Retail Watchers

Grocery Outlet?


Ewwwwwwwwww................

veteran+ wrote: ↑July 13th, 2023, 7:35 am Grocery Outlet?


Ewwwwwwwwww................

Never been impressed with Grocery Outlet in the few times I visited one,and I'm talking about multiple locations.

veteran+ wrote: ↑July 13th, 2023, 7:35 am Grocery Outlet?


Ewwwwwwwwww................

If you can find good locations they're a fun place to shop. You never know what you will find, and I find it fun to try various items they get that I otherwise never would have tried. If you like the various plant based meat substitutes and similar they have a ton of those items in both refrigerated and frozen at rock bottom prices.

Most locations in my area have quit selling anything outdated. A couple older locations in rough neighborhoods continue the practice of selling expired items and also seem to have higher prices on many items too.

But some locations are really good.

I do agree they still have some very unpleasant stores, even some newer ones are unpleasant, but for the most part with this chain about half of the stores I go in are an excellent operated store with a fun mix good conditions and friendly employees, a quarter of them are just so so on mix but friendly and clean, and the other quarter are run down and/or rude and/or still sell expired items.

So in my area I've segmented the stores and the stores in the top 50% I go into whenever I am nearby. I always leave glad I stopped in. The stores in the middle 25% I usually go into when I'm nearby. Sometimes I do not find anything but that is infrequent. The stores in the bottom 25% aside from the one in Fernley (a perplexing nice new building with indifferent staff, higher prices, locked restrooms, and no sign of ownership presence-so I keep giving it chances; last visit
few weeks ago the cashier did a flem filled cough over my $3 of items as she bagged them and i just threw them out, I may not return again after that), I avoid the lousy ones for years and have no idea when I'll return.

Add District Heights, MD/Oxon Hill, MD to the closing list. The store is right at the border between the two areas.

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/ ... thers.html

This is one of the Shoppers locations that Lidl purchased in 2019/2020. Brooklyn Park, MD is also another former Shoppers location. Oxon Hill was only open for a couple of years. I stopped in the store shortly after it opened. They were only using about 2/3 of the old Shoppers location. It didn't look like the remainder of the store was set up for another tenant to rent. Not sure what Lidl's plan was with that. Maybe the Shoppers locations they purchased are turning out to be too expensive to run. Lidl said Oxon Hill was "under performing". Yet the area lacks a lot of grocery options. There is an Aldi across the street and a Safeway further down Oxon Hill Road.

Yet Lidl finally opened their long delayed Chantilly, VA location in May and they are opening a location at the Lorton Prison redevelopment project later this month. Chantilly was one of those stores that was fully built out but stayed unopened for almost a year before finally opening.

Is Cary, NC already on our closure list? https://www.newsobserver.com/news/busin ... 77873.html

Edit: how about North Augusta, SC: https://www.wrdw.com/2023/07/04/lidl-no ... -business/

Meanwhile, some in Europe think that LIDL needs to be much bigger, not smaller, in the US to become profitable: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/lidl/has-li ... 56.article

mjhale wrote: ↑July 13th, 2023, 7:02 pm Add District Heights, MD/Oxon Hill, MD to the closing list. The store is right at the border between the two areas.

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/ ... thers.html

This is one of the Shoppers locations that Lidl purchased in 2019/2020. Brooklyn Park, MD is also another former Shoppers location. Oxon Hill was only open for a couple of years. I stopped in the store shortly after it opened. They were only using about 2/3 of the old Shoppers location. It didn't look like the remainder of the store was set up for another tenant to rent. Not sure what Lidl's plan was with that. Maybe the Shoppers locations they purchased are turning out to be too expensive to run. Lidl said Oxon Hill was "under performing". Yet the area lacks a lot of grocery options. There is an Aldi across the street and a Safeway further down Oxon Hill Road.

Yet Lidl finally opened their long delayed Chantilly, VA location in May and they are opening a location at the Lorton Prison redevelopment project later this month. Chantilly was one of those stores that was fully built out but stayed unopened for almost a year before finally opening.

That Chantilly location had been rumored since the first locations were announced here! Now I wonder what will become of some of these spaces. I have a feeling Shoppers will weasel back as they have been lately.

marketreportblog wrote: ↑July 14th, 2023, 7:00 am Is Cary, NC already on our closure list? https://www.newsobserver.com/news/busin ... 77873.html

Edit: how about North Augusta, SC: https://www.wrdw.com/2023/07/04/lidl-no ... -business/

Meanwhile, some in Europe think that LIDL needs to be much bigger, not smaller, in the US to become profitable: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/lidl/has-li ... 56.article

Didn't know of those. But this list keeps swelling, and what are these investors even doing wanting Lidl to expand the operation when this is their biggest blow in the States?

BatteryMill wrote: ↑July 14th, 2023, 10:46 pm

Didn't know of those. But this list keeps swelling, and what are these investors even doing wanting Lidl to expand the operation when this is their biggest blow in the States?

What these investors say about getting it to 500-600 stores and what Lidl is doing with closing stores seem to be the opposite moves.

I do not understand why they are closing all of these stores. I cannot see how it makes sense to just shut down stores like this when they need critical mass to be viable in the market. If they need to scale back stores like close/scale back bakery or take out some meat/refrigeration they probably need to do that before just outright closing stores down. Maybe if I was around the stores more I'd understand what is going on... but looking at the stores they are closing I see a few that may not be the greatest locations (visibility issues and such) but many of them look like they SHOULD be viable. They also appear as if they have traffic, these do not look to be dead stores that had few customers. Also it appears customers like the stores based on positive Google reviews. So I don't get it. It doesn't make sense what is happening with these store closures. Something is not working out for Lidl in the US.

I am also wondering if the ongoing layoffs, etc. have created a US operation that is not stable and each time new leadership shows up at the US corporate office they have different ideas/different strategies of what they want to do and how to get there. I think Lidl has done a disservice to its US operation not establishing a stable low turnover US corporate office.

I can say what I want about my opinion of Aldi after lousy experiences in SoCal, but they have a tract record of stability, success, and solid expansion in the US. Lidl's time here has been anything but stable.

storewanderer wrote: ↑July 15th, 2023, 1:06 am I do not understand why they are closing all of these stores. I cannot see how it makes sense to just shut down stores like this when they need critical mass to be viable in the market. If they need to scale back stores like close/scale back bakery or take out some meat/refrigeration they probably need to do that before just outright closing stores down. Maybe if I was around the stores more I'd understand what is going on... but looking at the stores they are closing I see a few that may not be the greatest locations (visibility issues and such) but many of them look like they SHOULD be viable. They also appear as if they have traffic, these do not look to be dead stores that had few customers. Also it appears customers like the stores based on positive Google reviews. So I don't get it. It doesn't make sense what is happening with these store closures. Something is not working out for Lidl in the US.

There is a intersection in my area that has Gaint-MD, Sheetz and Lidl. Walmart is about 5 minutes further down at the local mall. BatteryMill probably knows where I am talking about. I'll hit Sheetz for gas and then a combo of Lidl, Giant and Walmart for groceries. Although Safeway has had very strong ads in the last few months so they are getting a lot more from me than Giant. Anyhow, I think storewanderer's assessment of the Lidl stores themselves is accurate. They do have traffic and the stores are decent to shop in. The in store bakery is excellent. The store itself has a broader selection of product to give you some option in most categories including a few national brands as opposed to the very narrow selections that Aldi typically has. This makes the store easy to shop, in and out pretty quickly. I'm able to get about 80 percent of my basket at Lidl without feeling like I'm making a compromise on lack of selection or not getting exactly what I want. I use the other stores I mentioned to fill in the rest or things that are on a significant sale.

Here is what I see as the negatives of Lidl. The non-grocery "deals" section is filled with a bunch of low grade junk in my view. There is nothing that really generates a buzz or is worth buying over all the rest of the Made in China junk out there. One of the things that Aldi seems to excel on is generating buzz through their weekly finds items. That gets people in the store to shop for those items and then they are exposed to the rest of what the store offers. There is always healthy discussion of the weekly finds in the Aldi subreddit. This includes food items too. Lidl's food products in the "deals" section are nothing special and some of it is stuff that Americans would not generally buy. Aldi is good at Americanizing just enough their theme weeks that the product itself is special because it is imported but not different enough from the American version that you say what in the world is this. Without the buzz that Aldi creates about the product in the store Lidl gets lost in the sea of other grocery options especially in competitive grocery markets. Another place that Lidl falls a bit is with store staff. The stock people and cashiers in general are friendly and helpful. However the management staff seem like drone like machines without any personality and are programmed to just get the job done. I'm not sure if these are local hires or folks they brought in from Germany but they are off putting. I have a suspicion that Lidl's management is trying to run a German grocery store in the US as opposed to running a German concept in the American market. Lastly, I have to wonder if Lidl's purchasing of other grocery store locations in DC and the NYC metro as well as building from the ground up has cost them more that what ends up being profitable. I cannot think of a recent Aldi location near me that wasn't built in existing retail space. With the cost of real estate, both to buy and to build, plus rising interest rates, perhaps Lidl overdid it on the real estate side. Now, even with good reviews and decent traffic, they just aren't making enough to overcome the initial costs to get the stores open. As much as I want Lidl to succeed as another option for groceries, throwing more money at the problem and opening more stores using the current model isn't going to fix the problem. It is like trying to fix the leaking pipe with more duct tape instead of getting a plumber out to actually replace the pipe.

BatteryMill wrote: ↑July 14th, 2023, 10:46 pm I have a feeling Shoppers will weasel back as they have been lately.

How ironic and full circle would that be if Shoppers reopened the Oxon Hill/District Heights and Brooklyn Park locations? Both are in areas that don't have a lot of grocery options. At least there is a Safeway further down Oxon Hill Road from the closing Lidl and an Aldi across the street. However, for Brooklyn Park, it looks all they have is a Save-A-Lot and a bunch of bodega type stores to choose from. If one doesn't have a vehicle to get down onto MD 2 below the Baltimore Beltway you are stuck. No wonder the locals are concerned about the closing of Lidl.

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/ ... se-sunday/

But, Lidl is opening a new store on Belair Road inside the Baltimore Beltway. They are taking over for a long time independent that closed in 2021. Instead of working with the existing space, Lidl is going to demo the building and start over. This goes back to the real estate costs issue I brought up in my other post. Unless the building is so far gone that it can't be saved, I don't think it is cost efficient to take down usable space just because you want a "prototype" building. If Lidl is not making any money, dumping money into extensive development projects isn't going to save them. Use the existing space but put a new front on it if you have to. Selling product at this point seems more important than having beautiful buildings. Here's an article about the development plans for the Bel Air Road Lidl:

https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/n ... store.html

mjhale wrote: ↑July 15th, 2023, 4:55 am

BatteryMill wrote: ↑July 14th, 2023, 10:46 pm I have a feeling Shoppers will weasel back as they have been lately.

How ironic and full circle would that be if Shoppers reopened the Oxon Hill/District Heights and Brooklyn Park locations? Both are in areas that don't have a lot of grocery options. At least there is a Safeway further down Oxon Hill Road from the closing Lidl and an Aldi across the street. However, for Brooklyn Park, it looks all they have is a Save-A-Lot and a bunch of bodega type stores to choose from. If one doesn't have a vehicle to get down onto MD 2 below the Baltimore Beltway you are stuck. No wonder the locals are concerned about the closing of Lidl.

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/ ... se-sunday/

But, Lidl is opening a new store on Belair Road inside the Baltimore Beltway. They are taking over for a long time independent that closed in 2021. Instead of working with the existing space, Lidl is going to demo the building and start over. This goes back to the real estate costs issue I brought up in my other post. Unless the building is so far gone that it can't be saved, I don't think it is cost efficient to take down usable space just because you want a "prototype" building. If Lidl is not making any money, dumping money into extensive development projects isn't going to save them. Use the existing space but put a new front on it if you have to. Selling product at this point seems more important than having beautiful buildings. Here's an article about the development plans for the Bel Air Road Lidl:

https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/n ... store.html

Fresh & Easy did the same thing with their arrogant prototype fixation.

The funny "karma" about that is, the few stores that they opened in former supermarkets (like Palm Springs) were the highest volume and most profitable.