German chain Lidl sets eyes on Virginia, Carolinas

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. No non-grocery posts.
wnetmacman
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Re: German chain Lidl sets eyes on Virginia, Carolinas

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:
Knight wrote:Lidl is taking a risk leapfrogging into Texas. Grocery retailers that have leapfrogged have struggled to the point of closing stores and exiting markets.
Leapfrogging is dangerous, too, in the early 1990s, rather than try to repair their base in the Midwest, Venture went into Texas, built a huge new distribution center in Corsicana, Texas, and built stores in Houston and Dallas. It ended up sinking the entire chain.
Venture's strategy was quite similar to that of the company it was copied from, Target, and for good reason. They shared John Geisse in common. Venture was in the process of backfilling the area between Dallas/Houston/OKC and St. Louis when they ran into financial issues. Geisse's main job was to emulate for May what had been done earlier for Dayton Hudson.

Leapfrogging can be successful if done correctly. Safeway has operated in DC for more than 50 years, with the closest original division in Little Rock. Winn Dixie did it via acquisition in Texas, and that ran for almost 30 years.
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Re: German chain Lidl sets eyes on Virginia, Carolinas

Post by Knight »

wnetmacman wrote: Food Lion never operated in Mississippi and Alabama. The only Louisiana stores were in Shreveport. That was a leapfrog, to operate in Dallas, Houston and Oklahoma City.
Food Lion's over-expansion and shortcomings came under Tom Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer from 1986 to 1999. I think Smith overstayed his tenure after netting many failures. Food Lion continues to dwell in failures.
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Re: German chain Lidl sets eyes on Virginia, Carolinas

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:
Knight wrote:Lidl is taking a risk leapfrogging into Texas. Grocery retailers that have leapfrogged have struggled to the point of closing stores and exiting markets.
Leapfrogging is dangerous, too, in the early 1990s, rather than try to repair their base in the Midwest, Venture went into Texas, built a huge new distribution center in Corsicana, Texas, and built stores in Houston and Dallas. It ended up sinking the entire chain.
Venture's strategy was quite similar to that of the company it was copied from, Target, and for good reason. They shared John Geisse in common. Venture was in the process of backfilling the area between Dallas/Houston/OKC and St. Louis when they ran into financial issues. Geisse's main job was to emulate for May what had been done earlier for Dayton Hudson.

Leapfrogging can be successful if done correctly. Safeway has operated in DC for more than 50 years, with the closest original division in Little Rock. Winn Dixie did it via acquisition in Texas, and that ran for almost 30 years.
But Winn-Dixie did have Louisiana stores for years, so the Texas jump wasn't quite as big. Then again, Winn-Dixie's coverage in Texas was pretty spotty...they had College Station-Bryan stores at least back to the 1980s but the Waco stores were all 1990s-based, having acquired a few AppleTree (Safeway) stores in the early 1990s.

Safeway and Washington DC was done through acquisition as well, as well as Albertsons in Florida (via Skaggs Albertsons, which did have some scattered markets). But that's also the difference...when you look at Food Lion, they decided to build all their stores new. They built a massive 1.2M square feet distribution center in Dallas to service what they thought would be a massive division (the predicted 40 stores in Houston, and almost certainly everything in between, College Station-Bryan, Waco, other smaller towns) but it wasn't to be, and they eventually sold it to Tom Thumb.

Like Food Lion, Lidl is building all of its stores new (unknown on the distribution plan) and like Food Lion, a similar competitor already landed first. For Food Lion, H-E-B Pantry got there first. For Lidl, Aldi has already taken root in the Houston grocery market.
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