Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

[veteran+]

Customer perception is Everything!

But criticial thinking and root cause analysis can change perception.

[SamSpade]

Another westside Albertsons has flipped and is having a grand re-opening.
This leaves one Albertsons standing in Hillsboro (a very weak store though they likely own the real estate).
Safeway - West Union Road
This location is near PCC Rock Creek campus and Bethany ("Bethany" considered to be some of the most desirable real estate in this area), the closest competing grocer is a QFC.

[SamSpade]

This will leave:
219th & Baseline in Hillsboro
West Union & 185th in "Bethany" (Hillsboro area) Now bannered as Safeway
Barrows Rd in Tigard - Rebannering in progress to Safeway
Shattuck and Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy in Portland Note: this store's interior decor is Safeway, the exterior signs could be changed and it would be a one day rebrand
Cully in Portland
181st & Glisan in Portland
Boones in Lake Oswego
Baker & Keck in McMinnville
Beavercreek Rd in Oregon City
Battle Ground, WA
Salmon Creek (Vancouver), WA Now bannered as Safeway

Eleven Portland media market stores left as Albertsons

[storewanderer]

Maybe they are rebannering the best positioned stores as Safeway?

That Oregon City store, I am shocked is still open... shocked it wasn't divested (but Haggen still had its own store nearby at the time)...

[Super S]

Something I'm curious about. Under separate ownership, Albertsons never opened as many gas stations as Safeway, and many of the Albertsons gas stations were spun off to other brands years ago. With some of these locations now in front of stores that have since been re-bannered to Safeway, I wonder if we will see Albertsons/Safeway (or eventually Kroger) try to reclaim some of these. Locations I can think of include Salmon Creek, Tumwater, and Troutdale. I do know that Fred Meyer has a location on TV Highway Hillsboro where they took over a gas station in the parking lot that opened as a Chevron. Kroger seems more serious about the gas station business.

[ClownLoach]

Customer perception is Everything!

But criticial thinking and root cause analysis can change perception.

Yes but that is typically lacking. The fact is that poorly run brands disappoint their customers, creating declines in traffic and render the brand irrelevant in the market. Eventually either they fix it (and have to spend on marketing to bring the customer back), or they go the way of Kmart and others. To the disillusioned Albertsons customer - yes, Albertsons bought Safeway but they might feel like they haven't seen deterioration of "their" Safeway store under new ownership so they assume that "the good Safeway people must still be running this store and they haven't replaced them with bad Albertsons people who would wreck the place." They don't know that the Albertsons down the street has the same District Manager as the Safeway now, they're swapping managers and employees between the two brands freely, they have the same supporting cast of operations and HR folks, same DC trucks, etc. So they assume because there are different signs outside they are still different operations. Albertsons disappointed them so they won't shop there. Safeway has been the same consistent operation so they drive past the Albertsons to shop there. Obviously there is enough dislike for the Albertsons name in the market that there is a positive return on investment from changing the sign and ordering a new batch of name badges and uniforms otherwise they would not do it. And for the purpose of the proposed merger - it's probably a important exercise to understand what traffic patterns will really be like so they know what stores to divest since obviously customers are driving past Albertsons stores to visit Safeway and might change to their closer store now that it is their preferred brand. In some areas the existing Safeway might currently be the higher performer but could decline with a rebranded Albertsons now Safeway nearby taking share.

[storewanderer]

Albertsons and Safeway have been running in WA cobranded ads, some employees have name tags with both logos, their bags have both logos. At this point in WA if a customer doesn't know these two chains are affiliated, the customer is so far removed from any branding or marketing efforts that there is no hope of reaching the customer.

I agree there is a lot of negative for the Albertsons brand along I-5 in WA and it is well deserved based on how Supervalu handled the operation there. Get away from I-5 and for whatever reasons the stores were better maintained and cleaner.

They've tried a little harder to keep the two brands separate in OR but most of the above is still there.

There are also cobranded Albertsons/Vons plastic bags being used in SoCal right now.

[ClownLoach]

Albertsons and Safeway have been running in WA cobranded ads, some employees have name tags with both logos, their bags have both logos. At this point in WA if a customer doesn't know these two chains are affiliated, the customer is so far removed from any branding or marketing efforts that there is no hope of reaching the customer.

I agree there is a lot of negative for the Albertsons brand along I-5 in WA and it is well deserved based on how Supervalu handled the operation there. Get away from I-5 and for whatever reasons the stores were better maintained and cleaner.

They've tried a little harder to keep the two brands separate in OR but most of the above is still there.

There are also cobranded Albertsons/Vons plastic bags being used in SoCal right now.

They also created their own marketing confusion with years of delivery service ads. In SoCal the ads and vehicles said "Albertsons and Vons - Partnering for Home Delivery" or something to that effect. So for those oblivious enough to not read the news - they publicized themselves as "partners" not "one" company. The other oddity was that unlike past grocery mergers there wasn't any bold advertising announcement of "two great companies coming together" and such, so the greater noise at the time of the merger was the Haggen conversions which were obviously disliked by the customer and disruptive to the marketplace. It was like "your store is now this crappy new brand called Haggen with much higher prices and out of stocks everywhere" with silence around the Safeway/Albertsons front.

[storewanderer]

They also created their own marketing confusion with years of delivery service ads. In SoCal the ads and vehicles said "Albertsons and Vons - Partnering for Home Delivery" or something to that effect. So for those oblivious enough to not read the news - they publicized themselves as "partners" not "one" company. The other oddity was that unlike past grocery mergers there wasn't any bold advertising announcement of "two great companies coming together" and such, so the greater noise at the time of the merger was the Haggen conversions which were obviously disliked by the customer and disruptive to the marketplace. It was like "your store is now this crappy new brand called Haggen with much higher prices and out of stocks everywhere" with silence around the Safeway/Albertsons front.

I think like you've pointed out a lot of SoCal consumers still see two separate brands in Vons and Albertsons. It is like the stores are still different enough from a merchandising and mix perspective, a lot of those differences due to cosmetics/layout/store size as opposed to differences in actual merchandise, that customers do see them as two different chains. Then there is the loyalty card thing.

[ClownLoach]

They also created their own marketing confusion with years of delivery service ads. In SoCal the ads and vehicles said "Albertsons and Vons - Partnering for Home Delivery" or something to that effect. So for those oblivious enough to not read the news - they publicized themselves as "partners" not "one" company. The other oddity was that unlike past grocery mergers there wasn't any bold advertising announcement of "two great companies coming together" and such, so the greater noise at the time of the merger was the Haggen conversions which were obviously disliked by the customer and disruptive to the marketplace. It was like "your store is now this crappy new brand called Haggen with much higher prices and out of stocks everywhere" with silence around the Safeway/Albertsons front.

I think like you've pointed out a lot of SoCal consumers still see two separate brands in Vons and Albertsons. It is like the stores are still different enough from a merchandising and mix perspective, a lot of those differences due to cosmetics/layout/store size as opposed to differences in actual merchandise, that customers do see them as two different chains. Then there is the loyalty card thing.

There definitely is a difference in SoCal between the majority of Vons (old, small, poor condition, crammed with product) vs Albertsons (generally larger, newer, sometimes under-merchandised because store is too large for it's volume). Enough that u think the general perception is yes, they're the same company but they haven't really "merged" the chains together "yet." Couple that with the odd distribution of stores in clusters as discussed before (Vons dominant brand in North OC, Albertsons dominant brand in South OC) and for all intents and purposes they are different chains. I'm not familiar enough with the Safeway vs Albertsons operations in the parts of the PNW where they overlap, other than knowing there are many very small old Safeway stores there.

When the majority of the stores are still so divergent the perception is probably somewhere in the range of same ownership but different chains.