RIP Owen's Market: The Kroger banner never talked about

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Re: RIP Owen's Market: The Kroger banner never talked about

Post by Bagels »

On of the Cincinnati business journals discussed last year that Kroger initially intended on unifying all of its banners under the Kroger name (I’m sure there would’ve been exceptions like Harris Tetter, F4L, etc. but it wasn’t discussed). Apparently, Kroger fells as it it has brand equity, but little brand awareness; internal surgery’s demonstrated that only a low percentage of regular Ralph’s shoppers realized that Smith’s and Fry’s were part of the Kroger family. Ultimately, Kroger scrapped the branding idea because of consumer flight fears — e.g. people upset “their” store changed, people thinking it was under new ownership, etc.

The Kroger brand is now prominent at Ralph’s — only the milk and some of the water still carries the Ralph’s name, even butter and eggs now feature Kroger branding. Billboards across town, ads in local newspapers, etc. refer to the “Kroger Pharmacy at your local Ralph’s,” with Kroger graphics. Inside the store, they’re still branded as Ralph’s Pharmacy, although various Kroger signage is evident.

Additionally, the legacy Ralph’s bakery and deli product has been replaced with the legacy Kroger product. Ralph’s is dead, replaced with Kroger, but I guess a name change would generate too much negative attention.
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Re: RIP Owen's Market: The Kroger banner never talked about

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: April 21st, 2021, 11:00 am On of the Cincinnati business journals discussed last year that Kroger initially intended on unifying all of its banners under the Kroger name (I’m sure there would’ve been exceptions like Harris Tetter, F4L, etc. but it wasn’t discussed). Apparently, Kroger fells as it it has brand equity, but little brand awareness; internal surgery’s demonstrated that only a low percentage of regular Ralph’s shoppers realized that Smith’s and Fry’s were part of the Kroger family. Ultimately, Kroger scrapped the branding idea because of consumer flight fears — e.g. people upset “their” store changed, people thinking it was under new ownership, etc.

The Kroger brand is now prominent at Ralph’s — only the milk and some of the water still carries the Ralph’s name, even butter and eggs now feature Kroger branding. Billboards across town, ads in local newspapers, etc. refer to the “Kroger Pharmacy at your local Ralph’s,” with Kroger graphics. Inside the store, they’re still branded as Ralph’s Pharmacy, although various Kroger signage is evident.

Additionally, the legacy Ralph’s bakery and deli product has been replaced with the legacy Kroger product. Ralph’s is dead, replaced with Kroger, but I guess a name change would generate too much negative attention.
Converting Ralphs to Kroger probably wouldn't make much sense. Ralphs Stores are on the smaller side and Ralphs pricing is on the high side (F4L having the price structure more typical at other Kroger divisions). Also Ralphs is one of the higher store count divisions.

It will be very interesting to see what they do when they open Ocado warehouses in places where the banner on the local stores is something other than Kroger. Will they brand the Ocado warehouse with the local banner or the Kroger banner? That just may be the trigger to rebrand stores as Kroger...
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Re: RIP Owen's Market: The Kroger banner never talked about

Post by arizonaguy »

storewanderer wrote: April 21st, 2021, 9:59 am The Albertsons rebrand of Lucky was a little difference since they wanted to change the entire store format when they changed the name but upon initial name change they were in a transition for months and it was a huge mess. Also the Albertsons format was a proven non-starter in California (I won't call it a failure since they did have about 200 stores in the state before the merger but they didn't do very well there). Format changed, pricing changed, merchandising changed, fresh departments changed..

At this point if Kroger were to re-banner these stores basically all that would happen is they would change the sign out front and be done.

I don't think it would be a wise move to re-banner F4L, FoodsCo, Ralphs, Fred Meyer, QFC, Harris Teeter, or Mariano's for a variety of reasons including format, store size, and pricing reasons. If they want to keep the Kroger banner to mean large combination food and drug store that is geared toward a middle class customer, the above divisions are not a fit for conversion.

But the other divisions they could just change the sign to Kroger and nothing else would change inside the store at this point. At Smiths we see hiring posters with photos of employees in blue Kroger aprons that actually say Kroger (a few years ago it would have been a blue apron with the name blocked out) but also have a Smiths logo on the poster itself, promotion signs for things like Boar's Head that say Kroger (but still make reference to "Fresh Value Card," and various other sloppy things like this. At this point it is a sloppy effort at best to even keep the banner on the stores.

Back to this Owen's thing- not real surprised it got rebranded. I would expect more rebrands for the banners with less than 10 stores. Jay C has a history and some customer connection in those markets, but hasn't had many store remodels over the years and is in smaller markets, but has some decent sized stores. Kroger understands those rural midwest type of markets and operates and merchandises the stores in a manner that keeps the customers happy.
If Kroger eliminated the Fry's banner tomorrow the stores wouldn't lose any business and nobody would care. Over the last 10 - 15 years most of the stores built look identical to what has been built in Cincinnati or SE Michigan and with all of the midwestern transplants in Phoenix making up a massive percentage of the older population (who would be less resistant to change) they have some familiarity with the Kroger name. Fry's did some unique things under Jon Flora but since his death in 2013 Fry's is indistinguishable with the OH / MI / IN / KY Kroger stores (I'd actually say Fry's seems more similar to the midwestern Kroger stores than anything in Texas).
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Re: RIP Owen's Market: The Kroger banner never talked about

Post by Bagels »

storewanderer wrote: April 21st, 2021, 11:58 am
Bagels wrote: April 21st, 2021, 11:00 am On of the Cincinnati business journals discussed last year that Kroger initially intended on unifying all of its banners under the Kroger name (I’m sure there would’ve been exceptions like Harris Tetter, F4L, etc. but it wasn’t discussed). Apparently, Kroger fells as it it has brand equity, but little brand awareness; internal surgery’s demonstrated that only a low percentage of regular Ralph’s shoppers realized that Smith’s and Fry’s were part of the Kroger family. Ultimately, Kroger scrapped the branding idea because of consumer flight fears — e.g. people upset “their” store changed, people thinking it was under new ownership, etc.

The Kroger brand is now prominent at Ralph’s — only the milk and some of the water still carries the Ralph’s name, even butter and eggs now feature Kroger branding. Billboards across town, ads in local newspapers, etc. refer to the “Kroger Pharmacy at your local Ralph’s,” with Kroger graphics. Inside the store, they’re still branded as Ralph’s Pharmacy, although various Kroger signage is evident.

Additionally, the legacy Ralph’s bakery and deli product has been replaced with the legacy Kroger product. Ralph’s is dead, replaced with Kroger, but I guess a name change would generate too much negative attention.
Converting Ralphs to Kroger probably wouldn't make much sense. Ralphs Stores are on the smaller side and Ralphs pricing is on the high side (F4L having the price structure more typical at other Kroger divisions). Also Ralphs is one of the higher store count divisions.

It will be very interesting to see what they do when they open Ocado warehouses in places where the banner on the local stores is something other than Kroger. Will they brand the Ocado warehouse with the local banner or the Kroger banner? That just may be the trigger to rebrand stores as Kroger...
I’m don’t believe those those factors mean much. Kroger has varying size of stores in each market. I bet the average Ralph’s has somewhere close to 100% of the chains’s average SKU count per store. Their space is used more efficiently — for example, Kroger pulled the customer service areas, and reduced the number of check outs, to increase selling space. Ralph’s have a similar interior as most stores within Kroger’s fleet, and that’s what really matters.

Yes, their pricing is high but I noticed recently that even Walmart uses regional pricing on non-perishables (when that largely hasn’t been the case in the past). For example... we bought a cake mix and frosting for $1.69 each. At another Walmart 10 miles up the road, they were $1.33 each. My mom bought them for 85c for the cake mix and 1.09 for the frosting at the store nearest her, in the Midwest.
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