bryceleinan wrote: ↑June 15th, 2021, 9:07 pm
I talked to my friends that are supposed to be opening the commercial kitchen in there - apparently, plans keep changing for that building, so no idea if / when they will open.
Sometime in the past week they fired up the roaster and started to make a few roasted chickens to sell as hot food. They also re-opened the donut case and have a few loose donuts. Then back in the meat department they have some plastic pre-packs that are store packed (handwritten labels) of potato salad, macaroni salad, and chicken salad.
Also there is now music playing in the store.
Also they added a new DSD for bread- they have some Wonder and Nature's Own breads now. So they have that and Franco (and one SKU of Bimbo).
The owner is in the store constantly and seems to be trying to put it together.
There are some good deals on meat and produce (I haven't tried the meat yet) and they now move meat that is about to expire into a freezer endcap and sell it frozen/reduced. There doesn't seem to be any promotion on center store - and pricing is all over the place, it has improved since they first opened, but still needs a lot of work.
The one thing that is consistent is the place has almost no customers and only a few employees at any given time. And the customers present are not buying much. Last time I went in, which was during late afternoon/peak hours, there were only 2 employees and 2 other customers one of whom bought one item and the other who did appear to be buying a few items (was walking around the middle of the store and had a few items). Really, I have no idea how they even keep the lights on. I'd be surprised if they are doing $25k a week (yes, week) in sales. I've never seen anything quite like this before... Food Source was not a high volume operation but it probably did more than 10 times the business this place is doing.
It isn't easy to start a store from scratch with no help and no programs (could have gotten lots of help and great programs from Associated Food Stores Utah) to speak of... so I certainly understand this is not easy to put together. But in the end you need foot traffic to make a grocery store work. Being "new" or being "under construction" is one thing but at some point you have got to get customers in. I am concerned many people tried this store once already and wrote it off. It is unfortunate how this seems to be going, but they did not pick the correct supplier for this store and the IGA affiliation is basically useless- not getting them the merchandising, promotional, perimeter department, and systems help that they need to get this store up and running.
And a time bomb as the months roll by if volumes do not increase is the duplication of private label where both IGA and Best Yet items are carried in the exact same item (at the exact same price). This may have been great for C&S to stuff the place with so much duplicate private label product from two different private labels but there is not any store that needs multiple private labels of everything... let alone one not doing much volume.
The IGA name badges, signs in the pet food aisle, and sale signs mean nothing to the customer. IGA can't even get them any plastic bags to give to customers (they use thin plastic bags that say Thank You with flowers on them and paper bags say Best Yet). They could have generic name badges, skip the "pets are family" sign in the not well priced and not well stocked pet food aisle (Associated Utah could get them a nicely stocked and well priced pet food aisle), and use plain white paper for sale signs and it would have the same effect on the customer.
I shopped in IGA from time to time when there was one in Reno on Wells Ave. from about 1992-2002 (now Marketon) and that store had an IGA decor package inside, ran an IGA weekly ad/monthly coupon book with the rest of the NorCal IGAs that had some good price points, had plastic bags that said IGA, and had some kind of IGA radio program playing over the PA where promotions, etc. were announced. Calendars showed up in December for free that said IGA and had some pictures and coupons, etc. That place presented sort of like a chain store. It felt as if the IGA affiliation was getting them better ads and some customer perks. They also had a stamp program to collect stamps for purchases and redeem for discounts or something. I don't notice any of this anymore when I go into the IGAs in NorCal- IGA just doesn't seem to bring much to the table that makes any difference to the customer at this point.
I've actually been into a number of NorCal IGAs in the past few weeks-
Susanville IGA, Lockeford IGA, Pioneer IGA (C&S supplied-these stores have been IGAs for decades) - these 3 stores had some okay to pretty good sale items going but again did not see anything going on that IGA appeared to be bringing to the table. Similar to this new Reno IGA they have some uniforms and signs in the store that say IGA and the duplicate private label of both IGA and Best Yet throughout the place...
Portola IGA, Greenville IGA (Supervalu/UNFI supplied)- these stores aside from a sign out front that says IGA that is about it, they don't even have IGA private label items or IGA sale signs/uniforms.