Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

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storewanderer
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

ninersdd wrote: June 14th, 2021, 8:41 pm Technically that's not even a 2.5 star average, since it carried over before the change.
I didn't even think of that...

I went to a normal Raleys today. I was sure jealous of the selection there (and it seemed like it was a pretty low volume Raleys), vs. this ONE Store.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by bryceleinan »

@storewanderer - I went in there for the first time last night post-conversion. This was around 7:30 PM - place was dead, and I’m not quite sure how this place is merchandised. I saw the one SKU of blue Dawn soap - other products were really hit and miss. Safeway wound up being the proud recipient of my money since they actually had products in stock.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: June 15th, 2021, 9:05 pm @storewanderer - I went in there for the first time last night post-conversion. This was around 7:30 PM - place was dead, and I’m not quite sure how this place is merchandised. I saw the one SKU of blue Dawn soap - other products were really hit and miss. Safeway wound up being the proud recipient of my money since they actually had products in stock.
Well I guess you and I, and the dozens of people making negative comments on Facebook, Yelp, Google Maps, are just not their target customer. We are clearly "missing the boat" and do not "get" this store and how great it is. I have also talked to people who like Trader Joe's and Sprouts and went to this store and were also unimpressed (bought nothing and said they'd never go back). So I have no idea who the target customer is for this store, where they currently shop, or how Raleys will reach them and get them to come to the store and shop.

The good news is Raleys is looking for new customers for this store via the billboard advertising strategy, far away from the store. Tonight I saw a billboard for Raleys ONE with Green Logo and saying Now Open at Wedge Pkwy/Mt. Rose Highway in front of Grand Sierra Resort (10+ miles from the store location). I am sure there are many folks driving through the center of Reno who will drive past where there are offramps for 2 Sprouts, Trader Joes, and Whole Foods, to check this Raleys ONE out and become regular shoppers?

Given the negative reaction of many of the store's existing customers I think they should make some changes to the store before they keep heavily advertising it... but that is just my opinion.

Raleys ONE has had a billboard at the Damonte Ranch Parkway offramp since the grand re-opening. They also have a billboard on old 395 as you head into Reno. I felt like the Damonte billboard was attempting to steal attention from folks heading to Safeway. I wonder how that worked out.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by veteran+ »

Feels like there is a lot of hubris going on with this company and their insistence with this format.

Reminds me of Tesco with Fresh & Easy.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: June 16th, 2021, 8:32 am Feels like there is a lot of hubris going on with this company and their insistence with this format.

Reminds me of Tesco with Fresh & Easy.
Reminds me a lot of Fresh & Easy...

Raleys saw how Fresh & Easy did as it was in their marketing area... however Fresh & Easy was one competitor I never saw Raleys make any reactionary moves toward. They made tons of reactionary moves towards Ralphs when Ralphs entered NorCal.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

This store seemed a little busier today than it has been previous weekends. They had two checkstands going strong (steady customers) plus the 4 self checkouts had constant use. Also the eCart area had at least 10-15 bags in the storage coolers which is the most I've seen since the conversion. Before the conversion there were hundreds of bags in those coolers but this is certainly an improvement from what has been happening the past 2 months.

Produce and meat continue to have freshness issues and quality issues and produce continues to be poorly rotated, Organic stuff touching non-Organic stuff, and all the same problems they have had for a while still exist. Also the pricing is just too high. This produce department's continued poor execution has been why I've largely stopped going into this store during the week. Of course today it was the same old thing so I won't be back next week during the week either. Meat is a mess of various meat types depending on the cut of meat- some is USDA Prime, some is "Natural Beef," some is the old Raleys beef, etc. They don't have much meat out. The steaks were some of the worst looking steaks I've seen in quite some time. Ribeye steaks that are more fat than steak, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. Also seems they are increasing meat prices as the ribeyes (more fat than meat) at 18.49/lb and the 91% ground beef at 8.69 are way out of line.

Bakery looks terrible and deli looks terrible except the salad bar which looks good. Product out looks unappetizing. Their ad shows a photo of a nice looking pre-made sandwich with meat piled on for 5.99. The pre-made sandwich has literally 1 thin slice of each lunchmeat type (a few types on it) in some cases hidden inside the bread, a terrible value and nothing like the picture. 2.99 would possibly be a fair price but it may be better to just put a few more slices of meat on and keep the higher price point. Deli hot food self serve bar 9.99/lb this afternoon continued a tub of roasted chicken that looked like dry bricks, fried chicken, chicken strips that looked very dry, and a tub of tater tots (?????).

Also interestingly today the nutritionist kiosk was actually staffed with 2 employees (didn't see any customers there).

So despite that I've largely given up on this place due to the awful produce, inconsistent meat, unpredictable center store mix, and absurdly high pricing, despite that I really wanted to make it work, it does appear a few people may be liking the store.

I get the feeling they are trying to charge as much as they possibly can to the few people who will tolerate shopping in this store and see if somehow it works out.

My opinion of Raleys gets lower every time I go into this store. 9.99/lb tater tots?
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by rwsandiego »

storewanderer wrote: June 27th, 2021, 12:16 am ...Deli hot food self serve bar 9.99/lb this afternoon continued a tub of roasted chicken that looked like dry bricks, fried chicken, chicken strips that looked very dry, and a tub of tater tots (?????)...
That "hot food bar" not only sounds completely unappetizing but it sounds pretty unhealthy, i.e. the antithesis of the store's concept.
storewanderer wrote: June 27th, 2021, 12:16 am....So despite that I've largely given up on this place due to the awful produce, inconsistent meat, unpredictable center store mix, and absurdly high pricing, despite that I really wanted to make it work, it does appear a few people may be liking the store....
So this is pretty much the accident you can't help staring at, right? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

Logged into Raleys website on Wednesday. Clicked in for my "personalized coupon" offers to add for the upcoming week and it is empty. No offers. I wonder what happened. Maybe I dug my own grave here shopping at the Raleys ONE where half of the coupon items aren't sold. So I didn't redeem many of these personalized coupons during May or June because of the Raleys ONE not having the items... Rather than do something novel like, I don't know, ensure they give me coupons for items that store actually sells, they decided to just take the coupons away entirely. Slick move there. Smiths and Safeway keep running real hot ads though, so that's okay. Smiths and Safeway are also struggling to keep the shelves filled- business is booming for both of them in South Reno.

Raleys had become one of my favorite places to shop before this whole mess- during the COVID they kept being open until 11 PM the whole time, and I really liked the properly staffed stores, well stocked stores, reliable quality, the large product mix, and the promotions they ran. It was also very clear to me they took sanitation very seriously and had the staffing to back that commitment up. I knew I wasn't getting the lowest actual prices, but it wasn't too far out of range, and I was happy with the overall value.

Also logged back in today and went to the digital coupons (these available to anyone, not personalized offers) and it seems to be pretty light for a new month. Only a couple pages of offers including those that stuck around from last month. Smiths and Safeway websites are both brimming with new digital coupons for the beginning of the month. Same for Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

Went to this store again this afternoon. Most customers I've seen in the store since mid-May; actually had 3 checkouts with traffic going at some points but still mostly 2 checkouts open.

Various events throughout the store:
1. Seafood "road show" up front basically set up seafood in temporary ice display by front door
2. Two different wine/liquor tasting tables being run- 2 demo employees present and the store wine steward (who I hadn't seen since the conversion) present
3. Deli had some kind of sample table going - this one was staffed
4. Two unattended sample tables at the end of 2 grocery aisles: one had dip and some Casa Sanchez Tortilla Chips and the other had some dip and some Organic Triscuit crackers.

Nobody seemed to be interested in items 1-4 above while I was in the store. The ideas certainly deserve an A for effort, but the overall execution just felt sort of "off." Organic Triscuits? Seafood Roadshow for 4th of July weekend? You do that during lent, not a BBQ weekend.

The nutritionist kiosk was not staffed nor was the "Canopy" display at the front of the store where that person has been stationed sometimes.

Back to the usual- meat area has the same old limited selection. Markdown items sprinkled around. It sure doesn't look like 4th of July weekend here- they have the same low amount of steak present as they've had the past few weeks. Some ok prices- "Natural" New York Steaks at 9.99/lb but didn't look fresh at all. Ribeyes at 18.49/lb but looked real good. New thing is in the prepack wall deli area (bacon, lunchmeat, cold pasta, cheese, etc.) they are doing a markdown program where they put multiple markdown stickers for $1 off onto the items to make them basically half price and then put a handwritten hot orange handwritten sign "$4 off" or "$5 off" to call attention to all of these about to expire markdown items.

Deli hot food today- awful looking dried out chicken pieces (roasted or fried), dry looking macaroni and cheese, and dry looking roasted red potatoes - 9.99/lb. I guess this is a slight upgrade from last week's tater tots?

Produce again has the usual rotation issues and other issues. While some of it looks okay there continue to be issues here.

The store management in this Reno ONE store is doing a terrible job with the fresh departments. They are not merchandised properly or in an appetizing manner- this went from having some of the best looking fresh departments of any grocer in the Reno area to having some of the sloppiest and worst looking fresh departments of any grocer in the Reno area.

What is interesting is the Truckee Raleys ONE where I was a few days ago still has all hot food prepack in what is supposed to be the open air hot food self serve case, no salad bar yet (just cold prepack there) and they had small prepacks (1/4 lb to 1/2 lb) of chicken strips at 7.99/lb and macaroni and cheese at 5.98/lb. So what is this Reno Store doing pricing this stuff at 9.99/lb? This is a bad joke and I am sure they are losing money.

Also noticed the pharmacy only had only one employee working and nobody was there buying anything. This store used to have a pretty busy pharmacy and would have had at least 3 employees working mid-day. I guess when they ran customers off from the store, it impacted the pharmacy too. Well, I am sure this pharmacy is providing great service to the customers still using it (has to be better than the chain drugstores in South Reno who quote 2-3 hour wait times).
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

They upgraded the hot food case. Now in addition to the dry inedible looking chicken they put out a tray of dry inedible looking something- not sure what- maybe enchiladas. Salad bar also is looking tired last couple trips in.

Meat department had some deals though. They had a bunch of whole chickens that were seasoned (very heavily seasoned) wrapped in store trays and with store price labels as Rocky Whole Air Chilled at .99/lb expiring July 20. Also most of the steaks were on markdown but most of the steaks were dry aged beef at over $30/lb so a $5 off sticker doesn't really do much there.

Store had so little traffic yesterday afternoon it couldn't even keep 2 checkstands steady with customers. And the eCart storage area was empty again. Safeway had 6 registers open with steady traffic and Smiths parking lot was so full it looked like a holiday weekend.

The nutritionist counter wasn't staffed either, but they had little plastic 1oz cups of water on the counter for samples. Each cup had a lid on it. It is like the salsa cup at El Pollo Loco. I forget what water it was, Hint or something I think. Would be nice if the sample water was actually cold but I suppose I shouldn't complain.

I should mention how fantastic both Safeway and Smiths look. These stores are busy, staffed pretty well, departments look fresh, departments look full, customers are buying cartfulls of items.

Raleys needs to convert this store back to standard format immediately and admit they goofed up. Also get rid of that terrible Bay Area pricing in this store that was introduced when this converted to Raleys ONE- charging higher prices in Reno than Incline Village or Lake Tahoe is a complete joke.
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