Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: February 20th, 2021, 8:49 pm
storewanderer wrote: February 20th, 2021, 4:32 pm
babs wrote: February 20th, 2021, 11:33 am Albertsons/Safeway got rid of their marginal stores during the merger and subsequent Haggens drama. I think they have a cleaner store base than Kroger. Since Kroger doesn't have a merger to fall back on, they are using the pay increase as their justification.
Not really. QFC has been closing stores for years. QFC had 89 stores back when it was merged into Fred Meyer in 1998. At one brief point their store count was closer to 100 (probably when they had the most stores in Portland open). But still Portland metro at the most they had was what 10 stores open at a single point in time? So forgetting the near-exit from Portland, it has still had considerable store closure activity. Now QFC has- 60 stores?

I think store closure activity at QFC has been pretty close to Albertsons banner, and significantly more than Safeway banner.

If this keeps up with QFC, Kroger is going to have another Cala/Bell on its hands in another decade- a chain store closures drove into being shut down. A banner that closed so many stores it became irrelevant, despite being in a low competition area. The Cala/Bell Stores were very, very similar to QFC Stores in size, merchandising, pricing, and positioning.
I am not really sure why QFC still exists in the Portland market. QFC is more established in the Seattle area, but has never really gained much traction in Portland. I have a feeling we will eventually see either QFC exiting Portland or rebranding as some version of Fred Meyer.
From what I understand, the remaining QFC stores in the Portland market do quite well, most likely because they are well located with little nearby competition. But I agree they are orphans.amd probably should just be renamed to Fred Meyer. Inside the store, it's a Fred Meyer food store. Outside of the buying staff, everything else is being done by either the Fred Meyer staff in Portland or Kroger in Cincinnati. Not much left in the Bellevue office.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: February 20th, 2021, 10:01 pm
From what I understand, the remaining QFC stores in the Portland market do quite well, most likely because they are well located with little nearby competition. But I agree they are orphans.amd probably should just be renamed to Fred Meyer. Inside the store, it's a Fred Meyer food store. Outside of the buying staff, everything else is being done by either the Fred Meyer staff in Portland or Kroger in Cincinnati. Not much left in the Bellevue office.
I think QFC commands higher pricing than Fred Meyer; it previously did have some better quality meat and deli items than Fred Meyer, and the attitude and appearance of the employees in the QFC Stores historically has been more professional (as in top of the line). Also those smaller QFC Stores tended to be rather low on private label product mix (very odd for a Kroger operation, but understandable given the demographic targeted); instead favoring more "gourmet" or regional branded items in center store. Maybe none of that is so much anymore after what Kroger has done the past few years...

Kroger had a rare and unique shot to expand QFC (or some other banner) with those Albertsons/Haggen castoffs but they declined. Huge missed opportunity. Same could be said for Ralphs not taking any of them in SoCal especially central coast.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: February 20th, 2021, 11:13 pm
babs wrote: February 20th, 2021, 10:01 pm
From what I understand, the remaining QFC stores in the Portland market do quite well, most likely because they are well located with little nearby competition. But I agree they are orphans.amd probably should just be renamed to Fred Meyer. Inside the store, it's a Fred Meyer food store. Outside of the buying staff, everything else is being done by either the Fred Meyer staff in Portland or Kroger in Cincinnati. Not much left in the Bellevue office.
I think QFC commands higher pricing than Fred Meyer; it previously did have some better quality meat and deli items than Fred Meyer, and the attitude and appearance of the employees in the QFC Stores historically has been more professional (as in top of the line). Also those smaller QFC Stores tended to be rather low on private label product mix (very odd for a Kroger operation, but understandable given the demographic targeted); instead favoring more "gourmet" or regional branded items in center store. Maybe none of that is so much anymore after what Kroger has done the past few years...

Kroger had a rare and unique shot to expand QFC (or some other banner) with those Albertsons/Haggen castoffs but they declined. Huge missed opportunity. Same could be said for Ralphs not taking any of them in SoCal especially central coast.
I don't think the divested stores were winners, most of them seemed to be marginal, and many ended up closing for good under Haggen. Their purchase of a Minyard Sun Fresh Market (Tom Thumb) in Dallas also bombed hard, ending any chance of going further.

Speaking of QFC, they did convert that one QFC in Gig Harbor as a "Main & Vine" concept store, only to close it when they built a new Fred Meyer to replace one across the highway. I seem to remember Kroger had said they learned a lot from the store, yet never seems to have put anything into practice. It's like they forgot that prototype stores are actually supposed to do something and serve as a potential model for the chain going forward, not to be trotted out for industry magazines.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by Brian Lutz »

There are no Walmart stores within the Seattle city limits. There used to be a Sams Club, but that store closed several years ago. There are five Target stores within the Seattle city limits, but as far as I know all are smaller stores that might not have large grocery departments.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by HCal »

Super S wrote: February 20th, 2021, 8:49 pm
I am not really sure why QFC still exists in the Portland market. QFC is more established in the Seattle area, but has never really gained much traction in Portland. I have a feeling we will eventually see either QFC exiting Portland or rebranding as some version of Fred Meyer.
Fred Meyer is a supercenter brand, so I'm not sure they would want to use it for a regular supermarket. Kroger seems to be perfectly fine with having different banners in a market. If things are integrated on the back end, they can take advantage of the efficiencies, so having some stores operate under a different name isn't really an issue.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 10:46 pm Fred Meyer is a supercenter brand, so I'm not sure they would want to use it for a regular supermarket. Kroger seems to be perfectly fine with having different banners in a market. If things are integrated on the back end, they can take advantage of the efficiencies, so having some stores operate under a different name isn't really an issue.
Fred Meyer operates a number of smaller supermarket only type of stores. And Kroger's most recent remodels where tons of non food SKUs are getting cut out and food floor space is being expanded (mainly wider aisles), move the format even closer to a supermarket only format.

The "Northwest Best" Fred Meyer in Portland at 100 NW 20th Place is a good example of this. This is basically just a large supermarket. Not a supercenter. It has been in the Fresh Fare format prior to its current format (which is a major remodel).

Another example is the Burlingame Fred Meyer at 7555 SW Barbur in Portland. This is also a grocery only store. It previously had some general merchandise (no clothing) but that got removed in a major remodel.

Another example is the Fred Meyer in Spanaway, WA. This was some kind of discount format QFC acquired at some point and was flipped over to Fred Meyer a long time ago (perhaps before the Kroger merger). This too is a Fred Meyer that is only groceries.

I think there are a few others like this.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by arizonaguy »

Weren't Fred Meyer stores full supercenters and Fred Meyer Marketplace stores were grocery stores?

I thought that the Marketplace was the differentiator (unless Fred Meyer doesn't use that anymore).
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by marshd1000 »

The Fred Meyer Marketplace stores are mostly Food and Drug stores. Some had more extensive general merchandise sections, particularly in Portland. Before Fred Meyer acquired QFC, the ones in the Seattle area were one in Silverdale which was something like a Food Pavilion and there was one on the site of the old White Center store which had been operated as a division of Larry's Markets, called LowBuck$. Later when Fred Meyer acquired QFC, there were some Stock Market Food stores which then became Fred Meyer Marketplace stores.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by Brian Lutz »

The QFC Broadway Market store on Capitol Hill is also considered a Marketplace store, although it's branded as a regular QFC. The store has a significantly larger section of general merchandise than a typical QFC store (including a small electronics department as well as housewares hardware and paint), but is too small to be a Fred Meyer, so it gets branded as QFC.
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Re: Kroger closing 2 QFC stores due to $4 Hazard pay

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: February 24th, 2021, 12:25 am
HCal wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 10:46 pm Fred Meyer is a supercenter brand, so I'm not sure they would want to use it for a regular supermarket. Kroger seems to be perfectly fine with having different banners in a market. If things are integrated on the back end, they can take advantage of the efficiencies, so having some stores operate under a different name isn't really an issue.
Fred Meyer operates a number of smaller supermarket only type of stores. And Kroger's most recent remodels where tons of non food SKUs are getting cut out and food floor space is being expanded (mainly wider aisles), move the format even closer to a supermarket only format.

The "Northwest Best" Fred Meyer in Portland at 100 NW 20th Place is a good example of this. This is basically just a large supermarket. Not a supercenter. It has been in the Fresh Fare format prior to its current format (which is a major remodel).

Another example is the Burlingame Fred Meyer at 7555 SW Barbur in Portland. This is also a grocery only store. It previously had some general merchandise (no clothing) but that got removed in a major remodel.

Another example is the Fred Meyer in Spanaway, WA. This was some kind of discount format QFC acquired at some point and was flipped over to Fred Meyer a long time ago (perhaps before the Kroger merger). This too is a Fred Meyer that is only groceries.

I think there are a few others like this.
The Fred Meyer in Vancouver (Hazel Dell), which previously had a separate home improvement building, received a remodel in the 1990s that consolidated everything into one building and removed the apparel department in the process. The store got new Marketplace signage at that time. I stopped there about a year ago and noticed they remodeled again, and added some apparel back to the store. So it's not really clear now what exactly the Marketplace name means with Fred Meyer.

As time goes on Fred Meyer is focusing more on groceries and less on everything else.
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