Retail Watchers

I went into a number of the Fresh Markets and was overall pleased with what I saw. The first location I visited seemed to be a bit rough... no signs on the building at all, c-store style beer promo signs attached to the light posts in the parking lot, police car out front, security guard in the stor...

Looks like a good improvement. What is the condition of the Pavilions that is going to also be closing after this replacement is done?

I think Albertsons has some pockets of success in the Southern California Division but also a lot of pockets of poor performance. I suppose this is better than an entire division performing poorly but from the sounds of things over at SVU these stores are in play and it is going to be a question of ...

I was in the Reno WinCo this week and noticed all of the Cub Wall Letters missing from the wall, except above the egg case there were still "EGGS" letters up since above that is a walk in cooler with a different "wall material" (plastic) than the walls that go around the rest of ...

Zanottos, I am surprised. I think the City of San Jose subsidizes their store downtown. I am always surprised when I hear them expanding or thinking of expanding. I know they were very interested in the Bird Ave. Albertsons.

This really does not sound good. The feedback I received from some people who were in Utah a couple weeks ago and went into one of these stores was indifferent at best. However I asked them to go to the Kearns Albertsons and was told it looked really good inside but was empty of customers (this seem...

That is how it works. You get a percentage of your purchase back. The card is not being required for sale prices. It works similar to the CVS card, I think. I did not actually sign up. I don't think the cashier would have signed up Monty Burns of 500 Power Plant Road in Los Angeles, CA at 90001.

It appears Kmart/Sears now has a loyalty card similar to the CVS card but not being tied to price. I was in a Kmart earlier in the week and was pretty surprised by the application process. The cashier asked the customer if the customer wanted to sign up, and the customer agreed. The cashier provided...

The Fred Meyer checkstands remind me most of a model Safeway used in the mid 80s known as a "tri belt" checkstand. The positioning of the register/keyboard and cashier was identical. I have been in some recently remodeled FM units and they are still using these checkstands. I have never se...

That is a very strange looking cashier unload checkstand. Does it have two sets of bags, one for the cashier then one out on the end for the bagger? The cashier unload checkstands used at Raleys have just one set of bags down at the end of the belt and this is what is used by whoever is bagging (cas...