, 11:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: May 26th, 2021, 11:02 pm Albertsons could have fixed NorCal in 2006 by going back to the Lucky banner and running it like Lucky was run. Of course a block of the stores did end up back to the Lucky banner, but run like a Save Mart. I suppose it worked out for them in the end since they ended up with Safeway NorCal instead which is/was a stronger operation than Lucky NorCal ever was.
Looking at your Flickr, I saw pictures of an aborted Albertsons-to-Lucky conversion in Las Vegas, under Old Albertsons.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 26th, 2021, 11:04 pm
storewanderer wrote: May 26th, 2021, 11:02 pm Albertsons could have fixed NorCal in 2006 by going back to the Lucky banner and running it like Lucky was run. Of course a block of the stores did end up back to the Lucky banner, but run like a Save Mart. I suppose it worked out for them in the end since they ended up with Safeway NorCal instead which is/was a stronger operation than Lucky NorCal ever was.
Looking at your Flickr, I saw pictures of an aborted Albertsons-to-Lucky conversion in Las Vegas, under Old Albertsons.
That was because Grocery Outlet claimed ownership of the Lucky trademark so they had to halt the conversion. That store did ultimately convert to Lucky, then closed, I think it is a Cardenas now.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by SamSpade »

So... strange thing. I semi-regularly visit the "Shattuck Rd." Albertsons in Portland.
I was last there this winter for my flu shot.

Yesterday I was in the area so I stopped in looking for Bay's, which seem to be missing around here. :(

The store has been completely renovated to Safeway's "colorful lifestyle" look on the medium-sized cap ex end (painted walls, added light boxes and department images).

The pharmacy lost it's "Sav On" branding inside, but displays it on both exterior signs.
The sign above the doors does say "thank you for shopping Albertsons" so I guess they have decided to keep this as Albertsons even though it is entirely a Safeway inside.
The Starbucks did not receive a conversion to the current Starbucks / kiosk design.
The produce section did not have a flooring update.
The bakery is now carrying all the Safeway refrigerated cakes, although in a different case than the usual coffin you would find at a Safeway.
The former beer growler bar area in the front of the store was walled off and converted for use for Drive Up and Go.

Under the "expansion" from the original Albertsons A-Frame/Marina store, which has a low ceiling, they used special lowered versions of the Safeway aisle markers that I've never seen before. They were one of my favorite features.

I really don't know when this update happened, I drive by there fairly regularly and don't remember construction crews at all!
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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SamSpade wrote: June 30th, 2021, 4:53 pm So... strange thing. I semi-regularly visit the "Shattuck Rd." Albertsons in Portland.
The store has been completely renovated to Safeway's "colorful lifestyle" look on the medium-sized cap ex end (painted walls, added light boxes and department images).

The pharmacy lost it's "Sav On" branding inside, but displays it on both exterior signs.
The sign above the doors does say "thank you for shopping Albertsons" so I guess they have decided to keep this as Albertsons even though it is entirely a Safeway inside.
The Starbucks did not receive a conversion to the current Starbucks / kiosk design.
The produce section did not have a flooring update.
The remodel Supervalu did on this store didn't look particularly good anyway so it is possible they just wanted to improve the appearance here.

I think they can go through and do these low budget remodels very quickly and with minimal construction crews (probably just a single trailer of supplies and a dumpster or two out back). This sounds pretty similar to those two Safeway remodels down around Aloha.

I wonder how they decide what stores to keep the Albertsons banner on.

It could also be possible they will ultimately rebrand all of the stores in the area all at once (marketing blitz) but need to get them all remodeled first. That is how they handled Colorado, but it happened fairly quickly there.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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The rumored last store on the chopping block, is the Safeway in Crown Hill. Although there is no official plan for that lot. I heard it from someone that knows someone in the store, so it could still be just a rumor.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by rmx777 »

Here in Mukilteo the only Albertsons store got converted to a Safeway in around late 2019 early 2020. this Albertsons location was going down hill for many years. very few people were shopping the store and there were very few workers around too. this store had gone through several remodels and now as a safeway doesnt have a big frozen food section as the safeway at 148th & hwy 99 in Lynnwood. seems like this location is a little smaller i would guess. Also there was a safeway and albertsons at 196th & 99 in lynnwood and they closed down the safeway on one corner to then end up eventually converting the albertsons to safeway. the old safeway then got divided up and half of it is now the trader joes that moved from the building the old albertsons was in across the street. mountlake terrace did have an albertsons at 212th street but even that got converted to safeway. also speaking of Heggen there was one in shoreline that closed in 2015 it had only opened in febuary that year only to be shut down in november and ended up becoming yet another safeway.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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rmx777 wrote: January 16th, 2022, 7:41 am Here in Mukilteo the only Albertsons store got converted to a Safeway in around late 2019 early 2020. this Albertsons location was going down hill for many years. very few people were shopping the store and there were very few workers around too. this store had gone through several remodels and now as a safeway doesnt have a big frozen food section as the safeway at 148th & hwy 99 in Lynnwood. seems like this location is a little smaller i would guess. Also there was a safeway and albertsons at 196th & 99 in lynnwood and they closed down the safeway on one corner to then end up eventually converting the albertsons to safeway. the old safeway then got divided up and half of it is now the trader joes that moved from the building the old albertsons was in across the street. mountlake terrace did have an albertsons at 212th street but even that got converted to safeway. also speaking of Heggen there was one in shoreline that closed in 2015 it had only opened in febuary that year only to be shut down in november and ended up becoming yet another safeway.
Looks like the nearest stores still with the banner are Redmond and Mill Creek. Generally speaking at this point aside from Spokane it seems like most of what is left with the banner in WA is sort of out of the way locations. They seem to be moving to convert WA to Safeway, very slowly. Supervalu ran the Seattle area stores particularly poorly, Portland also not great but not as bad as the ones around Seattle, so it is probably a lost cause at this point and for whatever unknown reason Safeway seems to be somewhat popular in WA. I suspect they would have had better luck converting the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle to Safeway, than they have had converting Colorado stores to Safeway (a banner with a worse reputation in Colorado).

If converting Albertsons banner stores to Safeway was such a slam dunk move as they thought it would be in CO, they'd have already done the conversions in CA, AZ, OR, WA, WY, and MT... actions speak louder than words. At this point they are basically the same store...

https://local.albertsons.com/wa.html
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