Stop & Shop closures

[storewanderer]

I've seen conditions like those Stop & Shops in various isolated stores of the regionals out west (Save Mart, Raleys) over the years. Usually this happens in poorly performing stores that are just too big or chains that are just having problems. Haggen had a lot of stores like this back in the 2010 era especially Top Foods branded stores, those may actually be the most similar comparison to these photos... https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id= ... op%20foods

Some Raleys https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id= ... ext=raleys

In the case of Safeway I've seen conditions like these in busy stores. This is typically due to too little staff hours allocated to the stores. This has become much less common since the Albertsons merger.

This is one thing about Kroger- understocked stores... are NEVER an issue. They may be out of stock on the items a lot of people want to buy but they have plenty of other items around to clutter the place up to no end.

[marketreportblog]

I wanted to come back here now that there's some further discussion on my blog about this. We have any number of different comments people have left, but as you can see there are some really detailed reports on the NY (Hudson Valley and Long Island/Queens) stores.

Overall, it sounds like stocking has improved in the Hudson Valley stores, which is great -- some of them were in bad shape when I was there. But meanwhile, Long Island seems to be the problem area now. It's true too that some of the sale displays and endcaps are probably just transitioning from one week's displays to the next, but that might be resulting in empty shelves for longer than you'd see at a place like ShopRite because the stores are understaffed. I don't think that accounts for everything, though.

The reports on the stores being dirty and just poorly-run are concerning, though. That isn't affected by stock levels or remodels. Fully stocking the shelves doesn't account for what sounds like repeated failure to maintain the stores properly. Again, empty service departments, cutting delivery, the lack of any communication over what might be going on are the bigger problems here.

One comment told me in no uncertain terms that this is nothing but normal resetting and stocking. If that's true (and again, it might be in some of the instances I've seen), it's different from how other supermarkets in the NJ area do it, different from how other Ahold divisions do it (or at least that's what it sounds like from you all on here?), and different from how Stop & Shop used to run their stores. I'm just not sold that normal sales, setting, and reorganizing can account for all of the many empty shelves I've seen now across all these different stores. Sure, time of week, time of day, etc etc all matter, but to me I'm seeing a pattern of understaffed, understocked, poorly maintained, and low volume stores.

This is a case where I almost want to be wrong -- I almost want this to be nothing more than a blip that I'm reading wrong, but it's not sounding like it is. And you don't have to go far to hear complaints about poor store conditions -- just read the comments here. My radar for struggling stores isn't usually this far wrong. What do you all think?

[pseudo3d]

One comment told me in no uncertain terms that this is nothing but normal resetting and stocking.

Sounds like someone's trying to save face.

[storewanderer]

One comment told me in no uncertain terms that this is nothing but normal resetting and stocking.

Sounds like someone's trying to save face.

I enjoyed that comment- they mention there are "people shopping in the stores" causing the empty shelves. Looking around I don't see many shoppers. And the amount of fresh product out... implies there are not many shoppers and certainly not enough to empty the shelves faster than the employees can keep up with.

I go into a lot of stores at a lot of different hours. Endcap transitions when sales change out happen but it is never a case where ALL of the endcaps in a store are empty. They go and do the endcaps one at a time, maybe you have one person emptying the endcap of last week's sales and then another behind them building the endcap with this week's sale, then repeat that process for a number of hours. But it isn't a process where endcaps sit empty. Even the worst operators (except some Walgreens who decided to just take the endcaps down entirely) know that you just do NOT have empty endcaps for any extended time period. These stores it looks like endcaps stay empty all day/for days. That isn't healthy. That is a store that has so little inventory it is about to go.

Also for the smaller regionals like Raleys and Save Mart where I see stores that look like this they typically get vendors in and make deals to make the stores look full with vendor items; Save Mart loves soda and Raleys loves liquor. Supplement with pallets of cases of water and you can make a dead store look a lot less empty.

[buckguy]

Reading through this, the conclusion that S&S is for sale seems premature, at best. The observations come from Greater NYC and Bridgeport, CT. S&S's primary territories are in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Despite being a small state Connecticut has distinct markets--Bridgeport is unlike most of the rest of Fairfield County. Central Connecticut is a different market from New Haven, Fairfield or the eastern part of the state. I don't think S&S has ever been a market leader in any of them, although they probably benefited from their first generation of Super Stop & Shops going up when A&P was mismanaging Food Mart and the main ShopRite operator was failing to upgrade its stores. First National had long-term strength in most of Central Connecticut and did well in Westchester County--it's notable that before the merger with S&S they had used the Edwards format to re-enter Boston and also re-entered parts of the NYC area they had departed decades before. S&S failed in their efforts to enter northern New England (Maine, VT, NH) and outside of their continuing presence in small towns in Western Massachusetts, I wonder if part of their problem in The Hudson Valley is that they don't adapt well to small markets.

S&S is surrounded by other Ahold-Delhaize operations, which makes it unlikely they would sell the whole chain. The most separable part would be northern NJ (which they departed once before) and other areas in the NYC area. They have actual overlap in Massachusetts with Hannaford, but mostly in outer suburban areas of Boston and Worcester. Hannaford used to have stores closer-in to Boston, so despite being a small market operation, they have some familiarity from larger markets.

Giant-PA is basically a small town operation. They've grown gradually in the Philly area, starting in the outer areas. The one other area where they have varied competition is NE PA (Allentown-Bethlehem & Scranton-Wilkes-Barre) where Wegman's, Whole Foods, and Costco have locations. That would be very different from suddenly entering markets more connected to NYC, which probably wouldn't work for them. The New York City area has logistical challenges, a lot of local differences in the makeup of market areas and I doubt that anyone would want the whole thing.

[marketreportblog]

I enjoyed that comment- they mention there are "people shopping in the stores" causing the empty shelves. Looking around I don't see many shoppers. And the amount of fresh product out... implies there are not many shoppers and certainly not enough to empty the shelves faster than the employees can keep up with.

I go into a lot of stores at a lot of different hours. Endcap transitions when sales change out happen but it is never a case where ALL of the endcaps in a store are empty. They go and do the endcaps one at a time, maybe you have one person emptying the endcap of last week's sales and then another behind them building the endcap with this week's sale, then repeat that process for a number of hours. But it isn't a process where endcaps sit empty. Even the worst operators (except some Walgreens who decided to just take the endcaps down entirely) know that you just do NOT have empty endcaps for any extended time period. These stores it looks like endcaps stay empty all day/for days. That isn't healthy. That is a store that has so little inventory it is about to go.

Also for the smaller regionals like Raleys and Save Mart where I see stores that look like this they typically get vendors in and make deals to make the stores look full with vendor items; Save Mart loves soda and Raleys loves liquor. Supplement with pallets of cases of water and you can make a dead store look a lot less empty.

I find it hard to believe the thin stock is the result of high sales volume. Half or more of the stores I visited had stock problems with toothpaste. Are people truly buying toothpaste (or dish soap? Deodorant?) faster than the shelves can be replenished? That just feels incredibly unlikely. Similarly, the organic produce that I see sparse in many stores isn't a result of sales volume, it's obvious that in many (not all) stores it's been sitting there a very, very long time.

I wouldn't say that every endcap is empty, I don't think the situation is quite as dire as you're describing, but it's also not good. Let's suppose we say all the empty endcaps and whatnot are simply the result of normal sale displays, turning over from week to week. That's both possible and likely -- but it's also true that they're not being reset quickly, and sitting empty for longer than any other chain in the area AND for longer than other Ahold Delhaize chains. It tells me that even if there is the stock to fill the shelves, there aren't the people available to put it out, when in other stores, it's clear there are.

Reading through this, the conclusion that S&S is for sale seems premature, at best. The observations come from Greater NYC and Bridgeport, CT. S&S's primary territories are in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Agreed. You're right about that, I would say. But still, if you look at some of the comments (see MW's description of the MA and RI stores), the problems do seem scattered across the chain -- not every store, but here and there.

Despite being a small state Connecticut has distinct markets--Bridgeport is unlike most of the rest of Fairfield County. Central Connecticut is a different market from New Haven, Fairfield or the eastern part of the state. I don't think S&S has ever been a market leader in any of them, although they probably benefited from their first generation of Super Stop & Shops going up when A&P was mismanaging Food Mart and the main ShopRite operator was failing to upgrade its stores. First National had long-term strength in most of Central Connecticut and did well in Westchester County--it's notable that before the merger with S&S they had used the Edwards format to re-enter Boston and also re-entered parts of the NYC area they had departed decades before. S&S failed in their efforts to enter northern New England (Maine, VT, NH) and outside of their continuing presence in small towns in Western Massachusetts, I wonder if part of their problem in The Hudson Valley is that they don't adapt well to small markets.

S&S is surrounded by other Ahold-Delhaize operations, which makes it unlikely they would sell the whole chain. The most separable part would be northern NJ (which they departed once before) and other areas in the NYC area. They have actual overlap in Massachusetts with Hannaford, but mostly in outer suburban areas of Boston and Worcester. Hannaford used to have stores closer-in to Boston, so despite being a small market operation, they have some familiarity from larger markets.

Giant-PA is basically a small town operation. They've grown gradually in the Philly area, starting in the outer areas. The one other area where they have varied competition is NE PA (Allentown-Bethlehem & Scranton-Wilkes-Barre) where Wegman's, Whole Foods, and Costco have locations. That would be very different from suddenly entering markets more connected to NYC, which probably wouldn't work for them. The New York City area has logistical challenges, a lot of local differences in the makeup of market areas and I doubt that anyone would want the whole thing.

And your assessment of the big picture here is true, too. Why would Ahold-Delhaize dispose of the connection between Hannaford and Giant-PA? Still, my impression is the conditions in NY and NJ area stores aren't sustainable for long-term business. It's possible, though, that this is just the fallout from switching from C&S to a self-distribution model. But coupled with the stores seeming low-volume, with obvious maintenance issues, and highly inconsistent renovations, I think that doesn't explain everything.

[pseudo3d]

I found that during the pandemic, Stop & Shop's market share slipped by 1.1 percent, with the other Ahold Delhaize banners gained market share (they didn't have numbers for Giant-MD other than it being positive, but Food Lion went up 1.8, Giant-PA went up by 0.5, Hannaford went up by 0.5), blaming the loss in not being able to work on a "really aggressive remodeling program".

I expect another earnings report would come in May. If the news coming out of Stop & Shop is really bad and continuing to deteriorate, would they try to hurry and get it off the books before the earnings report, or break the bad news then?

[veteran+]

I wanted to come back here now that there's some further discussion on my blog about this. We have any number of different comments people have left, but as you can see there are some really detailed reports on the NY (Hudson Valley and Long Island/Queens) stores.

Overall, it sounds like stocking has improved in the Hudson Valley stores, which is great -- some of them were in bad shape when I was there. But meanwhile, Long Island seems to be the problem area now. It's true too that some of the sale displays and endcaps are probably just transitioning from one week's displays to the next, but that might be resulting in empty shelves for longer than you'd see at a place like ShopRite because the stores are understaffed. I don't think that accounts for everything, though.

The reports on the stores being dirty and just poorly-run are concerning, though. That isn't affected by stock levels or remodels. Fully stocking the shelves doesn't account for what sounds like repeated failure to maintain the stores properly. Again, empty service departments, cutting delivery, the lack of any communication over what might be going on are the bigger problems here.

One comment told me in no uncertain terms that this is nothing but normal resetting and stocking. If that's true (and again, it might be in some of the instances I've seen), it's different from how other supermarkets in the NJ area do it, different from how other Ahold divisions do it (or at least that's what it sounds like from you all on here?), and different from how Stop & Shop used to run their stores. I'm just not sold that normal sales, setting, and reorganizing can account for all of the many empty shelves I've seen now across all these different stores. Sure, time of week, time of day, etc etc all matter, but to me I'm seeing a pattern of understaffed, understocked, poorly maintained, and low volume stores.

This is a case where I almost want to be wrong -- I almost want this to be nothing more than a blip that I'm reading wrong, but it's not sounding like it is. And you don't have to go far to hear complaints about poor store conditions -- just read the comments here. My radar for struggling stores isn't usually this far wrong. What do you all think?

NONE of these rationalizations or excuses are tenable for the conditions and presentations that you photographed. There is something systemically wrong with this operation.

Oversight (DMs and/or Regional) seems to be absent or in the hands manifest incompetence. Heads should be rolling ..........

[marketreportblog]

I found that during the pandemic, Stop & Shop's market share slipped by 1.1 percent, with the other Ahold Delhaize banners gained market share (they didn't have numbers for Giant-MD other than it being positive, but Food Lion went up 1.8, Giant-PA went up by 0.5, Hannaford went up by 0.5), blaming the loss in not being able to work on a "really aggressive remodeling program".

I expect another earnings report would come in May. If the news coming out of Stop & Shop is really bad and continuing to deteriorate, would they try to hurry and get it off the books before the earnings report, or break the bad news then?

One of the reasons I suspected something bigger might be up is that rather than giving a stock reply about improving customer experience and lowering prices and all the usual stuff, details on Stop & Shop are said to be announced in May along with that earnings report. That to me sounds ominous, although it's hard to tell tone from that article. I can't tell what exactly that means or if it's a complete nothing (like they'll just announce updates on the remodel program or something).

As for the sales, I did a quick analysis of the market share for Stop & Shop based on Food Trade News reports (see here for the latest one). My conclusion: Stop & Shop's market share is declining steadily in the NYC area. But it's far from a precipitous drop, and the change in some areas are almost imperceptible.

Metro NY Market

• 2018 market share 19.23%

• 2019 market share 18.73%

• 2020 market share 18.36%

• 2021 market share 17.90%

• 2022 market share 17.26%

• 2023 market share 16.54%

Long Island

• 2018 market share 35.25%

• 2019 market share 33.52%

• 2020 market share 33.52%

• 2021 market share 33.74%

• 2022 market share 32.67%

• 2023 market share 31.07%

New Jersey
(2018 not available)

• 2019 market share 6.81%

• 2020 market share 6.63%

• 2021 market share 6.69%

• 2022 market share 5.87%

• 2023 market share 5.73%

New York City

• 2018 market share 8.34%

• 2019 market share 8.25%

• 2020 market share 7.71%

• 2021 market share 7.52%

• 2022 market share 7.13%

• 2023 market share 6.57%

I'm assuming that roughly accounts for the drop you describe. New York City is a big drop because of store closures (or store closures because of a big drop in sales?) but Long Island is a bit concerning since that's a stronghold for them. They're still the market leader on Long Island, though. I think there is a clear trend in the wrong direction here but these numbers don't seem to show any real catastrophe. Unfortunately, I don't have any sales or market share data for any of New England.

[ClownLoach]

I found that during the pandemic, Stop & Shop's market share slipped by 1.1 percent, with the other Ahold Delhaize banners gained market share (they didn't have numbers for Giant-MD other than it being positive, but Food Lion went up 1.8, Giant-PA went up by 0.5, Hannaford went up by 0.5), blaming the loss in not being able to work on a "really aggressive remodeling program".

I expect another earnings report would come in May. If the news coming out of Stop & Shop is really bad and continuing to deteriorate, would they try to hurry and get it off the books before the earnings report, or break the bad news then?

One of the reasons I suspected something bigger might be up is that rather than giving a stock reply about improving customer experience and lowering prices and all the usual stuff, details on Stop & Shop are said to be announced in May along with that earnings report. That to me sounds ominous, although it's hard to tell tone from that article. I can't tell what exactly that means or if it's a complete nothing (like they'll just announce updates on the remodel program or something).

As for the sales, I did a quick analysis of the market share for Stop & Shop based on Food Trade News reports (see here for the latest one). My conclusion: Stop & Shop's market share is declining steadily in the NYC area. But it's far from a precipitous drop, and the change in some areas are almost imperceptible.

Metro NY Market

• 2018 market share 19.23%

• 2019 market share 18.73%

• 2020 market share 18.36%

• 2021 market share 17.90%

• 2022 market share 17.26%

• 2023 market share 16.54%

Long Island

• 2018 market share 35.25%

• 2019 market share 33.52%

• 2020 market share 33.52%

• 2021 market share 33.74%

• 2022 market share 32.67%

• 2023 market share 31.07%

New Jersey
(2018 not available)

• 2019 market share 6.81%

• 2020 market share 6.63%

• 2021 market share 6.69%

• 2022 market share 5.87%

• 2023 market share 5.73%

New York City

• 2018 market share 8.34%

• 2019 market share 8.25%

• 2020 market share 7.71%

• 2021 market share 7.52%

• 2022 market share 7.13%

• 2023 market share 6.57%

I'm assuming that roughly accounts for the drop you describe. New York City is a big drop because of store closures (or store closures because of a big drop in sales?) but Long Island is a bit concerning since that's a stronghold for them. They're still the market leader on Long Island, though. I think there is a clear trend in the wrong direction here but these numbers don't seem to show any real catastrophe. Unfortunately, I don't have any sales or market share data for any of New England.

Please understand none of these market share reports are accurate. Ever.