rwsandiego wrote:I asked my Long Beach friend about "The Market by VONS." He said it is a gold mine, given the number of young professionals in the community. They have a nice selection of produce, bakery, meat, and seafood in addition to select frozen and "center store" items. It felt a little smaller than a Fresh and Easy, but was better laid out and the merchandise was in better shape.
That wouldn't surprise me given the demographics. As long as the quality is there and the prices are generally reasonable or even slightly more 'premium', then that format would work. It's good to see the experiment wasn't a failure here, and understandably is being kept 'as-is' for now. Hopefully Albertsons recognizes this and places similar stores in smart locations like small outlying 'semi-urban' downtowns in gentrified neighborhoods.
So true!!!
Strategically located (even to the correct corner of an intersection with the appropriate traffic signals) in the right neighborhood smaller stores like this can win and win big!
Strategically located (even to the correct corner of an intersection with the appropriate traffic signals) in the right neighborhood smaller stores like this can win and win big!
I always thought the Hermosa Beach F&E Express was a great example of this. I live literally a block away, and would go in there every single night (and I probably saved literally thousands of dollars on food during the time it was open, as the clearance discounts were DEEP, and I could time my nightly visits to when they'd do the markdowns).
This store is located along PCH in Hermosa and surrounded by tons of dense residential in all directions with nice demographics so it was very walk-able. According to one of the managers there, the store was profitable. It really felt like a true "Neighborhood Market" and many of us in the neighborhood were very unhappy when it suddenly closed.
On the plus side, I've lost about 15 lbs since the store went away.
Strategically located (even to the correct corner of an intersection with the appropriate traffic signals) in the right neighborhood smaller stores like this can win and win big!
I always thought the Hermosa Beach F&E Express was a great example of this. I live literally a block away, and would go in there every single night (and I probably saved literally thousands of dollars on food during the time it was open, as the clearance discounts were DEEP, and I could time my nightly visits to when they'd do the markdowns).
This store is located along PCH in Hermosa and surrounded by tons of dense residential in all directions with nice demographics so it was very walk-able. According to one of the managers there, the store was profitable. It really felt like a true "Neighborhood Market" and many of us in the neighborhood were very unhappy when it suddenly closed.
On the plus side, I've lost about 15 lbs since the store went away.
It's cool that this store served you well
The very existence of that entire markdown system was one of the big reasons the company failed. I am talking about minimum $10,000. per week in waste in the better stores. Place that conservative number against the average store volume of Fresh & Easy (last number was less than 70,000.per week) and that is blood red losses.
That store was not profitable. They had some break even periods but there was never any real profit.
rwsandiego wrote:I asked my Long Beach friend about "The Market by VONS." He said it is a gold mine, given the number of young professionals in the community. They have a nice selection of produce, bakery, meat, and seafood in addition to select frozen and "center store" items. It felt a little smaller than a Fresh and Easy, but was better laid out and the merchandise was in better shape.
That wouldn't surprise me given the demographics. As long as the quality is there and the prices are generally reasonable or even slightly more 'premium', then that format would work. It's good to see the experiment wasn't a failure here, and understandably is being kept 'as-is' for now. Hopefully Albertsons recognizes this and places similar stores in smart locations like small outlying 'semi-urban' downtowns in gentrified neighborhoods.
So true!!!
Strategically located (even to the correct corner of an intersection with the appropriate traffic signals) in the right neighborhood smaller stores like this can win and win big!
Case in point: My local VONS. It is not as small as The Market in Long Beach, but it is a small store, probably no more than 40K square feet. However, it serves a very dense hipster neighborhood as well as an upper middle class wealthy neighborhood. The place is always packed and, as a result, the produce and meat is very fresh (because it turns over quickly) and the product offering is better than most VONS stores in San Diego. They also have an amazing wine department. I'd guess a third of their traffic walks to the store (it is located in one of SD's most walkable neighborhoods).
This sounds like the Safeway in Truckee, CA. Heavy tourist and wealthy customers. The store is 40,000 square feet with excellent bakery, deli, and meat and above average produce due to how fast product turns over. I think high volume 40k square foot stores in good neighborhoods are a sweet spot for grocers; the stores are big enough to have a decent offering but not too big that they end up with dead space.
rwsandiego wrote:
Case in point: My local VONS. It is not as small as The Market in Long Beach, but it is a small store, probably no more than 40K square feet. However, it serves a very dense hipster neighborhood as well as an upper middle class wealthy neighborhood. The place is always packed and, as a result, the produce and meat is very fresh (because it turns over quickly) and the product offering is better than most VONS stores in San Diego. They also have an amazing wine department. I'd guess a third of their traffic walks to the store (it is located in one of SD's most walkable neighborhoods).
I was convinced they'd turn the Coronado VONS into a "The Market". It's an old 50's gable store, and about the right size, too. Though the 'younger' vibe may not be there to support the format (which relies heavily on self-checkout) since Coronado is still a rather 'aged' community.
Safeway still has a dedicated page for the San Jose "The Market" store, despite the fact that I was able to find an article that Safeway had elected not to move on with the format.
rwsandiego wrote:
Case in point: My local VONS. It is not as small as The Market in Long Beach, but it is a small store, probably no more than 40K square feet. However, it serves a very dense hipster neighborhood as well as an upper middle class wealthy neighborhood. The place is always packed and, as a result, the produce and meat is very fresh (because it turns over quickly) and the product offering is better than most VONS stores in San Diego. They also have an amazing wine department. I'd guess a third of their traffic walks to the store (it is located in one of SD's most walkable neighborhoods).
I was convinced they'd turn the Coronado VONS into a "The Market". It's an old 50's gable store, and about the right size, too. Though the 'younger' vibe may not be there to support the format (which relies heavily on self-checkout) since Coronado is still a rather 'aged' community.
My local VONS (Adams and 36th in Normal Heights San Diego) is probably about the same size (maybe slightly bigger) than the Coronado VONS. An even smaller VONS is the one in Del Mar Heights. That place is tiny. It is probably the same size as "The Market" in Belmont Shore.
rwsandiego wrote:My local VONS (Adams and 36th in Normal Heights San Diego) is probably about the same size (maybe slightly bigger) than the Coronado VONS. An even smaller VONS is the one in Del Mar Heights. That place is tiny. It is probably the same size as "The Market" in Belmont Shore.
Your local Vons on Adams is considerably larger than the other two stores. That store (when it was a Safeway) replaced a very small store that had been on the property since the 1940's. The current store was built around 1987.
Vons has been trying to get permits to expand the Coronado store for years. If it wasn't for those efforts it probably would have become a 'The Market'. As far as I know they are still trying to get permits to build a larger store.
The Belmont Shore location is land-locked. There simply isn't any economically feasible way to expand that store so leaving it as 'The Market' makes more sense.
For what it's worth, I've always thought that the Vons in Manhattan Beach (near downtown MB on MB Blvd.) would make a great candidate for the "Market by Vons" concept.
