Albertsons-Safeway Merger effect on Portland?

[klkla]

I was looking at market share data for the major cities where both Albertsons and Safeway currently both operate and was interested in everyone's opinion on what they think the market will look like after the merger. Which brand name will be kept? How many stores will be divested? E.T.C.

This thread is for the Portland area.

Current market share:
#1 - Safeway 20.1%
#2 - Fred Meyer (Kroger) 15.1%
#3 - WinCo 13.5%
#4 - Costco 10.9%
#5 - WalMart 6.2%
#6 - Albertsons 6.1%

Combined market share 26.1%

[Super S]

I think that the Albertsons name will eventually disappear from the Portland market. Albertsons has really been struggling the last few years, closing stores and abandoning certain areas of Portland and Vancouver, WA. having high priced, dirty stores doesn't help. Safeway has far more locations. There will probably be a few cases of store closures where Albertsons and Safeway stores overlap and are close to one another.

Safeway will need to get their act together on pricing though. It doesn't make sense to have high prices, and require the use of a club card, apps, etc. to get sale prices, especially when the competition doesn't require all of those gimmicks.

[storewanderer]

I think the Albertsons Northwest Division may be waking up. Probably just in time for Safeway to take over its remaining stores.

Pricing is looking better and they are running good ads. I think they've cleaned up the stores, too. Staffing and employee attitude appears okay too.

I was in the Bellingham Albertsons last week and was surprised to see it has an Albertsons LLC (not a Supervalu) remodel. I couldn't tell what interior the store had before but it seemed to be a pretty complete job they did with what appeared to be a new (all plain white, nothing fancy) floor, some new refrigeration, new wall job, etc. The store is an old Marina Albertsons expanded on the two sides.

I also visited an Albertsons in Mercer Island which even under Supervalu was a pretty good looking operation and again this was no exception. I noticed they pulled Schwartz items into bakery like Kroger has, and also had a salad bar and various other features most Albertsons do not have.

Then I went to an Albertsons by the airport in Bothell. The store was busy, but there were some issues. Seafood area stunk, badly. Really badly. The perimeter areas looked just okay.

The other big thing I noticed is every store was well stocked in both perimeter and center store. This is a real change from Supervalu where the stores were very, very poorly stocked.