Retail Watchers

If a kiosk makes it any easier for me to order a Quarter Pounder without cheese (and without paying for cheese), I'm for the idea.

The walls looked finished; the store itself might not be. I'll be waiting for Kroger to make changes to the front end next: The old Roundy's registers don't even have chip readers.

The transition continues! New-logo Pick 'n Save signs have gone up at most of the Copps stores in the Madison area. IMG_6926s.jpg Is it bad (or good) that even before reading any further I thought gee, that looks like an A&P store? Even knowing it was an odd area for one (not thinking about the...

The transition continues! New-logo Pick 'n Save signs have gone up at most of the Copps stores in the Madison area. IMG_6926s.jpg The outside isn't the only thing that's changed in the last two weeks. The interior of this particular store (Junction Rd., originally an A&P-owned Kohl's location) h...

Wasn't rebranding Copps to Pick N Save something they had said they were doing before the Kroger acquisition? At this point I'd say why rebrand to Pick N Save? Why not rebrand to straight Kroger and be done with it? Maybe the stores are not yet operationally stable enough to be branded Kroger. As f...

Updates on the Roundy's front, from today's shopping trip: * The "Copps" sign on the McKee Road store in Madison has been removed and replaced by a temporary banner, in anticipation of Pick 'n Save rebranding. I'd been meaning to shoot pics of the other local Copps stores before the signs ...

Moving back to the present day, I'd like to talk about two things that Roundy's is bad at: Loyalty cards , and self checkouts . First, the cards. Even though Roundy's bought Copps in 2001, the parent company stubbornly insisted on retaining parallel loyalty-card programs for its banners for years af...

For the record, Kroger first expanded into Wisconsin by acquiring the Universal Grocery Company of Madison in 1928, and operated there for 43 years. That definitely counts as "lasting long;" though it was long ago.

Kroger operated in Chicago until the early 1970's when they sold out to Dominick's. In fact, the Park Ridge Mariano's was a Dominick's that replaced a Dominick's store that started as a Kroger. This brings to mind an intriguing, though highly unlikely possibility: Since the Roundy's acquisition reu...

I was in Gerbes a year or so ago....they had Dillons brand milk, eggs and bread. We won't be seeing individually-branded "Pick 'n Save," "Metro Market," or "Mariano's" milk, eggs, and bread, then. My guess is that the Roundy's brand is going to stay on perishables as l...