Bashas/AJs/Food City
Posted: November 15th, 2023, 1:52 am
Where to start on this chain of stores...
I don't even know where to start.
There are marketing signs posted that appear to be from Raleys but it is only some of the marketing- stuff like endcap signs, signs in pharmacy about flu shots, cart return signs, and that is it. There are Raleys private label format items with the Bashas name on the labels. Bashas appears to have just installed a new POS system but they are using a different system than Raleys and even different pinpads the nice new Equinox ones (Raleys just replaced pinpads too- new crummy Verifones there) so it doesn't appear there is an effort to integrate them on an IT hardware or software perspective which is strange.
One thing I found interesting in the Bashas Stores is their price structure. I think their everyday pricing is lower than Safeway/Albertsons/Frys. Their sale prices aren't necessarily as many or as good but on an everyday basis their prices are very fair/reasonable. Yet hardly anyone seems to be shopping these stores Bashas. They feel dead, look dead, and just have a dead vibe. The employees seem bored and sort of unenthusiastic, but somewhat friendly. Food City seems to be viable but I cannot believe the condition of some of those stores... and their service is terrible. Food City must have good hot food because there was a line up at every location I went to that had hot food. AJs seems to run a first class operation but their center store business looks to be almost nothing at this point, they need to reinvent themself to make produce/meat/center store/seafood more productive. It looks like most of their sales are prepared food/bakery/drinks.
There seems to be a Bashas private label again, on some items, the ones with a white background package and red background logo are Raleys brand items redesigned with the Bashas logo. Then other items have Food Club, others have some weird "Bashas A to Z" label, and some seem to be generic packer labels.
One interesting thing I was able to confirm is they do still supply various independent grocers. They supply IGA Stores in Eloy, Buckeye, and independent in Superior. I suspect they must supply something in the range of 30 or so stores, mostly IGAs.
If I thought it could be executed I'd probably suggest Raleys convert a few of the better performing Bashas that don't have much competition to the Raleys brand/format and see what happened, if they could run them like an above average Raleys, they could probably really increase sales. But I'm not sure about Raleys at this point after some of what they've done like Raleys ONE if that would work or not. So to that point I wonder if Raleys should take a different approach and convert some of the bottom performing Bashas (a couple not too far apart in Tempe look like promising stores that do no business and are very sad places), but decent neighborhoods to the Raleys format and operating style and see what could happen. They could figure out what works in the low volume stores (or if it bombs it doesn't matter as much since they're low volume stores anyway) then decide if it is a good idea for the better stores. I don't think they could possibly do any worse than Bashas but after how the Raleys ONE thing went especially in Reno it is absolutely possible.
I don't even know where to start.
There are marketing signs posted that appear to be from Raleys but it is only some of the marketing- stuff like endcap signs, signs in pharmacy about flu shots, cart return signs, and that is it. There are Raleys private label format items with the Bashas name on the labels. Bashas appears to have just installed a new POS system but they are using a different system than Raleys and even different pinpads the nice new Equinox ones (Raleys just replaced pinpads too- new crummy Verifones there) so it doesn't appear there is an effort to integrate them on an IT hardware or software perspective which is strange.
One thing I found interesting in the Bashas Stores is their price structure. I think their everyday pricing is lower than Safeway/Albertsons/Frys. Their sale prices aren't necessarily as many or as good but on an everyday basis their prices are very fair/reasonable. Yet hardly anyone seems to be shopping these stores Bashas. They feel dead, look dead, and just have a dead vibe. The employees seem bored and sort of unenthusiastic, but somewhat friendly. Food City seems to be viable but I cannot believe the condition of some of those stores... and their service is terrible. Food City must have good hot food because there was a line up at every location I went to that had hot food. AJs seems to run a first class operation but their center store business looks to be almost nothing at this point, they need to reinvent themself to make produce/meat/center store/seafood more productive. It looks like most of their sales are prepared food/bakery/drinks.
There seems to be a Bashas private label again, on some items, the ones with a white background package and red background logo are Raleys brand items redesigned with the Bashas logo. Then other items have Food Club, others have some weird "Bashas A to Z" label, and some seem to be generic packer labels.
One interesting thing I was able to confirm is they do still supply various independent grocers. They supply IGA Stores in Eloy, Buckeye, and independent in Superior. I suspect they must supply something in the range of 30 or so stores, mostly IGAs.
If I thought it could be executed I'd probably suggest Raleys convert a few of the better performing Bashas that don't have much competition to the Raleys brand/format and see what happened, if they could run them like an above average Raleys, they could probably really increase sales. But I'm not sure about Raleys at this point after some of what they've done like Raleys ONE if that would work or not. So to that point I wonder if Raleys should take a different approach and convert some of the bottom performing Bashas (a couple not too far apart in Tempe look like promising stores that do no business and are very sad places), but decent neighborhoods to the Raleys format and operating style and see what could happen. They could figure out what works in the low volume stores (or if it bombs it doesn't matter as much since they're low volume stores anyway) then decide if it is a good idea for the better stores. I don't think they could possibly do any worse than Bashas but after how the Raleys ONE thing went especially in Reno it is absolutely possible.