Retail Watchers

7-Eleven struck some kind of a deal to take over at least some of the Circle Ks in Oregon over the past 18 months. In the mid-Willamette, there are no Circle Ks left near me. 7-Eleven did decent remodels to the interiors, but generally very little to the outsides, from what I have seen. I have also ...

Trying to fill a portion of these massive Fry's stores with some closeout merchandise isn't the worst idea I've ever heard (not necessarily a great idea -- but no worse than operating massive stores with 5% of their normal inventory levels). A "Fry's Outlet" store-within-a-store idea could at least ...

I stopped in the Wilsonville, Oregon, Fry's store on Friday. I only had a few minutes, but the main thing that I noticed was that they seemed to be buying a lot of closeout merchandise and trying to sell it at regular price. There was no evidence whatsoever of a sublease program. I noticed that ther...

So when things are going well, you can toss around a bit of money at pet projects. If Amazon wants to toss $10MM building a shrine to Jeff Bezos' first garage, no one will care. JCPenney is fighting for its life. Every penny counts. They can't let distractions get in the way. Even if the Kemmerer st...

All, I appreciate that we all love the thought of the legacy first JC Penney store staying open for another 100 years, but the reality is that this is a store that has not fit with JC Penney's business model for decades. It's a tiny store (I've been in it), it doesn't have many of the departments th...

Come on. They are not removing "most of (their) menu items permanently." They are selectively simplifying their menu. You're still going to be able to get tacos, burritos, quesadillas, etc. They are apparently trimming back some of the more unique items and the potato items. https://www.today.com/fo...

I don't buy the Amazon rumor. I don't believe they have any interest in it. The mall locations would be lousy for fulfillment purposes and Amazon has been building so many warehouses, I don't think they need to use mall space for warehousing. As for opening them up as retail stores, WHY??? Their mo...

The Safeway here has two sets of doors. People line up (if necessary -- store capacity posted at 346) at one, are handed a sanitized cart or basket, and then exit through the other one. There are "do not enter" signs posted at the exit doors. Aisles are marked as one-way. There was a reasonable amou...

This store has co-existed with a WinCo store that is essentially across the street for about 20 years. Now Kroger is throwing in the towel ... I agree with StoreWanderer. It is silly to think that the Fred Meyer is positioned to capture the majority of this store's business. The Smith's would have o...

It has been interesting to see the effects of coronavirus here in Oregon. Our local Fred Meyer was 100% out of toilet paper earlier today, and imposing limits of five per customer on toilet paper and certain medicines. Meanwhile, two Safeway stores are a bit picked over but have plenty on hand. The ...