Albertsons Monroe Begins Transition to Haggen (Video)

[CalItalian]

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/alberts ... gen/nj895/

There's also a list of the month's each store in the state of Washington will be rebannered on the page above.

[Super S]

Wow...only three days to convert doesn't really allow much time for any big changes. It seems like just enough time to maybe do some cleaning and cover up all of the Albertsons signs. Maybe wall repainting if working on it 24/7. I have been inside of this Albertsons several times. I have my doubts about a rushed conversion of a late 80s-early 90s build Albertsons with Haggen prices lasting very long though in a smaller town like Monroe.

[BillyGr]

Sounds similar to what Price Chopper and Hannaford did when they bought several Grand Union stores during Grand Union's bankruptcy. Just a quick clean up and resetting of stuff to bring in whatever items might be different (their store brands and such) and switch out some signage, maybe reprogram or change checkout registers etc.

Probably not wanting to inconvenience customers too much by being closed for too much time - not sure what they are doing there, but in the stores here those with pharmacies kept that section open so customers could get prescriptions for the few days the rest of the store was closed.

Those locations did more substantial remodels later on, done in the same way most stores would (a little at a time while the store stays open) and at least a couple have since been replaced or substantially added onto as they were smaller stores to start with.

Think anyone would notice if they put Albertsons next to the Safeway signs across the street?

[Super S]

http://www.skyvalleychronicle.com/FEATU ... -i-2020262

This article has a few pictures of what the converted store will look like, taken through windows from the outside. Kinda what I suspected would happen here. Haggen could succeed if they can improve their product offerings, and improve their service over what existed when it was Albertsons. Time will tell.

[storewanderer]

It looks like they did a low budget wall repaint with cheap looking fixtures. This reminds me of Save Mart. Without seeing the color scheme Haggen is using I shouldn't pass judgment yet. But it looks like a "light" version of the failed Bellevue store remodel they did a few years ago. I thought that store looked okay, but not very professional.

If Haggen is using Supervalu as its primary supplier, and staying on Supervalu's systems, maybe there isn't all that much work to do in the conversions of OR/WA Albertsons. Private label items can mostly stay, shelf tags could even stay, the register systems stay the same...?

There will be a lot more work to do converting the Safeway locations... and the amount of work on the CA/NV/AZ Albertsons that will switch over to Unified for supply would fall somewhere in the middle since private label needs to be switched out there but it sounds like no system conversion needs to happen.