Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

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Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by storewanderer »

Interesting. I guess all of the US Pet Valu locations are corporate and the franchise locations are all in Canada (Canada isn't impacted by this). This does not appear to impact Pet Supermarket which is under common ownership. Pet Supermarket has been poorly stocked and running fewer-no promotions in recent months but the stores here are real islands for that chain and I thought it was just a geographic issue (one NV store, one CA store, next closest stores are in TX).

Assuming they are planning to keep Pet Supermarket it is odd they would not retain some of the better performing Pet Valu US Stores and operate them through Pet Supermarket. Maybe there were no better performing Pet Valu US Stores.

When COVID started, Pet Supermarket closed off its sales floor and basically let you walk about 5 feet into the store then you had to tell a clerk what you wanted and had to pay them by credit card which they walked over to the register (you couldn't even get to the register) and processed for you. That policy did not last a month, but I think it was very damaging. I am not sure if Pet Valu had the same policy, but that appeared to kill their foot traffic at Pet Supermarket and though they have long-since reopened their sales floor, between fewer promotions and less merchandise, I don't think traffic has returned.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by Alpha8472 »

Pet ownership is at an all time high. I would think that pet stores would have booming business at this time.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: November 5th, 2020, 2:40 pm Pet ownership is at an all time high. I would think that pet stores would have booming business at this time.
I go into Petsmart and Petco frequently. Petco is routinely dead and empty of customers in every location I go into. I don't understand how Petco stays in business, though looking at its pricing may answer that question. Petsmart has some customers trickling in, but not many, nothing like 20 years ago, and for the size of their stores they are not moving nearly as much product as they need to move. I think most people who previously shopped for pet items in specialty stores, buy pet products online, with auto-shipping. Some other stores like Target and Wal Mart seem to still move a lot of pet foods as well. The grocery stores generally do not seem to move nearly as much pet stuff as they once did but move some. Smiths has a large pet area; I used to buy all pet items there but since they have increased prices, don't buy much there anymore (Safeway is cheaper now on a number of pet food items but has a lot less space for pet; the mix is definitely smaller).

I go into the two Reno area Pet Supermarkets sometimes. These two locations started in the mid 90's and were franchise operations when they opened but at some point Pet Supermarket stopped its franchise program. The Sparks store is only a few years old, replacing the Reno store which was relocated from its initial space next to an old Division 1 Wal Mart that relocated. The Sparks Pet Supermarket was opened after Pet Valu took them over and the layout and interior is identical to newer Pet Valu Stores in Canada. The Sparks one does little business for its size, and seems to have overwhelmingly small transactions. The South Lake Tahoe one is a small awkward store (it used to be a video rental store) and has steady traffic mostly buying large bags of dog food. It probably does okay given its small size. I think the distribution center is in Florida. Must be quite a freight cost to supply these two stores in Reno area.

There also seem to be new smaller strip mall type pet stores that focus solely on premium/specialty brands popping up in various neighborhoods. In Reno area there is a store like this called Pet Station who has opened up a lot of locations all over (around Tahoe also and all the way out in Susanville as well). I have seen stores in the bay area like this as well under the banner Pet Food Express. These stores are very small (well under 10k square feet), have a very curated product mix, limited staffing, and are probably pretty cheap to run. I have to think these types of stores have hurt the "pet superstore" model stores Pet Supermarket, Pet Valu, PetCo, and Petsmart.

So I think pet is a strong business but these stores have lost the business to online and to smaller niche stores.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by veteran+ »

I see more and more boxes and packages of pet food delivered to homes and apartments all over the place.

I am talking stacks of it.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

veteran+ wrote: November 6th, 2020, 5:38 am I see more and more boxes and packages of pet food delivered to homes and apartments all over the place.

I am talking stacks of it.
You've got that right and I can personally attest to that being a retired Letter Carrier. I had a customer who ordered cat litter of all things from Amazon. Huge boxes of the stuff and she lived at the end of the route which meant I had to work around those parcels all day. Those boxes were VERY heavy too. And don't get me started about Amazon's "superior" (NOT) packaging materials. I can't tell you how many times those parcels either broke open due to inadequate tape or the cardboard just wasn't strong enough to hold up during transit.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by storewanderer »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: November 6th, 2020, 1:41 pm
veteran+ wrote: November 6th, 2020, 5:38 am I see more and more boxes and packages of pet food delivered to homes and apartments all over the place.

I am talking stacks of it.
You've got that right and I can personally attest to that being a retired Letter Carrier. I had a customer who ordered cat litter of all things from Amazon. Huge boxes of the stuff and she lived at the end of the route which meant I had to work around those parcels all day. Those boxes were VERY heavy too. And don't get me started about Amazon's "superior" (NOT) packaging materials. I can't tell you how many times those parcels either broke open due to inadequate tape or the cardboard just wasn't strong enough to hold up during transit.
I never thought it would be cost effective for pet food to be purchased online. That was one item I just never thought the shipping would work out. Well, these retailers have forced it to work out, at least for now.

Unfortunately these items are very often actually cheaper online than in store. Of course you have to add to a $25 or $35 tab to get free shipping which isn't too hard.

I would prefer to buy pet food in store however I will not pay more to do so. So now I buy a significant portion of it online too. There are great deals.

Noticed the same thing last spring for fertilizer. About $8 or 15% less for the bag to order online, shipped free, and no screwing around with a Wal Mart that closed at 8:30 or a Home Depot that closed at 6 PM either. That still wasn't a great deal, the better deal is to get it at end of season at Wal Mart when it goes 75%+ off (the stuff seems to stay good longer than a year) but I missed that and had to pay full price for a bag last spring.

These are items that should cost a premium online vs. the local store, not the opposite.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

Speaking of being cost effective, here's a good one-how can it be cost effective to ship a 10 lb. bag of ice melt via Fed Ex? I had a customer do that one time a few years back in spite of the fact that there are numerous stores within blocks of their address which sell the stuff. I remember walking up on that porch and seeing the bag lying there right under the mail slot and saw the Fed Ex shipping label.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by storewanderer »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: November 7th, 2020, 8:54 am Speaking of being cost effective, here's a good one-how can it be cost effective to ship a 10 lb. bag of ice melt via Fed Ex? I had a customer do that one time a few years back in spite of the fact that there are numerous stores within blocks of their address which sell the stuff. I remember walking up on that porch and seeing the bag lying there right under the mail slot and saw the Fed Ex shipping label.
At this point and I have been really surprised to learn this during COVID; there are certain retailers who will literally ship you anything to home at no cost with a $25 or $35 purchase. 20-30 pounds of pet food, 20-30 pound box with a $5-$6 case of water in it, you name it. I have no clue how any of this is cost effective. The ice melt reminds me of the fertilizer I ordered. On one pet transaction my 30 pound items were on sale (really great deal, $17 or so each online, in the store it is $28 at the lowest) so that meant I had to order 2 to get the free shipping. Both came in separate barely holding together boxes but the bags were sealed just fine.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

One shipper who seemed to do a really good job with their boxes actually holding up during transit was Chewy. I had a few customers who ordered from them and those cartons were very sturdy and secured properly. But I've been retired for a couple years now and while the parcel avalanche had begun then, I can't even imagine given current circumstances what it's like now. It has to be overwhelming. At the end of my postal career (which spanned over 33 years), I liked to joke that I was actually a UPS guy who delivered mail on the side.
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Re: Pet Valu closing all US Stores- liquidation sales start immediately

Post by BillyGr »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: November 8th, 2020, 8:41 am One shipper who seemed to do a really good job with their boxes actually holding up during transit was Chewy. I had a few customers who ordered from them and those cartons were very sturdy and secured properly. But I've been retired for a couple years now and while the parcel avalanche had begun then, I can't even imagine given current circumstances what it's like now. It has to be overwhelming. At the end of my postal career (which spanned over 33 years), I liked to joke that I was actually a UPS guy who delivered mail on the side.
At least here we will occasionally see a mail truck going through (earlier in the day than the "regular" mail) just dropping off packages. Most times they will just come with the regular mail, though.

Of course, this area we have trucks that drive house to house anyway, so it's not the issue you mentioned in another post about being parked "down the block" trying to get a big package to someone (they will even back right into a driveway if the package is larger or multiples).
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