Retail Watchers

My home town, Bryan-College Station has the following, not including drug, carnicerias, or dollar stores: H-E-B (4) - all but one moved from older Pantry stores Kroger (3) - two are Signature stores, one is an older Greenhouse**, and one of said Signature Stores moved from a former Family Center Wal...

If you haven't read the book: Kmart's Ten Deadly Sins The book chronicles Kmart's repeated decisions that plagued the chain until just after the 2002 bankruptcy. Ironically, some of them continue today. It's a good read of what not to do in retail. And Kmart did it over and over again. I actually h...

It's not unethical, they are not going to sell compromised cans that likely have botulism in them. The reality is, most of the non-perishables have dates on them that indicate that they can guarantee the freshness and color until that date. After that date, it is usually still perfectly edible, but ...

That would've gone over poorly in areas without such bags, like their Texas division (but then again, the Texas Division would've been history by the end of 2014 in an alternate history). Worth noting that by the end of 2014 (after the merger announcement but before it actually happened), they were ...

I could see Kmart being picked up and run as a larger-format sister chain to a dollar store. Not the best fate, but I could see it happening that way. Part of the biggest problem was they spent everything prior to 1991 building new stores across the nation instead of building slower and investing in...

Interesting that they are reverting to the "cage" layout, but at least they reopened most of the stores (very few Wal-Mart stores have closed permanently without replacement--the "shoplifted to death" location in Hearne TX comes to mind). That's one thing I was surprised what hap...

There are some new projects in the pipeline at Safeway. I think Albertsons had about 12-15 new stores planned for 2015. Where did that number come from? I know that Safeway still had a few projects they wanted to do (they wanted to build a Randalls in Leander, TX for the last few years, but they on...

The only supermarket chain that has actually done a decent job with GM is Meijer (and all they run now are supercenters with GM + Food/Pharmacy). Meijer has decent GM productsa and a very good mix. I'd say that they're 1/2 a step above Walmart and 1/2 a step below Target when it comes to their GM. ...

Personally, I think McDonald's made the mistake of trying to roll out the whole "i'm loving it" campaign, remodeling, and rolling out McCafé. Tight situation they've gotten in, methinks.

I agree it would be difficult for one of the majors to open a Hispanic format store now. That ship has already sailed. There are too many established players now that have lower operating costs. Well, a full chain would still be difficult, at least from the ground up or immediately. Remerchandising...