veteran+ wrote: ↑March 28th, 2023, 11:01 am
Here's a little food for thought
IMHO, the entirety of monikers and their histories have been severely compromised. Merger after merger has deteriorated the value and reputation of these nameplates. Some have managed to retain some of their prestige more than others (King Soopers better than Ralphs with both at one time being A-list status in supermarket operations writ large).
These "names" used to really mean something to the shopper and even to the industry. Their individual reputations have been diluted year after year by these rapacious conquerors. These raider entities were comfortable in withholding capex and allowing units to be decrepit ambassadors of the "name". That is truly destructive advertising.
So it begs the question, do shoppers really care anymore about that destroyed "Name"? Does it really mean anything to shop at the once fabulous Ralphs? Or Pavilions? Or even King Soopers (holding on but no where close to its apex reputation)?
Just thinking out loud....................................your thoughts?
It's a worthwile question and more interesting than the endless speculation abouyt who gets what stores.
I think it's complicated---my understanding from family/friends was that Lucky was known for prices, but not much else, so taking that away from the stores as well as changing the name was a mistake because the stores lost their drawing card with the identity change. They had a loyal following, but lots of people rarely went there because they weren't great beyond being cheap and Albertson's didn't give those shoppers a reason to take another look.
The problem with the Kroger name is that lots of people know them and are not necessarily fans. I've lived in their territories multiple times and know people who still do. No one gets excited about Kroger and lots of people are happy when they get some serious competition. Publix may not entirely live up to its hype, but it's easy to like them more than Kroger. People old enough to remember Kroger in places like Chicago probably remember them as the last place many people went--lousy perishables, forgettable stores. You could argue that Kroger is no worse than Ralphs or Vons as they exist now, but grocery mergers often lead to stores getting worse as the merged operations look for ways to introduce economies to pay off debt and address the "efficiency" premise of these mergers---Ahold screwed-up Finast and Giant-Landover. Finast had been repositioned as a set of middling, mostly price sensitive chains (some of their predecessor chains were more quality-oriented) and Giant was better than Safeway mostly for the deli-bakery---Ahold failed to hold the middle with Finast and really disappointed Giant shoppers who were loyal even though no one in DC is from here.
So, it's pretty evident that Kroger brings little positive to the table and Kroger could make things worse and the rebranding will make it easy to blame them. People "blame" Macy's for wrecking stores after the May-Federated merger even though a lot of things didn't really change much in many places--esp. with the old May stores.
Or will people not care very much but perhaps take more advantage of the other more niche choices in the marketplace? I've been to a few Albertson's at different times in different places and they seem utterly forgettable, not great, so like Kroger and maybe a little worse. Maybe with them, outside of their core territory in Idaho--a new name might not make much difference.
