Retail Watchers

My experience as well with Gelson's (and also Jensen's in the Desert). The value balance (price vs service vs quality vs variety) is way off. Service up front is subpar for the price. Variety, for lack of a better word, un-modern. Perhaps old school gourmet? It's just plain boring and does not matc...

Is there possibly a city ordinance for no sign walkers in West Hollywood? Mammoth Lakes doesn't appear to be looking for sign walkers either... extremely high volume store there... I can't find evidence of any city ordinances prohibiting sign walkers in either city ("town" for Mammoth). E...

I am wondering if the Union Square store was basically a consolation prize to activist investors. It has been claimed that the Herald Square store, if sold, would be worth more than the entire company's valuation, so I'm sure there is tremendous pressure from certain investors to sell it. Perhaps se...

I do think Kroger can legally fight the FTC successfully if they want to, but the question is how much time and money will it take, and is it worth the ongoing uncertainty? I don't think it is worth it. Do you mean with the current deal with C&S, or a new deal? With the current deal, I don't se...

See, that's the thing. If they want to just have a good profitable division without forcing to show growth, Ralphs is it. If they want #1 or a close #2 in their markets, maybe Ralphs isn't the place they should focus on. If they want to just show growth, they can do so organically, you know, actual...

I wonder if they try to pull a 7-Eleven and ignore the agreement then close the deal... Flagrant disregard for the law seems to be accepted by today's FTC. What exactly would/could stop them? 7-Eleven didn't ignore anything. There was no court order blocking the acquisition, because the FTC didn't ...

The thing is Kroger has more general merchandise in its stores than most other grocers. A lot of that merchandising is handled by Fred Meyer. Take away Fred Meyer and who will handle that? What do you mean by "handled by Fred Meyer"? Are Fred Meyer buyers placing orders for toilet paper a...

Washing cups/plates/ etc requires hot water, requiring more energy use, detergent which is a pollutant, and creates waste water. More pollution and energy use than a paper cup, which comes from a tree that is grown to make paper or even a foam cup. Do you have a source for this? From what I have se...

The fact is that they are, and will always be, beholden to Wall Street. Wall Street expects positive comp sales come hell or high water. There is no good reason for the massive price increases that have been landing at Albertsons and Kroger stores the last 45 days other than they are cycling the ma...

Could be - they also offer the option to pay their bill in cash at these locations (knowing that from a neighbor who we went there to do that a couple times due to issues with their cards/checking account as they would normally have used). Yeah, paying cash makes sense to me. I believe you can also...