Stop & Shop to discontinue cigarettes

[storewanderer]

What is with this chain and why does it make so many wacky decisions that none of the other Ahold chains make...?

I suspect they lose money on cigarettes due to uncontrolled theft and that this is simply a business decision, one that will lose them a few more customers.

The sooner Ahold unloads this dog chain including ALL of its management the better.

In the process of closing about 10% of the store base and releasing press releases pandering to certain groups that you're discontinuing cigarettes...

How about discontinue them quietly and try to fix your broken chain?

[mjhale]

Giant-MD and Giant-PA have tobacco products behind the service desk. I would assume that Stop and Shop does the same. I thought that openly customer accessible tobacco products went away long ago. I guess it is possible that they have had theft issues at the service desk, perhaps internal as opposed to external. However, it sounds more like pandering to health oriented groups. Or maybe just getting rid of tobacco products because they don't sell that much anymore and it isn't worth the hassle. Leave this stuff to convenience stores instead. I'll be curious to see if this policy spreads to Giant-MD and Giant-PA.

[mbz321]

Giant-MD and Giant-PA have tobacco products behind the service desk.

Giant PA (and I'd imagine Martins branded stores as well) already ditched tobacco sales a few years ago. I was actually surprised Stop & Shop still sold them...does Giant MD?

[storewanderer]

Giant-MD and Giant-PA have tobacco products behind the service desk.

Giant PA (and I'd imagine Martins branded stores as well) already ditched tobacco sales a few years ago. I was actually surprised Stop & Shop still sold them...does Giant MD?

Did Giant-PA stop selling tobacco at the gas stations too?

Raleys hasn't sold tobacco out west for many years. I forget how they handled the gas stations before they sold those to Anabi Oil (Rebel)- maybe that was part of why they sold the gas stations.

I have heard of Kroger not selling tobacco inside at some stores but only selling tobacco via the gas kiosk. I have not seen this though.

[mbz321]

Did Giant-PA stop selling tobacco at the gas stations too?

Yes, just your basic auto supplies now. I keep meaning to check out one of the few 'larger format' convenience stores they tried opening but gave up on. Last time I fueled up there they had speakers playing music by the pumps and messages about winter weather driving tips and this was in early summer .

[storewanderer]

Did Giant-PA stop selling tobacco at the gas stations too?

Yes, just your basic auto supplies now. I keep meaning to check out one of the few 'larger format' convenience stores they tried opening but gave up on. Last time I fueled up there they had speakers playing music by the pumps and messages about winter weather driving tips and this was in early summer .

Pretty interesting they'd do gas stations without tobacco.

I looked around on maps briefly and there is a Giant with a small c-store in Willow Grove, PA. The photo from 7 years ago has a sticker in the window that says "Cigarettes" but the current view of that window has that sticker removed- but other similar product stickers still there. So I think that validates they do not have cigarettes in their gas stations.

But so many retailers have had so many issues with shrink on tobacco over the years (it is almost always internal theft since as pointed out up thread it is locked up from customers) I can see how some have come to the financial decision to just discontinue the category entirely.

But even the convenience store business runs with various controls on tobacco. I've seen procedures like during shift change the employee going off shift and the employee coming on shift have to "count" all of the cigarettes that are loose single packs and basically "agree" to the two counts. Then at some point the store manager reconciles the counts between shifts to sales and figures out if any packs have gone missing during a specific shift. Doing that requires additional overlap between the shifts (what was once a 15 minute overlap between shifts turns into a 45 minute overlap) and obviously can require quite a bit of time on the part of the store manager later.

[mbz321]

[
I looked around on maps briefly and there is a Giant with a small c-store in Willow Grove, PA. The photo from 7 years ago has a sticker in the window that says "Cigarettes" but the current view of that window has that sticker removed- but other similar product stickers still there. So I think that validates they do not have cigarettes in their gas stations.

Hah, that's the exact location I was referring to I'm not even sure if there are any others with this size of C-store. They did have two locations in the Lancaster, PA area that were even larger than this (branded as Giant 2 Go), but were sold off to Turkey Hill in 2015).
(I'm sure you saw the actual supermarket is further down the road on the opposite side. This was a former Home Depot and one of two 'Super Giant' branded stores they tried running with a lot more amenities to try and compete with Wegmans and the like. Most of the amenities have been reduced/removed over the years.)

[mjhale]

Giant-MD and Giant-PA have tobacco products behind the service desk.

Giant PA (and I'd imagine Martins branded stores as well) already ditched tobacco sales a few years ago. I was actually surprised Stop & Shop still sold them...does Giant MD?

I have been in several Giant-MD stores over the past couple of weeks. All still sell tobacco products. Everything is locked up in a case behind the customer service counter. I'm curious to see if the decision to end tobacco sales at Stop and Shop will come over to Giant-MD. There is more local management now with Giant-MD. However, Ahold seems to still have a lot of consistency between Stop and Shop and Giant-MD.