Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by SamSpade »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 20th, 2021, 3:30 pm Another one bites the dust, Lakewood Albertsons rebrands to Safeway: https://thesubtimes.com/2021/05/19/lake ... most-gone/
:(
Albertsons > Haggen > Albertsons > Safeway

At least it's staying open. :)
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by Super S »

SamSpade wrote: May 20th, 2021, 6:45 pm
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 20th, 2021, 3:30 pm Another one bites the dust, Lakewood Albertsons rebrands to Safeway: https://thesubtimes.com/2021/05/19/lake ... most-gone/
:(
Albertsons > Haggen > Albertsons > Safeway

At least it's staying open. :)
It's a good thing the store is still open, no argument there. But Safeway really needs to stop with all the gimmicks to get reasonable prices...the cards, apps, coupons, etc. At the very least, continue what Albertsons does in not requiring the card.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 8:56 am
It's a good thing the store is still open, no argument there. But Safeway really needs to stop with all the gimmicks to get reasonable prices...the cards, apps, coupons, etc. At the very least, continue what Albertsons does in not requiring the card.
I hate to say I think the reason the Safeway banner is being favored is because it is the delivery outlet for all of the gimmicks, club card, etc.

They made a promise in Albertsons, Jewel, Acme, and Shaws- card free savings, no card, no gimmicks. They don't seem to want to go back on that. But in the case of these combined markets all they have to do is eliminate the Albertsons banner and bring back Safeway or lousy Vons and implement the club card.

However there are a few Safeway that dropped the club card requirement for sale pricing after being shifted into mostly Albertsons divisions- the ones in Western Colorado. Those stores shifted from Denver Division to Intermountain quite a while back. Yet if you go up into Montana that same Intermountain division requires club card at Safeway banner stores for sale pricing- those stores shifted from Seattle Division to Intermountain division.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 11:58 am But in the case of these combined markets all they have to do is eliminate the Albertsons banner and bring back Safeway or lousy Vons and implement the club card.
They have not converted any Albertsons stores in SoCal to the Vons banner. Good- at this point the remaining Albertsons stores left in SoCal are very nice stores. No stores left with the Lucky interior. Only one store left with blue/gray (North Ridgecrest).
Too bad most of the Jewel and Grocery Palace interiors in SoCal have been remodeled at this point.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

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retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 9:16 pm
They have not converted any Albertsons stores in SoCal to the Vons banner. Good- at this point the remaining Albertsons stores left in SoCal are very nice stores. No stores left with the Lucky interior. Only one store left with blue/gray (North Ridgecrest).
Too bad most of the Jewel and Grocery Palace interiors in SoCal have been remodeled at this point.
The irony is SoCal is a market where you'd have expected it to be a good move to get the Albertsons name out of the market, after the Lucky situation. However if you look at the store base of these Albertsons that are left, a good number of them are those stores built in the early 00's and a few years right after the Lucky acquisition took place. These are as you point out nice stores, and it seems they got the locations right too.

But markets like WA- those are legacy Albertsons markets. Albertsons had a strong history in those markets and never did anything like the Lucky purchase to alienate customers. But Supervalu ran OR/WA so poorly it is somewhat of a miracle there are any Albertsons left there at all. It always seemed like Supervalu ran SoCal a little better- they kept the stores cleaner, did more remodels, executed fresh better, and seemed to be better on price (still bad, but not as bad). I could not believe, when I was in WA specifically in 2008-2011 fairly often, how poor the Albertsons Stores under Supervalu were. And it wasn't just one store- it was basically all of them (Mercer Island was somehow maintained well and executed well).
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 9:23 pm But markets like WA- those are legacy Albertsons markets. Albertsons had a strong history in those markets and never did anything like the Lucky purchase to alienate customers. But Supervalu ran OR/WA so poorly it is somewhat of a miracle there are any Albertsons left there at all.
(Mercer Island was somehow maintained well and executed well).
Albertsons had acquisition talks with QFC in 1997, probably for Albertsons to gain a stronger presence in urban Seattle.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 9:39 pm
Albertsons had acquisition talks with QFC in 1997, probably for Albertsons to gain a stronger presence in urban Seattle.
That would have not worked out well. Generally speaking small stores did not seem to work well for them based on how Lucky went.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by klkla »

To be honest, current day Albertson's is only successful based on their strategy of buying and eliminating their competitors. There is nothing about their customer-facing operations that is unique or compelling.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

klkla wrote: May 26th, 2021, 10:08 pm There is nothing about their customer-facing operations that is unique or compelling.
I beg to differ.
1. Albertsons has always had unique store interiors.
2. Albertsons has always had stronger quality on service departments than Kroger.

If anything I'd use your comment to describe Kmart.
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Re: Albertsons continues to disappear from WA

Post by klkla »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: May 26th, 2021, 10:26 pm
klkla wrote: May 26th, 2021, 10:08 pm There is nothing about their customer-facing operations that is unique or compelling.
I beg to differ.
1. Albertsons has always had unique store interiors.
2. Albertsons has always had stronger quality on service departments than Kroger.

If anything I'd use your comment to describe Kmart.
Unique store interiors? Maybe recently. They used one variation with a lot of yellow, orange and wood paneling for 20 years. That was followed by a horrible design with gray everything for many years. New and interesting interiors are a fairly recent development for this company. But I haven't seen anything that was groundbreaking. Just variations of existing designs in the industry.

I agree their service quality is better than Kroger, but that's a pretty low bar. There are many grocery companies that have far better service than Albertsons and Kroger.

They came pretty close to becoming a KMart-like disaster when they dissolved the original company and sold if off in pieces to SuperValu, CVS and Cerberus Capital Management. The latter is responsible for the success of the current company.
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