Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: April 14th, 2021, 11:38 pm
pseudo3d wrote: April 14th, 2021, 8:36 pm This still seems like an expensive distraction. I'm not sure what percentage of delivery grocery shopping regular stores operate from, but for the most part it's probably not much.

If Kroger wanted to invest in Florida, then they can expand Harris Teeter beyond their one store in the state (which they DID expand), not by offering a half-baked novelty delivery service. They could knock off some business from Publix and Walmart, but even then, "but it's not Publix" didn't save Albertsons' last gasp in the state, and probably won't pave the way for Kroger to open full stores in the state.

More importantly, the whole project (assuming it doesn't turn out to be a money-losing failure) just robs capex from other divisions.
Yes, but I am impressed they are actually running delivery trucks, etc. I have my opinions on how this money pit project will turn out, but let's see.

Actually I think they should have tried it in a few very dense markets first- New York, San Francisco, to see if it would even work in those places. Maybe not under the name Kroger either.

What I want to know- which they likely do know- is if it is so much cheaper to fulfill via these warehouses, that they could just tell customers who currently use the in-store pick up that they will deliver their orders to their home at the same price as the in-store pick up (since this automated warehouse should use a lot less labor than the in-store pick up) but I am thinking whatever labor savings comes from not picking the order a big chunk will be lost in driving it to someone's home. But in real dense areas where the delivery truck did not have to drive far, it could pan out.
I think they mentioned Dallas as one of the sites, which sounds like a good test, since Kroger has stores in Dallas already, and they do pretty well, all things considered. Even if Tom Thumb/Albertsons/Market Street has more stores (which I'm not sure if they do), Kroger runs circles around them when it comes to volume, and Ocado would be useful if there's actually more grocery market share to them or if it just cannibalizes their own stores.

And even if it does cannibalize their own stores, that would disincentivize adding brick-and-mortar stores in the area...which I guess is what they want to do regarding Florida later down the line?
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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by jamcool »

It reduces the number of employees pulling orders and their blue carts which may reduce the crowding in their stores
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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by storewanderer »

jamcool wrote: April 17th, 2021, 10:04 am It reduces the number of employees pulling orders and their blue carts which may reduce the crowding in their stores
This is another angle- in locations where they have stores doing high volumes of pick up. Will they continue to use the stores to fulfill these orders or will they pull the orders from the Ocado center and then have the Ocado trucks deliver them to the stores to be picked up by customers?
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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by cjd »

I have been seeing the commercials lately (both on TV and YouTube) for the Kroger delivery service in Florida. They are emphasizing fresh in the commercials.
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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

buckguy wrote: February 2nd, 2021, 6:05 pm it's not just Atlanta----they often thrived in their traditional areas because of the stumbles of others---Colonial again in Cincinnati, Big Bear in Columbus, Food Town in Toledo, National Tea and later Marsh in Indy. HG Hill's withdrawal from retail and the failure of various Fleming ventures enabled them to do very well in Nashville.
Chains Kroger has thrived off the demise of:
Farmer Jack in Detroit
Seessel's/Schnucks in Memphis
Minyard in Dallas
Skaggs-Alpha Beta/Albertsons in Wichita
National Tea and later Albertsons in Denver
AJ Bayless and later ABCO in Phoenix/Tucson
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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by arizonaguy »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: February 13th, 2023, 12:43 pm
buckguy wrote: February 2nd, 2021, 6:05 pm it's not just Atlanta----they often thrived in their traditional areas because of the stumbles of others---Colonial again in Cincinnati, Big Bear in Columbus, Food Town in Toledo, National Tea and later Marsh in Indy. HG Hill's withdrawal from retail and the failure of various Fleming ventures enabled them to do very well in Nashville.
Chains Kroger has thrived off the demise of:
Farmer Jack in Detroit
Seessel's/Schnucks in Memphis
Minyard in Dallas
Skaggs-Alpha Beta/Albertsons in Wichita
National Tea and later Albertsons in Denver
AJ Bayless and later ABCO in Phoenix/Tucson
Safeway was actually the biggest benefactor of the collapse of ABCO. They purchased 11 stores from ABCO and gained significant market share in Tucson with the addition of 7 stores in that market. Bashas' also bought a number of former ABCO stores (after it purchased them from a short lived Hispanic grocer called Southwest Supermarkets) and Bashas' failed spectacularly with the acquisition of these stores, leading to its bankruptcy. Fry's basically became what it is because it combined 3 strong chains: Smith's, Smitty's (Fred Meyer Marketplace) and Fry's into one chain and kept most of the stores not required to be divested (even if across the street from one another) until leases ran out in the overlapping stores or controlled a lot of the real estate so it could sublease / sell closed stores to non grocery competitors.

Phoenix / Tucson is also the strange market where Fry's benefitted from Walmart killing off the marginal stores of its competitors (ABCO, Albertsons, Bashas' and Safeway) moreso than the collapse of the competitors themselves. Fry's picked up the former ABCO / Albertsons / Bashas' / Safeway customers who didn't want to shop at Walmart.

While Kroger did benefit from the collapse of Farmer Jack it was Meijer who gained the most market share after Farmer Jack collapsed (and essentially Meijer in Detroit is very analogous to HEB in Houston or Publix in Atlanta) where Kroger was stronger immediately after the crash of Farmer Jack but Meijer (like HEB and Publix) is the stronger player now who is gaining market share faster.
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Re: Could Kroger be preparing for a Florida move-in?

Post by jamcool »

ABCO aka Desert Market went under when Fleming Foods (who was their owner at that time) went bankrupt.
Bayless had its own problems with the unions, outdated stores, and acquisition by a California investment company who was more interested in the real estate that running the stores, Bashas’ and several independent operators bought the former Bayless stores (including AJ’s Fine Foods which is now one of Bashas’ store brands)
Fry’s in Arizona was basically stagnant in growth until Kroger bought its parent company Dillon)
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