Large store format

[BillyGr]

If anyone's interested in checking out the new Astor Place Wegmans, here's my post from today...
https://www.marketreportblog.com/2023/1 ... ce_18.html

This looks fantastic and it is really good to see the prepared food options back with such great effort. I hope that is successful and they will look at re-expanding those options in some of the stores that were built with fewer such options.

Also interesting to see 40 self checkouts and only 10 staffed checkouts. Not quite what I'd expect from Wegman's. Did I read that right?

That's what it said. As was noted, it makes more sense in NYC as most people will be buying smaller quantities of items more often than would be the case as other Wegman's locations, plus it allows for far more people to check out at one time without waiting.

[veteran+]

If anyone's interested in checking out the new Astor Place Wegmans, here's my post from today...
https://www.marketreportblog.com/2023/1 ... ce_18.html

Wow! Thank you so much for this! Your report is so impressive!!!

This store will cause me to have wonderful dreams of what I consider the utopia for One Stop grocery shopping.

Kudos to Wegmans! So sad that we do not have an operator like this in SOCAL.

[veteran+]

[quote=storewanderer post_id=51165 time=1697702629 user_id=56]
[quote=marketreportblog post_id=51147 time=1697669371 user_id=3205]
If anyone's interested in checking out the new Astor Place Wegmans, here's my post from today...
[url]https://www.marketreportblog.com/2023/1 ... ce_18.html[/url]
[/quote]

This looks fantastic and it is really good to see the prepared food options back with such great effort. I hope that is successful and they will look at re-expanding those options in some of the stores that were built with fewer such options.

Also interesting to see 40 self checkouts and only 10 staffed checkouts. Not quite what I'd expect from Wegman's. Did I read that right?
[/quote]

The number of self checkouts was intentional for NYC shoppers. Many, many folks shop several times a week (especially fresh). This is usually due to many not having cars or elevators.

[ClownLoach]

If anyone's interested in checking out the new Astor Place Wegmans, here's my post from today...
https://www.marketreportblog.com/2023/1 ... ce_18.html

Wow! Thank you so much for this! Your report is so impressive!!!

This store will cause me to have wonderful dreams of what I consider the utopia for One Stop grocery shopping.

Kudos to Wegmans! So sad that we do not have an operator like this in SOCAL.

Some of the explanation here also makes me wonder if the giant store format is better supported by the more frequent, smaller shops due to lack of cars and parking. Makes sense that if you can't drive you're more likely to shop the store that has everything you need under one roof, because what might be a five minute drive elsewhere in a car can be a twenty minute wait for a bus or train plus travel and walking time. For some reason or another, probably the high cost of living that forces all but the rich to scrutinize ads and clip the few remaining coupons, we seem to have no problem at least in SoCal to shop multiple stores instead of having (former Smiths slogan) the one place that takes the place of going place-to-place. It's the same reason why we are rapidly running out of restaurants, either we have fast food (that isn't even cheap anymore) or luxury high priced gourmet food. The middle range has disappeared here.

[veteran+]

If anyone's interested in checking out the new Astor Place Wegmans, here's my post from today...
https://www.marketreportblog.com/2023/1 ... ce_18.html

Wow! Thank you so much for this! Your report is so impressive!!!

This store will cause me to have wonderful dreams of what I consider the utopia for One Stop grocery shopping.

Kudos to Wegmans! So sad that we do not have an operator like this in SOCAL.

Some of the explanation here also makes me wonder if the giant store format is better supported by the more frequent, smaller shops due to lack of cars and parking. Makes sense that if you can't drive you're more likely to shop the store that has everything you need under one roof, because what might be a five minute drive elsewhere in a car can be a twenty minute wait for a bus or train plus travel and walking time. For some reason or another, probably the high cost of living that forces all but the rich to scrutinize ads and clip the few remaining coupons, we seem to have no problem at least in SoCal to shop multiple stores instead of having (former Smiths slogan) the one place that takes the place of going place-to-place. It's the same reason why we are rapidly running out of restaurants, either we have fast food (that isn't even cheap anymore) or luxury high priced gourmet food. The middle range has disappeared here.

I agree but with some carve outs.

Metro Los Angeles is not a great area for multiple shopping trips. The time in traffic makes it way too time consuming plus the agitation of driving in that traffic with so many nut jobs. My state of mind trying to do that would be EXPLOSIVE and gasoline EXPENSIVE (stop and go and stop and go and........).