Southeast Grocers Exploring Sale

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mjhale
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Re: Southeast Grocers Exploring Sale

Post by mjhale »

cjd wrote: January 28th, 2023, 4:43 am I remember their CEO at the time stating that having a transformational store in the area would also help boost their image and sales at their older stores which just didn’t make sense to me.

So knowing that WD had a high end store would make people feel better shooing at their outdated stores??
That makes zero sense. If the fancy store is near me and on my regular route, great, you've got me. But if I travel a bit to see this new, fancy store at grand opening and then go back to my dud close to me store I'm not going to think much. This is especially true if the store local to me gets no remodel of any sort while the fancy store gets all the love as they say. With chains being as big as they are now, picking something that is easily to duplicate both financially and logistically is important to customer image. Even then you have to have generally the same merchandise available especially in the service departments. Certainly cater if you can to the local environment but have a baseline that is available everywhere. From everything that I've read here about Winn-Dixie if they can't produce a prototype they can afford to use across the chain their outdated stores are going to continue to drag down their reputation no matter what the CEO thinks.
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Re: Southeast Grocers Exploring Sale

Post by cjd »

You’re absolutely right. I never got the Transformational concept, the stores were too far and between to change perspective of the company overall.

I remember reading articles about how amazed people were about these stores, and it was going to change the image of a brand that seemed to have its best days behind it.

Still these stores were a big difference for a chain that really hadn’t much new going for it since the Marketplace stores that were all nearly or over 20 years old by 2012 when the Transformational concept started.

I will say the average Winn Dixie store today, is probably a little more modern and better than what the company had in 2012.

That was before they acquired the former Sweetbay stores, which were all more up to date than the average WD was, and before WD closed low volume stores that were from the 70s and 80s and didn’t even get the typical remodels about half its stores received in 2008-09 after it exited the first bankruptcy.

There have been also a lot of remodels during the last 5 years. However as you can see in the experience I shared last month, not all of those remodeled stores are particularly great looking either.
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Re: Southeast Grocers Exploring Sale

Post by cjd »

This makes me wonder what the oldest store still existing in the chain is? Here in Florida in my area there were a few mid 80s era stores and some 90s era stores, but nothing older than that. Their 70s stores here were replaced during the 90s.

Most of the 80s stores in my area got a very minor remodel in the early 2000s which was mostly just a repaint and new wall decor and aisle signs. One of those stores got another more major remodel in 2008 and again last year, so it’s pretty modern. The other closed in 2014 being replaced by a former Sweetbay location.

That particular store always seemed dated to me, even shopping there in the 90s it felt very outdated even though it was barely 10 years old.

I believe in Alabama there were some very old stores from the 70s or early 80s still operating without even any decor updates. I think most of those have long since closed though.
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