Fred Meyer stores limiting capacity

[SamSpade]

Stores will be working to allow for half of legal capacity at one time.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/04/06/f ... ts-stores/
It is somewhat unclear what that will mean for the Kroger family of stores nationwide.
The author notes that measures have already been in place at New Seasons Markets, Whole Foods Market, and Trader Joe's.

[storewanderer]

It seems to mean someone will count how many customers are in the store and make people wait outside until people exit.

I have read some drugstores are making all individuals who enter take a cart or basket (knowing many drugstores only have a dozen carts or baskets) and then not letting anyone in who has no cart or basket. That is a real problem for me as I will NOT touch any cart or any basket.

[babs]

Stores will be working to allow for half of legal capacity at one time.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/04/06/f ... ts-stores/
It is somewhat unclear what that will mean for the Kroger family of stores nationwide.
The author notes that measures have already been in place at New Seasons Markets, Whole Foods Market, and Trader Joe's.

Fred Meyer stores are 3-5x the size of an average grocery store. Applying the Kroger metrics towards the much larger Fred Meyer stores when most customers are only in the grocery area is illogical.

[storewanderer]

Stores will be working to allow for half of legal capacity at one time.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/04/06/f ... ts-stores/
It is somewhat unclear what that will mean for the Kroger family of stores nationwide.
The author notes that measures have already been in place at New Seasons Markets, Whole Foods Market, and Trader Joe's.

Fred Meyer stores are 3-5x the size of an average grocery store. Applying the Kroger metrics towards the much larger Fred Meyer stores when most customers are only in the grocery area is illogical.

I was thinking the same about Wal Mart. The majority of the customers are concentrated around the grocery, drug, and pet areas. Many other parts of the store have very few customers. Certain portions of the store like tire center (currently closed) and garden center (currently closed in many regions) are not even in use right now so if square footage from that sales space is counted toward the total customer capacity square footage number then it is a kind of bogus number.

But I guess you have to have some baseline for limiting how many customers can enter the store... and it needs to be something consistent, simple to apply, right now.

In general these mass merchants are getting to keep their whole store open simply because they have "groceries and pharmacies that are essential" and sell things like clothes and fabrics when other retailers who sell only those items are forced to be closed. It isn't really fair to pick and choose who gets to sell clothes and who doesn't. These mass stores like Wal Mart and Target and I suspect Fred Meyer too are way busier than normal since most other retailers are closed. I am really not sure if stuffing everyone who wants to buy into a few chosen lucky stores (or are they lucky) is helping stop virus spread vs. letting other stores be open and have the customers more spread out among multiple stores.

[BillyGr]

I was thinking the same about Wal Mart. The majority of the customers are concentrated around the grocery, drug, and pet areas. Many other parts of the store have very few customers. Certain portions of the store like tire center (currently closed) and garden center (currently closed in many regions) are not even in use right now so if square footage from that sales space is counted toward the total customer capacity square footage number then it is a kind of bogus number.

But I guess you have to have some baseline for limiting how many customers can enter the store... and it needs to be something consistent, simple to apply, right now.

In general these mass merchants are getting to keep their whole store open simply because they have "groceries and pharmacies that are essential" and sell things like clothes and fabrics when other retailers who sell only those items are forced to be closed. It isn't really fair to pick and choose who gets to sell clothes and who doesn't. These mass stores like Wal Mart and Target and I suspect Fred Meyer too are way busier than normal since most other retailers are closed. I am really not sure if stuffing everyone who wants to buy into a few chosen lucky stores (or are they lucky) is helping stop virus spread vs. letting other stores be open and have the customers more spread out among multiple stores.

I suppose the thinking went that people will have to get groceries anyway, so if they are in these types of stores buying those, letting them buy other items they may need (and yes, many other items in a Walmart type store could be necessary at some point) won't add much, if any, to the issues and in the long run may even help by limiting the total number of interactions (both by spreading the customers out more within the full footprint of the store for better spacing while there and by letting them do all their shopping in one store, only interacting with one checkout clerk rather than several).

[Super S]

The Fred Meyer I shop at regularly has posted signs about this, but the only thing I have noticed is that they have somebody stationed at the grocery end wiping down carts and baskets. No change whatsoever on the non-food end. I went to Walmart for the first time in weeks yesterday and they have somebody stationed at the door monitoring who is entering/exiting.