pseudo3d wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 2:12 pm
I would say that the answer is more complicated than just Walmart, and rather the conditions the chains were in during the 1980s.
Safeway suffered a significant setback in the late 1980s when it had to divest about half of its divisions, most of those stores they had built themselves and many (though the minority) were less than 10 years old. The company's main growth since then had been acquisitions, mirroring Albertsons in many ways.
Albertsons was also publicly traded, and did new-builds across the country during the 1990s and early 2000s. Nearly all of the Houston market were new-builds (dozens of new stores) and when it was sold, the stores that Kroger received tended to be only 2 or 3 years old. They also continued to build up new stores in Florida, north Texas, and Louisiana in the same time frame, and I believe Denver as well. Unlike Walmart, in general, their stores tended to be in medium-sized to large sized markets and satellite communities, avoiding small communities. And of course, they got a little greedy with the American Stores acquisition, the shockwave still scars the company. The high debt load and issues with existing stores have taken precedence over organic growth.
Winn-Dixie had a lot of stores going into the 1980s but their expansion was already slowed before Walmart started to take off, in due to a lot of problems (a bunch of dated stores, which Winn-Dixie didn't help with their 2000 purchase of Delchamps/Jitney Jungle).
Kroger built most of its stores from acquisitions (back in the 1960s, with rebranding) but made the right decision early on to scuttle the divisions that weren't working (Florida, Pittsburgh, etc.) and strengthen the ones that were. They did enter new markets as late as 1980 but I recall reading that they had to fight off a hostile takeover in the mid-1980s that did not cause divisions to be axed, but it killed their ability to really build stores, and with labor issues and competition threatening what they did have, they focused on those markets instead. Kroger also has a pretty high debt load (more than Albertsons now!)
As for private chains, it should be noted that after the Pantry stores were built in the Houston in the 1990s, H-E-B hasn't really entered any new markets since. They're only now entering Lubbock, and Dallas-Fort Worth still only has Central Market stores.
The Houston market has long, long been fraught with a general dislike of outside management. Kroger was initially Henke & Pillot, Randalls and Weingarten were originally locally owned, and Albertsons and Safeway were long outsiders.
National intrusion by Kroger began changes in the Houston Market as far back as their purchase of Henke's. While that hasn't been bad for Kroger, it changed the face of Houston retailing, as the local touch began fading at that time. Weingarten first sold out to Grand Union, then most of the stores went to Safeway, who didn't fare especially well with them, closing or selling out by 1988. The sold stores mostly went to Apple Tree Markets, who, to put it mildly, tanked. Randalls sold out to Safeway, and Albertsons 'tried' an invasion, but as with most of Albertsons' mid-late 90's invasions, they just didn't get local right at all. Albertsons felt that the Boise store worked, so it should work in Houston. It should work throughout rural Louisiana (spoiler alert: It didn't!). Many of the stores outside Albertsons pre-90's marketing area that were part of this expansion are now closed or were sold to other operators. I know for a fact that at least four Louisiana stores built in new locales during this time are all gone, just simply because they couldn't compete with local chains.
Then Albertsons abandoned Houston. I would not call it a sold division, because that would indicate that the whole group of stores went to one operator, but it didn't. The DC went to 99 Cents Only, and HEB, Food Town, Kroger and several others got stores. They were broken up. It was like a bad divorce, but nobody got the kids.
Safeway's not-so-triumphant return via Randalls has been more like a slow, painful death. Stores are dropping one-by-one. And the ones remaining aren't doing as well as they once did. Because Albertsons *STILL* doesn't understand Houston. And now, they've stopped trying.
Winn-Dixie's major mistake has been that they seize incorrect opportunities, or they do it too late. During the 50's and 60's, they bought any supermarket that didn't run away fast enough. Then the government stopped them for 10 years. As soon as that ban ended, they bought Kimbell, Inc., of Fort Worth. Another mistake; WD was a Florida company. They didn't understand what Texas wanted, and by 2005 they ran out of money to try. The Delchamps/Jitney store purchases were similar to Albertsons' Houston breakup; it wasn't every store, only the ones who survived all the other failures. Many markets just died out. And now, WD (or SEG, as they want to be known now) is a shell of its former self. At their height, WD operated over 1500 supermarkets; they now have less than 600 between WD *and* Bi-Lo.
So my point is that it isn't a lack of availability; it's a lack of market understanding, and it's rampant among national retailers.