HoustonRetail wrote: ↑April 21st, 2024, 7:54 pm
Hi folks, I'm a long-time listener and a first-time caller. GOB Sales in Texas have essentially matched out-of-state operations. Our stores are now advertising that they're in their final seven days, and I've been referred to next Monday for fixture sales. Still, no WARN notice has been posted, but their D.C. (the old Albertsons one) is up for sale and interestingly marketed as 100% leased, which is technically correct at the moment, but this is a new listing. Also, two Texas stores were under development when the bankruptcy was announced. One was in Corpus and was far enough along to get a wooden street sign. The other was in Brownsville, and it looks like it was nixed before a lease was signed.
I know that DC was way over capacity for what they had built up thus far - it was almost too much for Albertsons before they left Houston.
Both Albertsons and 99 Cents Only Stores had overly-ambitious plans when they entered Houston. For Albertsons it was to expand all the way to Mississippi (though they had the I-35 corridor and west of it covered by the San Antonio Division and Dallas-Fort Worth Division), and they did get over 100 stores in the division before it closed, numerous stores in the planning stages, and others.
For 99 Cents Only, they had a plan to blanket Houston and beyond with their stores, even in areas where you wouldn't expect a dollar store to move in. The GFC ended those plans and after talks of exiting Texas entirely, limited their operations to lower-end neighborhoods. From what I've been told, they started adding food at this time but it was all California product and their market share was totally irrelevant as far as food was concerned. They had a following among Hispanic customers (hence the Brownsville and Corpus Christi stores, as well as a new El Paso store that opened a few years prior) but these weren't going to save anything.
99 Only often operated in areas where you wouldn't expect a dollar store to move in. It seems like in much of CA that strategy worked pretty well for them. In TX obviously it didn't.
I think their inventory levels are too high and something else is going to happen in the coming weeks to move inventory. I also think the liquidation sales are not doing particularly well. They liquidated out the food really fast but the amount of general merchandise they're sitting on with basically no foot traffic is unreal. Maybe they'll get some customer attention if they hang a 50% off everything banner out front but as it stands now 10-30% off isn't moving much of anything. I was in and out of a lot of these stores the past few days during the day and the periods of 5-10 minutes of NO customers even checking out (even if there were 10-20 customers in the store) were common at every location I went into. Transaction sizes are also very small now.
It appears stores set to close on 4/28 are now giving a 40% "employee discount" on all transactions.
So stuff still scans 5% to 30% off then they give extra 40% off like a coupon at the bottom of the receipt.
Discounts don't quite come out to what is posted. For instance
Sign on shelf says beverages 45% off. Not quite.
Water marked .9999 - now scans 0.95
EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT -0.38
CRV 0.10
Total = 0.67
But on the other hand some items discount more. Sign on shelf said hardware 50% off. Bought some disposable gloves.
Gloves .9999 - scans 0.70
EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT -0.28
Total = 0.42
I don't suggest trying to get into a math discussion with the cashiers...
They seem to have cut off music in the stores that close Sunday.
Items are extra 70% off whatever they scan. They already scan at various discounts 10-40% off.
Sad to see them go, but they were not what they once were.
In SoCal I noticed a lot of maintenance issues with their stores. Leaking/missing ceiling tiles, plumbing issues/odors, one store I went to around Hawthorne was literally falling apart with fiberglass in the front windows. I have no clue what that was all about. Store was also closing at 3 PM the day I was there.
I've never seen liquidation sales that are so screwy with their hours of operation and just close whenever they feel like it. There is little to no supervision by the liquidators on these stores.
For the April closing stores listed on Shop Genius not all are actually closing in April but most are.
On Sunday expect to see varying offers of 10 items for $5, 20 items for $5, 30 items for $5, or cartfull of items (you fill the cart) for $30 at the stores listed as closing in April. Depending how much a store has left. Most of what is left is party and Easter.
I think these liquidator sales have not been overly successful..
I think the liquidation has been very successful. Many of the SoCal stores have only general merchandise remaining, with everything left marked 80% off. I don’t think the general merchandise was ever a hit…. 50-80% off sales were fairly common. This stuff was added in the last few years - high margin (at full price) stuff they hoped would turn fortunes around. But obviously most of it was junk that could readily be purchased for less at flea markets.
Foothills Ranch is still fully stocked, which is unbelievable. Really only laundry detergant and cleaning supplies are gone, with pantry gradually dwindling. Liquidation sales gives you some insight onto their sellers — they had boxes and boxes of deodorant and now they’re mostly gone. That’s gotta put a dent into Colgate’s production - who’s going to buy all that Speed Stick? Walmart and Target barely carry it anymore.
Bagels wrote: ↑April 28th, 2024, 1:27 pm
I think the liquidation has been very successful. Many of the SoCal stores have only general merchandise remaining, with everything left marked 80% off. I don’t think the general merchandise was ever a hit…. 50-80% off sales were fairly common. This stuff was added in the last few years - high margin (at full price) stuff they hoped would turn fortunes around. But obviously most of it was junk that could readily be purchased for less at flea markets.
Foothills Ranch is still fully stocked, which is unbelievable. Really only laundry detergant and cleaning supplies are gone, with pantry gradually dwindling. Liquidation sales gives you some insight onto their sellers — they had boxes and boxes of deodorant and now they’re mostly gone. That’s gotta put a dent into Colgate’s production - who’s going to buy all that Speed Stick? Walmart and Target barely carry it anymore.
I mentioned that building is cursed. Circuit City occupied it for a couple years. Laguna Hills was one of the 5 top volume stores in that company and overloaded when I worked there. Foothill Ranch was opened to take some load off. It did absolutely no business. I mean none. It did less volume in it's entire sorry existence than Laguna Hills did each month.
Bagels wrote: ↑April 28th, 2024, 1:27 pm
I think the liquidation has been very successful. Many of the SoCal stores have only general merchandise remaining, with everything left marked 80% off. I don’t think the general merchandise was ever a hit…. 50-80% off sales were fairly common. This stuff was added in the last few years - high margin (at full price) stuff they hoped would turn fortunes around. But obviously most of it was junk that could readily be purchased for less at flea markets.
Foothills Ranch is still fully stocked, which is unbelievable. Really only laundry detergant and cleaning supplies are gone, with pantry gradually dwindling. Liquidation sales gives you some insight onto their sellers — they had boxes and boxes of deodorant and now they’re mostly gone. That’s gotta put a dent into Colgate’s production - who’s going to buy all that Speed Stick? Walmart and Target barely carry it anymore.
The 80% off stores are the ones closing today/tomorrow. The stores staying open into late May/early June are at 40% off.
I was in a couple 40% off stores around Sacramento yesterday that were still fully stocked too. One store had a ton of bagged green beans and lots of bananas in produce. Signs said 10% off. I didn't know they were still delivering produce. Another store still had milk in dairy. Sign on that said 5% off.
According to the bankruptcy documents I think they owe $1 million to Colgate, about what they owed Safeway. Speed Stick/Palmolive/Softsoap=Bread/Clear Soda/Yogurt in value I guess.
Reno Store reportedly opened this morning at 9 AM with about 20 cartfulls of stuff the employees filled up before the store opened and were selling carts for $30 per cart. The carts were filled with like items e.g. an entire cart of dog toys, entire cart of gift bags, entire cart of gift wrap, entire cart of socks, entire carts of summer/Easter, etc. You could NOT buy a single item, or anything, other than a full cart for $30. You could not swap items between carts. Very strange. They had some person there who I'd never seen before, maybe he was the liquidator or something, who seemed to come up with this. He probably thought they'd sell out in an hour... They were there until about 1 PM and finally gave away the last 8 or so carts for $10-$20.
Sparks Store opened this morning with 10 items for $5 then upped the offer to 30 items for $5. Not sure when they closed, they were still open mid afternoon.
If they wanted to sell full cartfulls they should have started that a week ago. Start at $100 per cart and go down $10 per day until you hit $30 on closing day.
Bagels wrote: ↑April 28th, 2024, 1:27 pm
I think the liquidation has been very successful. Many of the SoCal stores have only general merchandise remaining, with everything left marked 80% off. I don’t think the general merchandise was ever a hit…. 50-80% off sales were fairly common. This stuff was added in the last few years - high margin (at full price) stuff they hoped would turn fortunes around. But obviously most of it was junk that could readily be purchased for less at flea markets.
Foothills Ranch is still fully stocked, which is unbelievable. Really only laundry detergant and cleaning supplies are gone, with pantry gradually dwindling. Liquidation sales gives you some insight onto their sellers — they had boxes and boxes of deodorant and now they’re mostly gone. That’s gotta put a dent into Colgate’s production - who’s going to buy all that Speed Stick? Walmart and Target barely carry it anymore.
I agree. I visited a few final-day stores in Houston, all starting at 20 Items/$5. There was a tiny bit of food (canned goods and some moldy cookies), but other than that, only party supplies remained in any real quantity. Fixture sales were clearly booming, too. I only went to one non-closing store. It is the largest location I know of, a former Phar-Mor, and it was well stocked. It did not have produce, but it still had frozen and refrigerated food. Small sections of shelving were bare, but there were no large gaps. It is obviously all liquidator merchandise, though there are no vendor products. One of the stores I visited had liquidators there, and I found that the other stores' sales should be over by the end of May, at least in Houston.
