Retail Watchers

They no longer own any stores. The company is now a wholesaler.

https://chainstoreage.com/save-lot-sell ... wholesaler

Forgot this chain even existed.

Given the rapid expansion with Aldi, Grocery Outlet, what are they doing...? This format is on fire and they don't seem to be riding the wave.

I still remember when Rite Aid turned some of their stores into Save A Lots with a Rite Aid Pharmacy inside. That could have been rolled out on a larger scale.

storewanderer wrote: ↑August 7th, 2023, 11:50 pm Forgot this chain even existed.

Given the rapid expansion with Aldi, Grocery Outlet, what are they doing...? This format is on fire and they don't seem to be riding the wave.

Not exactly on fire, if the Lidl thread means anything, but they have some problems, like worn out stores and they probably hope that franchisees will fix some of them. Here's a recent but not entirely up-to-date recap: https://www.mashed.com/147181/the-untol ... ave-a-lot/

I think Lidl's problems are more self inflicted. Lidl is a great store and has a lot of potential if they can figure out how to make money.

Save a Lot has been a disaster. In the mid 90's they were running in Central California supplied by Fleming (Best Yet products were sold). Then they left or the franchisees left. They tried to go into Las Vegas with a franchisee and took over existing Grocery Outlet locations, kicked out Grocery Outlet, and went down in literal flames. They tried additional expansion later into SoCal with corporate operated stores and some franchise stores and they did so poorly they ended up closing the corporate stores and for the few franchisees that were making this miserable format work in SoCal and actually wanted to stay open they stopped supporting those few loyal hard working franchisees and told them they had to debrand, supposedly providing debranding assistance.

They also had stores up in Portland, not sure what came of those but they are obviously gone.

Save a Lot has always been to me the worst and least consistent of the discount formats. Some stores have more name brands than others. Cleanliness, layout, decor, pricing, fresh departments (meat cut in store vs. prepack for instance) vary widely between individual locations. Payment acceptance policies vary between locations (card type, etc.). I've never been impressed by mix or pricing at any Save a Lot I've visited. Some have been clean. Some clearly serve areas that may otherwise not have a store (and those seem to be the ones with more name brand items and better looking produce/meat too).

I have seen Big Lots and Save A lot in centers together.

GROSS!

storewanderer wrote: ↑August 9th, 2023, 5:36 pm They also had stores up in Portland, not sure what came of those but they are obviously gone.

The ones I know of -
1) SE Foster Rd - became Dollar Tree. Short distance from only Fred Meyer closed in modern history (now Shun Fat Supermarket). In a drinking town, they sold no beer or wine. Weird.
2) SE Division St at 174th Ave - Supermercados Mexico
3) Clark County, WA ("Hazel Dell") - vacant for a period, now Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts. I believe this was the last one in the area.
4) King Rd, Milwaukie, OR - gone since at least 2012, Partially filled by a Bottle Drop redemption center

I'm not sure if there were others. They were in "also ran" locations near larger, more successful grocers.
Edit: SuperValu pulled the plug in 2012. (8 stores total, between Oregon and Washington)

veteran+ wrote: ↑August 10th, 2023, 9:01 am I have seen Big Lots and Save A lot in centers together.

GROSS!

Nothing wrong with either of those stores in general - like any chain, if the particular store has bad employees and management, that is the issue and not the store or brand!

We will just disagree.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑August 8th, 2023, 12:50 pm I still remember when Rite Aid turned some of their stores into Save A Lots with a Rite Aid Pharmacy inside. That could have been rolled out on a larger scale.

This initiative, first there was a market in LA with these stores. Rite Aid exited that market (before the Walgreens transaction) so the stores closed.

Then the other market was Greenville I think. That market the format lived on until the Walgreens conversions occurred.

I never understood why Rite Aid didn't try the format out west. They have a lot of unused space in the stores. I have to think that since basically every Rite Aid out west started out with a grocery anchor in the center, even in cases where the grocery anchor is long gone, there must be some kind of lease restrictions that prevented this from happening out west.