veteran+ wrote: ↑August 22nd, 2021, 3:01 pm
BTW.....................Fresh & Easy made those self checkouts with conveyor belt famous!
Awful, awful, awful!
Wal Mart's version of the conveyor belt has the customer unload onto the conveyor belt then it has the usual bagging area directly past the scanner. Slightly different configuration than the others but same general idea.
The only other place where I saw the models like Fresh & Easy had was at Jewel and that was toward the late days of Albertsons. Never did see them in an actual Albertsons. A single belt and it "dumps" the item down to the bagging area.
Of course Smiths just installed a couple of these F&E types (not NCR hardware though) in one of the locations in my area. I got a better instruction from an employee at Smiths about these that they installed now. There are two belts after you scan. So the first belt is reportedly a scale to ensure the item scanned matches the item weight. If that works then the belt starts moving, then at the end of that first belt, are two poles the item has to pass through- somehow the pole detects or triggers what the item is. If it fails to detect or it senses some kind of an error, it automatically reverses the belt backwards and brings the item back to you at the scanner, and automatically voids the item off (even if the item passed the entire first belt already, and already rolled down to the bagging area because it never rested on the belt in the first place- say a can of something or an apple for instance that goes rolling). I get a real laugh out of how Kroger keeps using technology Albertsons shelved 15+ years ago. I suspect these self checkouts will go the same was a Kroger Scan Bag Go (removed from most stores at this time). 20-25 item transaction on this Smiths self checkout- PAINFUL because you have to wait for every item to pass two belts before you can scan the next item. Better to just use the small self checkout.
storewanderer wrote: ↑August 18th, 2021, 8:43 pm
You raise some interesting points here. These CA Wal Mart Stores seem very busy- too busy even. If they have understaffed front ends and delays in shopping on the sales floor due to all these locked shelves, they may not be doing as much sales volume as they look like they are doing because what is happening is people are spending way longer inside the store than they should be spending, due to these circumstances.
Walmart doesn't do as strong around San Diego. In San Diego County, there is a stretch of the coast with 0 Walmart presence from Downtown to Encinitas. The city of San Diego has 6 Walmarts- only 1 out of those 6 is a Supercenter. In fact, there are more regular Walmarts within the county than Supercenters. Of course, ACI dominates the county's grocery market. Sam's Club only has 1 store in San Diego County, near Lemon Grove- and I can imagine it does far inferior business compared the Costco over in La Mesa. We had a Sam's in Vista that closed years ago.
Personally, I do not like the Walmart shopping experience one bit. I find their stores to be dirty and sad places to shop in. I only go there once a year, if ever. Currently, I split most of my grocery shopping between Albertsons and Sprouts.
I wonder what international operation Walmart will spin off next now that Japan and UK are gone...
storewanderer wrote: ↑August 18th, 2021, 8:43 pm
You raise some interesting points here. These CA Wal Mart Stores seem very busy- too busy even. If they have understaffed front ends and delays in shopping on the sales floor due to all these locked shelves, they may not be doing as much sales volume as they look like they are doing because what is happening is people are spending way longer inside the store than they should be spending, due to these circumstances.
Walmart doesn't do as strong around San Diego. In San Diego County, there is a stretch of the coast with 0 Walmart presence from Downtown to Encinitas. The city of San Diego has 6 Walmarts- only 1 out of those 6 is a Supercenter. In fact, there are more regular Walmarts within the county than Supercenters. Of course, ACI dominates the county's grocery market. Sam's Club only has 1 store in San Diego County, near Lemon Grove- and I can imagine it does far inferior business compared the Costco over in La Mesa. We had a Sam's in Vista that closed years ago.
Personally, I do not like the Walmart shopping experience one bit. I find their stores to be dirty and sad places to shop in. I only go there once a year, if ever. Currently, I split most of my grocery shopping between Albertsons and Sprouts.
I wonder what international operation Walmart will spin off next now that Japan and UK are gone...
To be fair, I used to manage that San Diego coastal area and there is no affordable real estate for big box stores along the I-5 corridor between Encinitas and Point Loma. And that Vista center on University Dr. Is a very, very, VERY slow shopping center where every major box is the lowest volume store in the SD market for that chain.
There is a huge gap in the Sam's Club network since Vista and Irvine closed. Nothing along the coast south of Fountain Valley in OC until you hit that one SD store - they do have several stores in Riverside county though. I think they are going to continue to wait out this retail shakeout that's happening now and continue to put Capex into existing stores to finally achieve consistency in layout as some of these stores have seen little to no upgrades in decades (Oxnard, Moreno Valley look positively ancient and are terrible warehouses to shop - I believe they're original Price Savers or PACE buildings). But it seems they finally have the right store operations, right merchandise, right store prototype - and there's a ton of cheap white space to go after. Hobby Lobby grew from 200 to 900+ stores in less than 10 years with the same plan - they waited until the landlords were bleeding out on empty boxes that they couldn't continue to write off losses on, then strong-armed them into giving them cheaper leases without other funding like construction or remodeling. If Sam's Club went after closed Lowe's buildings or other large empty boxes all they have to do is demolish the entire interior, hang lights, install coolers, bakery and meat, wire registers and set steel. No time at all for a bare bones box like that versus a Target or someone else going in. I have no doubt that Sam's Club is going to be growing again - it's firing on all cylinders for the first time in decades.
ClownLoach wrote: ↑August 23rd, 2021, 8:46 pm
There is a huge gap in the Sam's Club network since Vista and Irvine closed. Nothing along the coast south of Fountain Valley in OC until you hit that one SD store - they do have several stores in Riverside county though. I think they are going to continue to wait out this retail shakeout that's happening now and continue to put Capex into existing stores to finally achieve consistency in layout as some of these stores have seen little to no upgrades in decades (Oxnard, Moreno Valley look positively ancient and are terrible warehouses to shop - I believe they're original Price Savers or PACE buildings). But it seems they finally have the right store operations, right merchandise, right store prototype - and there's a ton of cheap white space to go after. Hobby Lobby grew from 200 to 900+ stores in less than 10 years with the same plan - they waited until the landlords were bleeding out on empty boxes that they couldn't continue to write off losses on, then strong-armed them into giving them cheaper leases without other funding like construction or remodeling. If Sam's Club went after closed Lowe's buildings or other large empty boxes all they have to do is demolish the entire interior, hang lights, install coolers, bakery and meat, wire registers and set steel. No time at all for a bare bones box like that versus a Target or someone else going in. I have no doubt that Sam's Club is going to be growing again - it's firing on all cylinders for the first time in decades.
Oxnard and Moreno Valley Sam's look like the Reno Sam's looked before a recent remodel was done.
All these Sam's seem to have pretty high ratings on Google. That says a lot.
Hobby Lobby got the Service Merchandise (then JCP Home Store) box in Reno and gutted the thing but did install a white tile floor throughout. Exposed ceiling is still there but it was there for Service Merchandise too. Great box at the offramp on the way to the mall. In Roseville, Hobby Lobby got an old Mervyns (I think) building in what I would call a downscale strip mall (think the other tenant is Ross, an old Albertsons- the strip mall next to it isn't much better with a 99 Cents Only and Office Depot (former Payless and former Albertsons) but in an area with very solid overall demographics.
Alpha8472 wrote: ↑August 24th, 2021, 9:13 pm
Walmart in the past few months has fired so many employees at many stores. There is probably only 1 loss prevention person left even at a busy store.
What I find funny is how understaffed the stores are. Pallets everywhere in some stores. There are other stores that only allow the pallets to be on the floor when someone is actively working on them, which is nice for housekeeping but it takes a lot of time to move pallets back and forth from the back room or garden or wherever they are storing pallets, and that is time they could be spending actually stocking the shelves.
It is a combination of firing many stocking people, which causes the remaining employees to be overworked. Then those people quit, and you are severely understaffed. It is a vicious cycle. This all stems from reducing labor hours in the past few months. Then the district managers blame the store managers for having messy un-restocked stores. The district managers were the ones pushing to fire more employees and reduce costs in the first place. With the labor shortage and everything it has caused even loyal longtime hard working employees to quit.
ClownLoach wrote: ↑August 23rd, 2021, 8:46 pm
To be fair, I used to manage that San Diego coastal area and there is no affordable real estate for big box stores along the I-5 corridor between Encinitas and Point Loma. And that Vista center on University Dr. Is a very, very, VERY slow shopping center where every major box is the lowest volume store in the SD market for that chain.
There is a Walmart Supercenter in Encinitas in a former Expo Design Center (owned by Home Depot). Being in an affluent suburb, this store does inferior business compared to Walmarts in Oceanside or Vista.
There are no Walmarts or Targets in nearby Carlsbad. Walmart tried to build a store in Carlsbad years ago, but aborted the plan, as Carlsbad has strict zoning laws which have made it nearly impossible for big-box stores to be built.
Alpha8472 wrote: ↑August 24th, 2021, 9:41 pm
It is a combination of firing many stocking people, which causes the remaining employees to be overworked. Then those people quit, and you are severely understaffed. It is a vicious cycle. This all stems from reducing labor hours in the past few months. Then the district managers blame the store managers for having messy un-restocked stores. The district managers were the ones pushing to fire more employees and reduce costs in the first place. With the labor shortage and everything it has caused even loyal longtime hard working employees to quit.
Walmart has succeeded in killing itself off.
Also do not forget their Public Relations campaign of boosting hourly wages and then clandestinely cutting payroll (the latter done post haste).
