Grocery Outlet looking at NY locations

[BillyGr]

https://www.timesunion.com/business/art ... ews&stn=nf

From the article, they have been exploring locations around the Capital Region, as far west as Amsterdam and Gloversville and as far south as Newburgh. Nothing specific yet, but a possibly interesting addition to the area.

[marketreportblog]

https://www.timesunion.com/business/art ... ews&stn=nf

From the article, they have been exploring locations around the Capital Region, as far west as Amsterdam and Gloversville and as far south as Newburgh. Nothing specific yet, but a possibly interesting addition to the area.

You beat me to it! I just came here to post this. I know people on this forum have mixed feelings about Grocery Outlet, but the ones in NJ and PA strike me as consistently well-run, well-stocked, and very well-priced. There are four in New Jersey so far (all in central/southern NJ -- Delran, Hamilton, Rio Grande, and Hazlet), plus six in Philadelphia and another two dozen or so in the rest of eastern PA. I find their stores to be way superior to LIDL, so if their entry hurts LIDL, I say bring it on. I would love to have one closer to me. I'm sure there are plenty of vacant spaces of the size they're interested in up in the Capitol Region, so I think this would be a good fit.

[Romr123]

I wonder if they're just a little over-expanded on the west coast--leading to not enough bargains and specials popping up to keep their channels full. Perhaps a more even distribution of locations (including expansion into NY/New England) will assist them with perishable closeouts (closer to manufacturing/warehousing places).

[ClownLoach]

I wonder if they're just a little over-expanded on the west coast--leading to not enough bargains and specials popping up to keep their channels full. Perhaps a more even distribution of locations (including expansion into NY/New England) will assist them with perishable closeouts (closer to manufacturing/warehousing places).

Totally agree - they have too many stores now and they are no longer filled with bargains as a result.

[pseudo3d]

This all makes me remember how badly Grocery Outlet went over in Texas. You can swap stories about the reputations of Food Lion, Albertsons, or Safeway is in Texas but no out-of-state grocery store dropped the ball than Grocery Outlet did. Basically, in the late 1990s/early 2000s Fleming opened Yes!Less, deep-discount grocery stores in old, outdated grocery store sites, we're talking 1960s, 1970s sites, Kmart Foods spaces, 25k square feet store or less. When Fleming was selling off its retail stores Grocery Outlet stepped in and quickly reopened the stores as "Grocery Outlet Bargains Only". The Yes!Less stores already had a reputation of being old, grody stores and Grocery Outlet seemed to be much of the same. They were gone in nine months.

Given how people still say nice things about pre-1999 Lucky, I fully understood why Albertsons was so pissed when they tried to co-opt the name as an abandoned trademark (and at the time I didn't have a positive impression of Albertsons at the time).

[Super S]

I wonder if they're just a little over-expanded on the west coast--leading to not enough bargains and specials popping up to keep their channels full. Perhaps a more even distribution of locations (including expansion into NY/New England) will assist them with perishable closeouts (closer to manufacturing/warehousing places).

Totally agree - they have too many stores now and they are no longer filled with bargains as a result.

The merchandise mix varies by location. Sometimes it is hard to tell what role these stores fill in some areas, and there are some stores, such as the fairly new store in Rainier, Oregon, where they actually serve as the main supermarket in town. But I do agree that they seem to be shifting away from their business model a little bit, and I don't see as many deep discounts as in the past.

[mbz321]

I wonder if they're just a little over-expanded on the west coast--leading to not enough bargains and specials popping up to keep their channels full. Perhaps a more even distribution of locations (including expansion into NY/New England) will assist them with perishable closeouts (closer to manufacturing/warehousing places).

I mentioned this in another Grocery Outlet thread, but from my experiences at a few stores I go into, mainly in the Philly suburbs, I don't really find too many bargains these days. Their 'everyday' merchandise is priced okay, but a lot of it feels like dollar-store quality items. Produce is hit-or miss in quality, meat is all prepacked (I have purchased a few things that were fine). They are still expanding in this area though, including one that opens next week in an upper middle class town, and I'm interested how well it will do as it just seems highly out of place.

I will say though the operators of one location I frequent are very active on social media, posting when new items arrive and such, which has definitely motivated me to stop in. Some of the others post very infrequently.

[storewanderer]

I go to this chain a lot but in recent months I don't buy much anymore. Usually just a couple items per trip. I am just not finding as many items I am interested in, or the prices are not as low as I expect them to be.

Everything seems to vary widely by store location but I have a couple really good ones in my area that are exceptionally run, produce is excellent, stores are conditioned excellent (they have conventional shelving now so no more boxes all over the shelves, but they did a good job picking up boxes back when they had the rack shelving), service is top of the line. These stores run better than any conventional grocer in the area.

I have also found pricing seems to vary by store location. Even these two stores that are the same operator, the item pricing varies between their two stores for the same item. And it is all over the place- item A is cheaper at store 1 while item B is cheaper at store 2 but then item C is cheaper at store 1. I am not sure if they price based on how much quantity of an item a given store location gets or what.

The shelves have been filling back up the past week in most of the stores. One terrible one in Reno on Kietzke is still very poorly assorted with stuff spread out and awful limited mix and terrible atmosphere/service but the other locations are pretty well stocked again.

The key is they need more sources for inventory. For instance if they are moving to NY can they partner with some chains or wholesalers there to take excess product?

There is definite movement from PA out to the west coast for products including perishables. I have also seen signs of west coast products being stocked back in PA such as It's It Ice Cream Bars (a product difficult to find outside Northern California).

[Romr123]

No argument, but miles put on surplus merchandise reduces the profitability pretty quickly. Upstate NY (like Michigan) has significant agriculture (tree fruit orchards etc) as well as processing facilities which are really the bedrock of an operator like this---there are STILL overruns and obsolete packaging (just heard that Target is re-imaging Up and Up) which getting liquidated close by is WAY less costly than shipping it any distance.

[BillyGr]

The key is they need more sources for inventory. For instance if they are moving to NY can they partner with some chains or wholesalers there to take excess product?

There is definite movement from PA out to the west coast for products including perishables. I have also seen signs of west coast products being stocked back in PA such as It's It Ice Cream Bars (a product difficult to find outside Northern California).

Seems it could be either, gaining more access to places in these newer areas, or just being able to sell more within the same area they are getting it from, thus reducing the need to ship those more perishable items across the country (and being able to make as much, or maybe even a bit more, with prices similar or even a bit lower due to the far lower costs of shipping it 100 miles instead of thousands of miles).