Albertsons/Vons/Pavilions Cutting Store Hours

[Bagels]

The Ralphs that had extended hours (mostly around Los Angeles) never returned to those after COVID. For example, the Rock-N-Roll Ralphs was open 24-hours. But in fairness, Kroger was cutting the hours well before COVID. The Food 4 Less down the street from Disneyland went from 24-hours to closing at 12am right before the pandemic. I suspect theft has a lot to do with it. Even Meijer and Walmart are no longer 24-hours.

But I don't get Albertsons early closing hours. Their hours have always differed -- the location nearest me closed at 11PM, the others 12AM and the one by UCI was open until 2AM. Now all closing at 10PM (UCI 11PM). Albertsons has lost much of our business because of this (I buy most of the groceries and usually get home late much of the year).

[Alpha8472]

What would be the impact of closing earlier? Is it a labor saving reason or is it a theft issue? If they opened later, would the extra sales pay for the extra labor? Is shoplifting so bad, that opening past 10 would result in losses so bad the extra sales would not make up for it?

[ClownLoach]

What would be the impact of closing earlier? Is it a labor saving reason or is it a theft issue? If they opened later, would the extra sales pay for the extra labor? Is shoplifting so bad, that opening past 10 would result in losses so bad the extra sales would not make up for it?

It's all assumption of saving on labor while not losing much in sales. They're more concerned about CAP indexes (crime statistics in the area) than actual store shrink when they do these studies. The idea is that a store in an area where violent crime is higher would need to close earlier to reduce or prevent incidents of armed robbery etc. The consultants are very risk adverse and usually are given a specific dollar amount to try to save. So say Accenture is told to do a study of all Albertsons stores in the chain with a goal of reducing labor expenditure by $10 million a quarter, and they will plug in all of that data into an algorithm that says when to open and close each location. The more dollars they want to "Save" the more you'll see cut backs.

I personally think it's better when the entire chain is more consistent as we are seeing with Ralphs SoCal that closes at 1 am and opens at either 5 or 6am.

[storewanderer]

So I looked up SLO and it closes at 11 PM. So does Ridgecrest, Atascadero, Bishop, also close at 11 PM. But then Paso Robles - 10 PM. Doesn't make any sense.

I am trying to think it has something to do with theft but I'm not seeing the logic. And it definitely doesn't have anything to do with traffic because there is nothing going on in Ridgecrest at night. Pavilions Marina Del Rey is 11 PM... sandwiched by 2 1 AM Ralphs.

[ClownLoach]

So I looked up SLO and it closes at 11 PM. So does Ridgecrest, Atascadero, Bishop, also close at 11 PM. But then Paso Robles - 10 PM. Doesn't make any sense.

I am trying to think it has something to do with theft but I'm not seeing the logic. And it definitely doesn't have anything to do with traffic because there is nothing going on in Ridgecrest at night. Pavilions Marina Del Rey is 11 PM... sandwiched by 2 1 AM Ralphs.

What we aren't seeing is the transaction data from the store. These guys use all of that.