Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by veteran+ »

ClownLoach wrote: August 19th, 2021, 2:48 pm
storewanderer wrote: August 18th, 2021, 8:47 pm
veteran+ wrote: August 18th, 2021, 8:06 am Wow!

I guess the high salaries of the top brass are certainly warranted.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Executives are so overrated and so over paid.
I don't know. The Raleys ONE format has photographs of Mike Teel owner of Raleys and signs up with his signature and information about the concept. I think this format/concept is his idea- it is basically a large scale roll out of the Market 5-One-5 in Sacramento (which is a 12k square foot urban type format with the same "banned ingredients" concept as Raleys ONE) which Mike Teel developed as a separately managed format away from the standard Raleys. Market 5-One-5 has since been rolled more into the regular Raleys fold. Market 5-One-5 is not exactly the same as Raleys ONE but it is a very similar merchandising approach. Obviously Market 5-One-5 with a curated mix in a 12k square foot urban location likely makes sense vs. a Raleys ONE in a 60k square foot box in a not so densely populated area.

The Market 5-One-5 seems to be better organized and better focused given its small format. Raleys ONE is poorly organized, poorly focused, confusing (has a pharmacy inside yet doesn't carry standard OTC medicines on the shelf in the store), has uneven product quality (they definitely didn't taste a lot of those bakery or deli replacements)...

I find it fascinating they had such success with the Market 5-One-5 but this Raleys ONE is such a miserable flop and a lousy store to shop in from my view as a customer.
From start to finish the disaster in Reno has hubris written all over it. Hearing that the CEO needed to erect a shrine to himself in the store tells me everything I needed to know about why this is such a colossal flop. He would rather listen to the voices in his head instead of the voices of his customers. I rode on this train early in my retail career. The CEO knew better than the customer, better than the store associates, and even better than Wall Street. The ensuing losses from the changes made to our company weren't because we were headed down the wrong path - we just weren't far enough down that path yet! Every bad decision was the result of a new chapter in his arrogance. Until the day that they reached Chapter 7, in the U. S. Bankruptcy Court.
DITTO!

I went through that with Food Fair/Pantry Pride and Fresh & Easy (both owners).

And.....................I told them so before I left.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: August 20th, 2021, 6:30 am
DITTO!

I went through that with Food Fair/Pantry Pride and Fresh & Easy (both owners).

And.....................I told them so before I left.
Well, we will see what happens. Some changes need to be made. Notice they no longer talk like they are going to convert the entire chain to this format anymore... I think they know this is a failure.

I'd rather see them at least try to fix it... but at this point the store feels like it has been forgotten and nobody cares about it. And by that statement I mean forgotten by management as the place is executed poorly and looks like it isn't even trying, and forgotten by customers since so many have moved on to other stores.

Meanwhile their ad for ONE this week has 8 produce features listed. 2 of the 8 features are NOT Organic. Organic versions are available in all of these things, so why not advertise them? The ad has conventional (non-Organic) Blueberries, Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries (one feature) and also non-Organic Bag Mandarins. If your store name includes "Organic" - why is there any conventional produce at all? Natural Grocers and little co-ops across the US can run a 100% Organic produce department.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

This week they finally have some lower ad prices. The 91/9 Ground Beef is 4.99/lb (at the regular Raleys the ad price on it is 6.99/lb). Better than their regular price of 8.69/lb at this store thanks to the terrible price scale they are using. Meat overall looked fresher than it has the past few weeks. One employee in the department.

Also the hot food bar continues to enhance. Today the 9.99/lb hot food bar had fried chicken strips, fried chicken, what look like little pizza pockets bite size (may have been baked, possibly fried, this information is not labeled so who knows), onion rings, and something else that looked so past hold time that I could not even tell what it was. I have no idea what they are trying to accomplish with this. They should just rip the fixture out. It is almost like some kind of a bad joke.

One checkstand open mid-afternoon, though it was a little busy and they were running a second for back up on and off. Plus all 4 self checkouts were working and had fairly steady use.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by ninersdd »

Interesting comment on a very recent yelp review:

"I've heard rumors that the owner is doctoring the books to make Raley's One look better then it is. I've heard that they are down $20,000 a day. I've heard rumors that the owner would rather let the store go out of business then change it back."
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

ninersdd wrote: September 11th, 2021, 10:26 pm Interesting comment on a very recent yelp review:

"I've heard rumors that the owner is doctoring the books to make Raley's One look better then it is. I've heard that they are down $20,000 a day. I've heard rumors that the owner would rather let the store go out of business then change it back."
If they are only down $20,000 a day from before the conversion, I would say this may well be able to be seen as successful. Given the amount of staffing that is cut, inventory that is cut, way less DSD activity in the store, smaller trucks from distro center, etc. would also be factors to consider that are surely saving them overhead. I don't have any hard data but based on my observations of this store I estimate it was pulling in well over $700k a week before and many holiday or busy summer weeks probably hit much higher than that. So let's just assume my estimate is correct that would only be a 20% sales loss. That does not jive with my observation of foot traffic but I'm not in there all day every day so it is possible I am just there during unusually slow periods even in the middle of the day on weekends, etc. when I go in. Sort of like all those analysts who used to visit Fresh & Easy early on used to say. I must have been there during a slow time.

This week I was in Raleys in Fernley and Yerington. Also Raleys in Reno Caughlin Ranch. All former Scolari's. Reno Store looks good other than a dirty floor and a marginal meat department. Fernley store is fairly clean, bakery is really lightly stocked, produce is really lightly stocked, meat is not stocked well. Yerington store has burnt out neon sign on produce wall that was burnt out last time I was there (over a year ago), floors throughout store are filthy and discolored looking due to the neglect, bakery is almost empty, filthy, and has a sign up saying they have no cake decorator so they can't do any custom cake orders, deli is dirty and poorly stocked (would not consider purchasing from it based on how dirty it looked), produce looked somewhat okay, meat looked marginal, and the center store was poorly faced and not very well organized. I think the Reno Store is probably more productive as Raleys but the Fernley and Yerington Stores... seemed to be a lot better, busier, with more employees around, when they were Scolari's. Also these former Scolari's have the old Scolari's checkout equipment which isn't in great shape, really need to replace the payment pinpads specifically.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Raleys has added the green Raleys ONE logo to various of its price tags in all stores (next to the Nob Hill/Bel Air banners), this is a recent change. I am only turned further and further away from Raleys ONE based on how the Reno ONE is being priced/operated. Really need to make a lot of changes to their approach with this ONE format.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by veteran+ »

storewanderer wrote: September 12th, 2021, 12:09 am
ninersdd wrote: September 11th, 2021, 10:26 pm Interesting comment on a very recent yelp review:

"I've heard rumors that the owner is doctoring the books to make Raley's One look better then it is. I've heard that they are down $20,000 a day. I've heard rumors that the owner would rather let the store go out of business then change it back."
If they are only down $20,000 a day from before the conversion, I would say this may well be able to be seen as successful. Given the amount of staffing that is cut, inventory that is cut, way less DSD activity in the store, smaller trucks from distro center, etc. would also be factors to consider that are surely saving them overhead. I don't have any hard data but based on my observations of this store I estimate it was pulling in well over $700k a week before and many holiday or busy summer weeks probably hit much higher than that. So let's just assume my estimate is correct that would only be a 20% sales loss. That does not jive with my observation of foot traffic but I'm not in there all day every day so it is possible I am just there during unusually slow periods even in the middle of the day on weekends, etc. when I go in. Sort of like all those analysts who used to visit Fresh & Easy early on used to say. I must have been there during a slow time.

This week I was in Raleys in Fernley and Yerington. Also Raleys in Reno Caughlin Ranch. All former Scolari's. Reno Store looks good other than a dirty floor and a marginal meat department. Fernley store is fairly clean, bakery is really lightly stocked, produce is really lightly stocked, meat is not stocked well. Yerington store has burnt out neon sign on produce wall that was burnt out last time I was there (over a year ago), floors throughout store are filthy and discolored looking due to the neglect, bakery is almost empty, filthy, and has a sign up saying they have no cake decorator so they can't do any custom cake orders, deli is dirty and poorly stocked (would not consider purchasing from it based on how dirty it looked), produce looked somewhat okay, meat looked marginal, and the center store was poorly faced and not very well organized. I think the Reno Store is probably more productive as Raleys but the Fernley and Yerington Stores... seemed to be a lot better, busier, with more employees around, when they were Scolari's. Also these former Scolari's have the old Scolari's checkout equipment which isn't in great shape, really need to replace the payment pinpads specifically.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Raleys has added the green Raleys ONE logo to various of its price tags in all stores (next to the Nob Hill/Bel Air banners), this is a recent change. I am only turned further and further away from Raleys ONE based on how the Reno ONE is being priced/operated. Really need to make a lot of changes to their approach with this ONE format.


I crunched the numbers for all of the F&E stores and you are spot on about their low volume numbers.

It was actually very funny! (so LOW)
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

Raleys must be pleased with the performance of the ONE Store in Reno. They started a project this week to re-do the exterior of the store. They already repainted the exterior during the conversion but they are now doing a major renovation to the store exterior.

Looking at the negative reviews of the remodel, I have not seen any people commenting negatively regarding the store exterior.

Missing the mark here again... blowing money on something the customers do not care about.

I am sure it will look nice when whatever it is they are doing is done.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

Raleys ONE has already kicked out Stumptown Coffee and switched to something called "Drink" Coffee which is roasted in Truckee. I've never heard of "Drink" Coffee before but have certainly heard of Stumptown.

I see Drink Coffee has a shop in Incline Village that appears to be highly regarded.

However when you just rolled out the Stumptown Program in Reno ONE Store on May 1, and now you are changing the coffee program less than six months later, I am afraid it just confuses the customer as to what is going on. The Raleys ONE employees were very scripted in talking up the Stumptown product and why it was so good and attempting to make you feel very good and confident in your purchase before you even got it (and learned it didn't taste much different than Starbucks or Peet's).

Maybe given Raleys ONE has so little traffic the Stumptown was selling so few beverages that it didn't matter and they figured a change to "Drink" would not upset anyone since hardly anyone was buying Stumptown. I wonder what the cost difference for them in using "Drink" is vs. the cost of using Stumptown.

Also Raleys ONE Reno has removed the US Mail Blue Postage Box from the store exterior and it is gone from sight. Man- good thing it isn't October or November. Not clear if it is coming back after the remodel of the exterior. It was in a part of the sidewalk that is fenced off. The UPS Store in the center will continue to take local outgoing US Mail- when it is open.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

Tried to shop in this place again today. Nothing has changed for the better (despite some rumors I've been hearing that they may be returning certain items they took away to the bottom shelves). Less produce and meat out than I've ever seen yet still having freshness issues.

Bread aisle- wanted English Muffins. Basic plain english muffins. That shouldn't be so hard, right? The only SKU of English Muffins they had was an Oroweat 10 Grain Organic. It was on sale for 3.99 (regular 4.99). No standard English Muffins, Sourdough, etc. in ANY brand. No evidence of a shelf tag for standard English Muffins either- they had two rows for these Oroweat Organic 10 Grain English Muffins (only had a few packs available). Went to bakery- figured it was a long shot (but Smiths and Save Mart have some english muffins in the bakery they defrost and sell), and it was- none there either.

There was zero help on the sales floor to ask questions, the nutritionist kiosk was unstaffed. Picked up a few items on the way out that they did have that I decided to purchase. Had an overcharge on one item. Sloppy price posting continues in this store too. This store is an operational joke. Store management is nowhere to be found. There seems to still be one upbeat (decades long term) employee in the place who works the self checkouts some mornings but beyond that the attitude in this store is just dismal and sad.

Hardly any customers in the place this afternoon either, as usual. Also not sure what is going on with the exterior remodel they are doing, it is still in progress but it is looking like it is going to look the same as it did before they started. It would probably be better to quit blowing money on this horribly run, poorly merchandised, failed ONE concept and conserve funds to improve the future operations in Arizona and bring the Food City format over to the Reno Sak N Save and a few other CA locations where it would make sense.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by bryceleinan »

Just saw a post on FB from one of my friends who lives nearby, and has a friend working in this store. Apparently, a bunch of the traditional grocery products are coming back, and it’s going to be a 50/50 mix of traditional and organic. I’m guessing the remodel is going to blend the two assortments? Not sure if they’re going to split the store in half or what.
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