Once got a paper bag at Save Mart with musical notes on it and a graphic of singing employees. They never have done much advertising up here in Nevada but I was a little curious what it was. It was referring to the above.
However it is new to me that there was also a spanish version:
This used to be Harmon's image in Utah until they realized that the chain needed to reinvent itself as Utah's hometown upscale/service-oriented grocer (beautiful perimeter departments in most locations, well-staffed at all locations; center store of a typical grocer). Slight logo change by 2016 (ad is from 2011), but they still brand themselves "Harmon's Neighborhood Grocery." https://youtu.be/G-7buYQNChY
storewanderer wrote: It is actually very much like Kmart when you look at the condition of the stores and how starved of capital the stores are. The stores lack capital; aside from new build stores, the remainder of their stores have not been updated physically beyond some cheap repaint jobs in 20+ years and are showing it inside (old floors, old refrigeration, missized perimeter departments by modern standards).
The advantage SaveMart has over a failing retailer like Kmart though is that it's real estate is not terrible. They mostly aren't in the new part of town, but they still maintain tons of locations that are in high traffic, middle to upper class areas that could easily support a revitalized brand. If they caught up on maintenance and did a minor remodel to some stores, they are set up for success. Albertsons was pretty decent in choosing NorCal real estate and SaveMart still holds onto that advantage if they identify and use it properly. Thinking of the 12 SaveMart's left in Sacramento, the only questionable location I can think of is the Stanford Ranch one previously discussed. Their other locations, especially the Loehmann's Plaza and Folsom Blvd locations are outstanding pieces of real estate and could be high volume stores if operated correctly. Kmart on the other hand jumped the gun on real estate and made a ton of bad bets in NorCal. Their locations (such as the Rocklin one that recently closed) are often in areas that looked promising but ended up failing ultimately. There really isn't much of a point in Kmart attempting to revitalize this locations as their physical location just doesn't make sense.
That's true, a lot of the real estate is pretty good. It helps that NorCal in general is a pretty good market. Some of the stores tend to be undersized and very outdated (physical facilities need significant investment in general upkeep...) though. I feel like with some of the closures they have closed nice stores and kept lousy old outdated stores (lower overhead...) in the same areas.
I still wonder. Save Mart has flopped miserably in Sacramento with all the closures (not to mention the 2 stores they closed mid-conversion). I think additional Save Mart locations around Sacramento that appear to perform questionably are the ones on Gerber Road and Placerville-Missouri Flat Road. Also the Food Maxx up Watt in Antelope appears questionable, but that store didn't seem to do much even as a Fleming store. I am also not so sure Carmichael is doing very well but that store sure looks good inside. My last visit to Carmichael was on a Saturday afternoon and the place didn't even have steady traffic at its one open checkstand. But I've been in there other times recently where it had 2-3 lanes open and moderate traffic so maybe I was just there at an off time.
Look at Stockton; how many stores does Save Mart have there now and how many did they have 10-15 years ago? After taking over a few Frys, a few Luckys, at least two old old Albertsons, and even a Pak N Save in that city at this point they are left with what, one new build/replacement of a Lucky, one of the Albertsons, and one of the Luckys. Not a very good tract record. Stockton hasn't really seen many new competitors either...
They are lucky Wal Mart and WinCo have not developed to a level of saturation in NorCal as they have in some other places or they would be out of business. Given the costs and availability of land, and other issues, I don't think there is a risk of Wal Mart and WinCo ever developing to a level of saturation in NorCal.
storewanderer wrote:
I think the focus of the current company is converting stores in price sensitive areas to Food Maxx (if they can get the conversions done, work has stalled again the past few weeks in Carson City and Sparks after they demolished out bakery/deli/seafood departments and took out some shelves... I don't know what the hold up is... they still have the old Save Mart departments signs and paint all around the walls even... they need to get those reopened... it has been FOUR MONTHS since those stores closed as Save Mart). Then the focus is on adding more upscale (read: higher priced) items to Lucky and also to Save Mart.
I really want to see this company be successful but time and time again they disappoint me.
I've been getting the impression that FoodMaxx is slowly becoming more like Save Mart, complete with similar shelving and increased pricing, so converting them in "price sensitive" areas is a non-issue. Why not just revamp the merchandise mix in existing Save Mart stores, since that seems to be a problem?
That is the same impression I am getting. For some reason once they started to convert conventional Save Mart/Lucky Stores into Food Maxx (the conversions usually involved keeping the conventional shelving) they seemed to start to like that type of format for Food Maxx and now they are even remodeling some (all?) of the old legacy Food Maxx Stores into that same conventional store-warehouse store mesh sort of format.
I'm not sure if they are just trying to mimic WinCo (who uses a sort of combination conventional store-warehouse type of store as well) but they will need to do a lot more if they want to mimic WinCo because WinCo has so much more to offer than Food Maxx (and at somewhat lower overall prices on a basket)...
They'd probably be better off just getting prices down to "fair" levels in the older, smaller Save Mart banner stores, try to position the "Lucky" name for better stores and have better quality items there (that means expand the Lucky name outside the bay area)... but converting stores to Food Maxx allows them to get rid of (well, transfer to other still open Save Mart locations) the current employees/union agreements and open a new store with a fresh agreement (less senior employees) and possibly different wage structures... so it is a way to cut costs.
They did have another format called Maxx Value Foods which was sort of like a Food Maxx price scale on a very limited assortment in smaller former Lucky/Save Mart locations in declining neighborhoods. They cut out merchandise mix and I hesitate to say the assortment was like a Save a Lot but think something along those lines (the difference in the Maxx Value was the produce looked okay and it had a fair amount of name brand items). I think only 2 ever opened, 1 of which closed. I thought the store was poor and am not surprised they have not expanded it.
storewanderer wrote:That is the same impression I am getting. For some reason once they started to convert conventional Save Mart/Lucky Stores into Food Maxx (the conversions usually involved keeping the conventional shelving) they seemed to start to like that type of format for Food Maxx and now they are even remodeling some (all?) of the old legacy Food Maxx Stores into that same conventional store-warehouse store mesh sort of format.
I'm not sure if they are just trying to mimic WinCo (who uses a sort of combination conventional store-warehouse type of store as well) but they will need to do a lot more if they want to mimic WinCo because WinCo has so much more to offer than Food Maxx (and at somewhat lower overall prices on a basket)...
They'd probably be better off just getting prices down to "fair" levels in the older, smaller Save Mart banner stores, try to position the "Lucky" name for better stores and have better quality items there (that means expand the Lucky name outside the bay area)... but converting stores to Food Maxx allows them to get rid of (well, transfer to other still open Save Mart locations) the current employees/union agreements and open a new store with a fresh agreement (less senior employees) and possibly different wage structures... so it is a way to cut costs.
Has Save Mart ever taken Lucky outside of the Bay Area? I got the impression it's probably a license requirement. Since the Albertsons LLC stores don't seem to be doing much with Lucky, it would probably beneficial for both companies for Save Mart to buy a license to use Lucky outside of the Bay Area (being beneficial to Albertsons to raise funds).
No... the closest SaveMart has gotten to taking Lucky outside the Bay is Antioch. Grocery Outlet tried to claim that Albertsons surrendered the rights to Lucky and opened a Lucky in Rocklin,CA but lawsuits ended that experiment pretty quickly. It is often assumed that SaveMart is SaveMart in the Central Valley because the lumped their Sacramento stores with their Fresno stores since they are both in the Valley, despite being very different markets. SaveMart had some brand recognition in Sacramento before buying Albertsons NorCal so it was not an overly questionable move. Where SaveMart does not have brand recognition it comes off as a generic discounter which would have caused some problems in the Bay since they are a conventional store. That's why I always assumed they did what they did. I guess it could be that Lucky does not have the rights to operate in Sacramento, but that makes little sense as to why since Albertsons would have no reason to operate a Lucky store in Sacramento.
The way I read the sale agreement, Save Mart has a "forever" and "fee free" license to use the Lucky name in any of its operating territories.
What I am not clear on is if that means former Albertsons territories or anywhere Save Mart operates. For instance "any of its operating territories" could allow them to use the Lucky name in Bakersfield (that name had some great recognition there).
Don't forget the oddball Lucky up in Ukiah which has been a Lucky since converting from Albertsons (there was never a Lucky there until Save Mart came along, that was a decades-old Albertsons presence up there). Yet in places in Salinas and Santa Cruz very close to the bay area with a really long history, initially, Save Mart converted the Albertsons over to Save Mart; Save Mart just a year ago started to use the Lucky name on the former Lucky Stores down there.
The questionable store naming decisions, cheaply and very poorly done remodels on the stores, did not set the Save Mart purchase of Albertsons stores off on the right foot. I truly believe that transaction and how it was handled from the start, then in how they operated the stores in the years following the conversions, have nearly killed the company.
Now we have weird logo changes, a slightly altered corporate name, stores in lower middle class neighborhoods being merchandised full of gluten free items, Organics, and gourmet items from third party supplier Kehe, some kind of remodel program that so far has only yielded two remodeled stores (one Lucky in Daly City and the random Save Mart somewhere south of Fresno)... in my mind the lack of direction and really questionable decisions keep continuing.
I thought I read somewhere that the NorCal Albertsons stores closed and reopened as Lucky the next day (may have been on a rolling basis), and things initially had gone well. From what I remember reading, Save Mart was quite pleased to have gotten and operated the Lucky stores with no cries of foul play later on, and there didn't seem to be any initially anyway.
The thing is that when SaveMart bought Albertsons NorCal, they were not buying a successful chain. Albertsons sold the NorCal division because it was struggling and just didn't make sense to pour money into. Safeway and Raley's have a history of both being pretty good operators and they to this day dominate the NorCal market. When SaveMart bought Albertsons NorCal, they were certainly making a gamble not only as a whole but on a store by store basis. Some of the Albertsons stores just didn't make sense either do to poor location or demographics that just wouldn't support a conventional store. Yet, SaveMart took on these stores and tried to make them work. A good amount of them have worked, and SaveMart has been able to keep them afloat. But with the economic collapse this gamble was even more risky and has resulted in many stores closed. Things are going well in the sense that SaveMart was able to double their size by absorbing a failing division and keep most of the stores open by introducing their systems. Things are not going well in the sense that they lack direction on how to continue the success of this.
