Retail Watchers

Schnucks has been in the pharmacy business since 1970. That's 50+ years of trying to figure out how to make money from it and capitalize on their super market hegemony in St. Louis.

San Francisco blames Walgreens for filling opioid prescriptions and claims that Walgreens was encouraging drug abuse. Now San Francisco is talking about opening official safe injection sites so that drug users can use drugs in a safe supervised environment. Is this not encouraging drug abuse? The T...

Sam's Club and Costco in Reno started pricing gas about .60 below the next closest competitor a few weeks ago. Some competitors have caught up but they are still way below typical price. They are likely losing .40 on every gallon. I am not sure who started this gas price war between these two chain...

They claim to have 2 million+ customers in California. Given their market share nationally (14%), they should have way more customers than that. It's likely that the operation is meeting profit targets and they haven't been growing. Their agents are contractors not employees. The last time I talked...

They claim to have 2 million+ customers in California. Given their market share nationally (14%), they should have way more customers than that. It's likely that the operation is meeting profit targets and they haven't been growing. Their agents are contractors not employees. The last time I talked ...

The low level of staffing probably makes these stores targets, like Dollar General although I would imagine that Aldi isn't as lax or cavalier about security. The Auburn-Gresham store is on the South Side, not the West Side and is near a ton of big box retail as well as Jewel and Food4Less. That are...

I think that the point where we might see a real shift is if one of the major oil companies such as Chevron or Shell makes an investment in a large number of locations to offer EV charging. We're getting closer to that. The Sheetz in Breezewood, PA has multiple charging stations and people were usi...

Based on what I've been able to find these stores are basically glorified gift shops in overpriced "glamping" spots catering to city-dwelling hipsters who think they're roughing it because they have to drive their Subaru nearly 15 miles to find the nearest Starbucks. And I suspect the min...

There are lots of different models for these---stands at actual farms, big and small and places that are more like small grocery stores, so it depends which kind you're talking about and you find different types in different places--the DC area has a lot of farmer's markets, so there are fewer of th...

Back in the 70s or 80s, Stop & Shop had an earlier, unsuccessful launch in northern NJ. Apparently they couldn't make the pricing work there and left after a few years.