Retail Watchers

It is possible that they lost their lease on their existing store and have to move. Perhaps another business that is willing to pay more money is moving in. Or maybe O'Reilly is getting a better deal on the lease at the smaller store and is trying to save a little money on rent.

No one ever knows why stores move. There was a Kinko's in my city that was in a brand new building, however a few years ago they packed up and moved across the street to an old building. The current store is smaller and looks quite rundown from the outside. Apparently, Fedex wanted to save money on rent and moved into a smaller place.

I am not 100% sure, but I believe Schuck's owned this building. I know it has been in that location since at least the early 1980s, it looked like an older location back in 1988 when I first moved to this area. I still don't understand why they put new signs up on this one though...not banners covering the Schuck's name but new, fully lighted signs.

A few stores here got interior remodels into the O-Reilly colors late last year or early this year. They changed signs on a store in Carson City a month or two ago, but the stores are still not formatlly converted from a systems standpoint. No other stores in this market have new signage, all signs still show Kragen.

I don't usually frequent auto parts shops(I'm car-free.),so I don't have any familiarity with the Kragen or O'Reilly interior schemes.However,I can say that the O'Reilly roll-out in Sacramento so far has been hit and miss:both North Highlands stores(Watt/Don Julio and Elkhorn/Walerga)as well as the Land Park store on Freeport all are now signed as O'Reilly,but other Kragen locations I've passed by while riding transit still are signed as such...

I think the new signs may be needs based right now.

A number of months ago, the store in South Carson City, NV got new O'Reilly signs outside. Inside, the store retains the Kragen interior signs including a large Kragen logo on the wall.

Last month, the store in extreme South Reno at Damonte Ranch Pkwy. got new O'Reilly signs. This one has the O'Reilly interior inside now.

Other than those two, still no sign changes around here. But all of them have changed systems and everything over to O'Reilly.

Our store in Dublin,CA now has a large O'Reily banners hanging in the window but the aside from that nothing has changed, the horrible service, stoned employees, and overpriced merchandise still remain.

The nearest store to me changed to O'Reilly signage already. The new signage is white and is quite plain. Kragen at least had some color to their sign. I didn't go inside to see what changes if any have been done.

I visited another Kragen in my area and it still has not changed signage to O'Reilly. However, there is a big paper sign in the window telling customers that their name has changed and that checks should be payable to O'Reilly. The inside of the store was unchanged from its Kragen decor. The entire place looked rundown and awful. I saw no customers inside the store.

Another interesting development regarding the (now former) Longview 15th Avenue store. Across the parking lot is Olympic Drug, a long-time independent drugstore, which is closing at the end of this month. I have been told that the owners of Olympic Drug also owned the Schuck's building. When both of these are closed, there is going to be a big chunk of vacant space. Makes me wonder if a redevelopment of some sort is coming.

This article outlines their intended time-lines for rebranding, and that their approach has changed over time (initially it was somewhat more disruptive):

[url]http://www.thegreensheetonline.com/o’reilly-is-working-through-last-stages-of-csk-integration-1509.htm[/url]

There's a couple of additional theories in there (other than the ones discussed so far) you could jump to for the building moves, too.