Stop & Shop closures

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Stop & Shop closures

Post by marketreportblog »

https://hudsonvalleypost.com/stop-shop- ... rk-stores/

Recently announced closures of Stop & Shop locations in LIC (Queens) and Islandia (Long Island). This comes right after closures of Little Neck (Queens), Dayton, and Paramus. The Eastchester Road location in the Bronx is also supposed to close, but apparently its closure was pushed back by a year. Meanwhile, there haven't been many (or any?) openings of new Stop & Shops that aren't replacements.

Stop & Shop has many newly-renovated stores, but many of their older stores are in pretty sad shape. Looks like their remodel efforts have to date been focused on Long Island and Connecticut, but New Jersey and Massachusetts are a little behind. But some of the remodels have been pretty half-hearted compared to the other Ahold Delhaize remodels.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by BatteryMill »

marketreportblog wrote: April 25th, 2022, 10:08 am https://hudsonvalleypost.com/stop-shop- ... rk-stores/

Recently announced closures of Stop & Shop locations in LIC (Queens) and Islandia (Long Island). This comes right after closures of Little Neck (Queens), Dayton, and Paramus. The Eastchester Road location in the Bronx is also supposed to close, but apparently its closure was pushed back by a year. Meanwhile, there haven't been many (or any?) openings of new Stop & Shops that aren't replacements.

Stop & Shop has many newly-renovated stores, but many of their older stores are in pretty sad shape. Looks like their remodel efforts have to date been focused on Long Island and Connecticut, but New Jersey and Massachusetts are a little behind. But some of the remodels have been pretty half-hearted compared to the other Ahold Delhaize remodels.
May be hard to open completely new stores as the chain's territory is boxed in by sister chains Giant-PA and Hannaford.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by mbz321 »

I don't think Stop & Shop has ever done particularly well in NJ except for a handful of locations. Hard to compete in ShopRite's home turf.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by marketreportblog »

Returning to this topic with another NJ closure — this one the extremely outdated Highland Park store.
https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/n ... 385771007/
Here’s my tour from 2020:
https://www.marketreportblog.com/2021/1 ... rk-nj.html

While I don’t think the closure of one small outdated store signifies a failing chain, I think the repeated closures with no openings (and almost no replacement stores) do. Compare what Giant is doing in Philadelphia to Stop & Shop in NYC. As pointed out elsewhere, Giant isn’t far from #1 in Philadelphia and is opening too many new full size and small-format stores to count. Stop & Shop, meanwhile, is all but giving up on NYC. I doubt they’ll fully leave the area anytime soon (Long Island is a huge moneymaker for them) but I suspect Stop & Shop’s performance in the NJ-NYC area is very poor at this point.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by mjhale »

If Giant-MD is any indication, perhaps Ahold is culling out the low performing, older Stop and Shop locations. Also, locations that have high rent. Down here in Northern Virginia Ahold has renovated, relocated or closed the older, outdated Giant-MD locations. I can't think of a Giant-MD location that isn't what we would call modern. They still have some smaller locations but they have been renovated to one of the recent store prototypes.

As for Stop and Shop in NJ, I recall in the mid 2000s Ahold rebranded the Super G locations in NJ over to Stop and Shop. These Super G stores were ones Ahold was able to keep after the Giant-MD buyout. The reasoning was that the Stop and Shop name was more recognizable and would improve sales. Lasted a couple of years before Ahold sold off the stores to other operators, ironically mostly ShopRite operators. The NJ Stop and Shop stores I've been in are very bland and corporate. Its hard to compete against a cooperative (ShopRite) of local owners.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by buckguy »

Back in the 70s or 80s, Stop & Shop had an earlier, unsuccessful launch in northern NJ. Apparently they couldn't make the pricing work there and left after a few years.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by BatteryMill »

mjhale wrote: July 29th, 2022, 7:07 pm If Giant-MD is any indication, perhaps Ahold is culling out the low performing, older Stop and Shop locations. Also, locations that have high rent. Down here in Northern Virginia Ahold has renovated, relocated or closed the older, outdated Giant-MD locations. I can't think of a Giant-MD location that isn't what we would call modern. They still have some smaller locations but they have been renovated to one of the recent store prototypes.

As for Stop and Shop in NJ, I recall in the mid 2000s Ahold rebranded the Super G locations in NJ over to Stop and Shop. These Super G stores were ones Ahold was able to keep after the Giant-MD buyout. The reasoning was that the Stop and Shop name was more recognizable and would improve sales. Lasted a couple of years before Ahold sold off the stores to other operators, ironically mostly ShopRite operators. The NJ Stop and Shop stores I've been in are very bland and corporate. Its hard to compete against a cooperative (ShopRite) of local owners.
I agree; while a lot of their store base has '80s layouts I argue that the decor and cleaning efforts make these stores hold up well in this day and age.

Also, do you think those sites would have stayed put if the Super G banner was retained
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by mjhale »

BatteryMill wrote: September 6th, 2022, 1:29 pm Also, do you think those sites would have stayed put if the Super G banner was retained
Giant-MD's expansion into PA and NJ was ill advised. They should have stuck with their expansion into Delaware, eastern shore Maryland and maybe gone further into Virginia possibly re-entering Richmond which they left in the early 70s I believe. The problem they had in PA and NJ was that they were going against strong, known chains like then locally owned Genaurdi's, Acme, then still strong SuperFresh and up and coming Giant-PA in PA plus ShopRite in NJ. Not only was Giant-MD, trading as Super G, an unknown they merchandised the stores almost exactly like they did down here in their home market. I visited all of the Super G locations in PA and NJ that were built as such - not re-brandings like they did under Ahold with some of the Edwards locations. Even though I was in PA or NJ I felt like I was still down here in the DC area when I entered a Super G location. Giant-MD didn't cater to things like Hatfield pork products or local chips and pretzels to satisfy the ongoing debate of what chip and pretzel was best especially in PA. A lot of this was because the Teamsters contract required Giant-MD to supply the PA and NJ stores from the Jessup, MD distribution center. This made it hard to satisfy strong local tastes when those products aren't available for distribution from the DC area. The other thing was that there just weren't that many locations to build a grocery store which meant Giant-MD got some marginal locations because the local folks got the strong sites. Had Giant-MD been able to distribute from the Philly area, catered more to local tastes and been aggressive about getting into new development they may have had a better chance. Delaware was a much less competitive market at the time and does not seem to have as many local preferences as PA and NJ. We have seem that the Super G stores in Delaware all survived into Super Giant and now just the Giant branding. If I was Giant-MD at the time I would have looked at Bethany Beach, Ocean City, MD, Chestertown, MD, maybe even some of the smaller towns like Cambridge and Denton. Also in Virginia I would have looked more at the Route 29 corridor and perhaps re-entering Richmond. I wonder what would have happened if Giant-MD got the Hannaford stores in Richmond instead of Kroger. Another wildcard in all of this was that Sainsbury (the British grocer) had a significant, but non majority amount of shares in Giant-MD at this time. They were pushing for Giant to "get out of its comfort zone". I always wondered what Giant would have been like if Sainsbury had bought Giant instead of Ahold. Lastly, no one in the Cohen family was interested in running Giant. The principals in the 1224 Corp were all long time employees of Giant who themselves were looking to retire. That left Giant with a void of leadership at the top and ultimately the sale of the company. That sealed the fate of the PA stores and severely hobbled the NJ stores. Yes it was a FTC mandated sale in PA. But realistically those stores could not have survived without an aggressive operator who wasn't bound by corporate norms and performance objectives.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by buckguy »

mjhale wrote: September 6th, 2022, 3:54 pm
BatteryMill wrote: September 6th, 2022, 1:29 pm Also, do you think those sites would have stayed put if the Super G banner was retained
Giant-MD's expansion into PA and NJ was ill advised. They should have stuck with their expansion into Delaware, eastern shore Maryland and maybe gone further into Virginia possibly re-entering Richmond which they left in the early 70s I believe. The problem they had in PA and NJ was that they were going against strong, known chains like then locally owned Genaurdi's, Acme, then still strong SuperFresh and up and coming Giant-PA in PA plus ShopRite in NJ. Not only was Giant-MD, trading as Super G, an unknown they merchandised the stores almost exactly like they did down here in their home market. I visited all of the Super G locations in PA and NJ that were built as such - not re-brandings like they did under Ahold with some of the Edwards locations. Even though I was in PA or NJ I felt like I was still down here in the DC area when I entered a Super G location. Giant-MD didn't cater to things like Hatfield pork products or local chips and pretzels to satisfy the ongoing debate of what chip and pretzel was best especially in PA. A lot of this was because the Teamsters contract required Giant-MD to supply the PA and NJ stores from the Jessup, MD distribution center. This made it hard to satisfy strong local tastes when those products aren't available for distribution from the DC area. The other thing was that there just weren't that many locations to build a grocery store which meant Giant-MD got some marginal locations because the local folks got the strong sites. Had Giant-MD been able to distribute from the Philly area, catered more to local tastes and been aggressive about getting into new development they may have had a better chance. Delaware was a much less competitive market at the time and does not seem to have as many local preferences as PA and NJ. We have seem that the Super G stores in Delaware all survived into Super Giant and now just the Giant branding. If I was Giant-MD at the time I would have looked at Bethany Beach, Ocean City, MD, Chestertown, MD, maybe even some of the smaller towns like Cambridge and Denton. Also in Virginia I would have looked more at the Route 29 corridor and perhaps re-entering Richmond. I wonder what would have happened if Giant-MD got the Hannaford stores in Richmond instead of Kroger. Another wildcard in all of this was that Sainsbury (the British grocer) had a significant, but non majority amount of shares in Giant-MD at this time. They were pushing for Giant to "get out of its comfort zone". I always wondered what Giant would have been like if Sainsbury had bought Giant instead of Ahold. Lastly, no one in the Cohen family was interested in running Giant. The principals in the 1224 Corp were all long time employees of Giant who themselves were looking to retire. That left Giant with a void of leadership at the top and ultimately the sale of the company. That sealed the fate of the PA stores and severely hobbled the NJ stores. Yes it was a FTC mandated sale in PA. But realistically those stores could not have survived without an aggressive operator who wasn't bound by corporate norms and performance objectives.
Ukrops would have been a significant barrier to succeeding in Richmond. They had a niche that was like the Izzy Cohen Giant, only better with stronger perishables and deli.

If they could get at least some local items like snack foods through jobbers, then the supply issue would have been addressed. Acme has had a long decline and Giant would have been more successful if they had focused on them, having competed with Acme for decades in Maryland. ShopRite found Acme’s vulnerabilities and were able to take advantage of Genaudri’s mismanagement by Safeway, although they were a relatively small factor in the market. Giant probably saw the limited payoff in concentrating in Delaware with its small population and the need to compete in Philly media markets, if not the Philly area.Acme, ironically, maintained its presence in the Eastern Shore, in part, because senior management from the old days vacationed there.
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Re: Stop & Shop closures

Post by mbz321 »

mjhale wrote: September 6th, 2022, 3:54 pm

Giant-MD's expansion into PA and NJ was ill advised. They should have stuck with their expansion into Delaware, eastern shore Maryland and maybe gone further into Virginia possibly re-entering Richmond which they left in the early 70s I believe. The problem they had in PA and NJ was that they were going against strong, known chains like then locally owned Genaurdi's, Acme, then still strong SuperFresh and up and coming Giant-PA in PA plus ShopRite in NJ. Not only was Giant-MD, trading as Super G, an unknown they merchandised the stores almost exactly like they did down here in their home market.
At least in PA, the former Super G's were acquired by Supervalu-owned Shop 'n Save, who ran them for a very short while before selling them off to other operators. Shop 'n Save did nothing to their stores besides change the outside sign and slap stickers over everything else. Nobody I knew growing up really shopped there. The awkward Giant-MD layout (the Acme in Norristown/Trooper, PA still has it) and I remember hearing complaints about the shopping carts being too small, seemed to keep people away. They must have picked semi-decent locations because only one of the PA locations is no longer used as a grocery store (and likely only because it shared a plaza with a Division I Walmart which has since expanded).
Giant-MD didn't cater to things like Hatfield pork products or local chips and pretzels to satisfy the ongoing debate of what chip and pretzel was best especially in PA.
And going off topic now, but this is why I think Amazon Fresh is going to absolutely fail in this region. Nothing in the store really seems to be local at all. No pork roll (or Taylor Ham!), scrapple, Amoroso's rolls, no call-outs to locally grown produce, and other regional favorites. Even the regular milk seems to come from a dairy in MD. The only 'local' product I've seen being stocked is a few varieties of Tastykake for a super inflated price. and rarely look to be replenished.
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