Retail Watchers

Liquidation sale, or I mean "PRE REMODEL SALE" as they call it went to 50% off today. First time I've seen more than 5 customers in the store at once; closer to 10 customers most of the time, and actually filling carts. They don't seem to have any of their own carts anymore (the old carts Raleys left them from Food Source), the few carts they currently have for use are being borrowed from Wal Mart. Food Source had hundreds of carts so I am not sure what happened to all of those carts that came with the store.

Also interesting many of the IGA brand items have lower prices than the Best Yet version. What also made no sense is, found some of the IGA brand items to have cleaner labels than the Best Yet item in the same item (no High Fructose Corn Syrup in IGA version, but High Fructose Corn Syrup in Best Yet version, for instance). But there shouldn't have been two private labels for the same item to begin with. Problem is C&S in California does not slot enough IGA items that the IGA brand can be the only private label. It has to be supplemented with Best Yet for various items to have a complete mix. For example, probably the biggest missing piece, almost no IGA brand frozen food is even slotted by C&S in California.

This store has now closed.

They claim they will be returning with a 25,000 square foot "all new" store in the same space. The timeline seems to keep changing first it was a few months, then it was 6-9 months, then it was 9 months to a year, now it is "at least a year."

It is beyond my wildest dreams why they would spend even more money for even more pain. Less than $100k a week in sales (pretty sure most weeks it was not much more than half this figure either) didn't work for the 60,000 square foot space and the hard reality is it won't work for a 25,000 square foot space either.

My opinion on the IGA private label program did change after buying some of the 50% off items though; solid private label. Better than Best Yet. Too bad C&S doesn't slot the entire IGA private label line in CA so a store could just be 100% IGA Private Label (no Best Yet). But I don't think I've ever seen an IGA that has just IGA private label. It is always supplemented with a wholesaler's label. IGA is just not a very useful affiliation/program with how it is set up. The wholesaler is going to be out for their best interest and their best interest is selling Best Yet stuff to the stores...

IGA has always had its main strength in the Middle part of the country, mostly smaller towns where the only competition is Walmart. West of the Rockies, not so much, usually a secondary operation for grocery wholesalers and grocery chains (In Arizona, a subsidiary of Bashas’ called National Grocery supplies a handful of IGA member stores, and IGA products occasionally show up in Bashas’ stores, when they are out of the Topco equivalent)

jamcool wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2022, 6:41 pm IGA has always had its main strength in the Middle part of the country, mostly smaller towns where the only competition is Walmart. West of the Rockies, not so much, usually a secondary operation for grocery wholesalers and grocery chains (In Arizona, a subsidiary of Bashas’ called National Grocery supplies a handful of IGA member stores, and IGA products occasionally show up in Bashas’ stores, when they are out of the Topco equivalent)

There has been a bit of a cluster of IGAs in WA historically (supplied by Supervalu). There may be 30-40 IGAs in CA. The UT, WY, ID ones all lost IGA back when Fleming exited those territories.

I do not recall seeing any IGAs in places like OK, KS, etc. I do recall going into one in SW WI supplied by AWG (despite being physically next to a Supervalu/UNFI warehouse) and it was the only one I saw on that trip (was around Minneapolis mostly).

The "Sierra Foods Market" appears to not be returning in any form.

The interior of the store was gutted months ago and now they have gone in and put in what look like a bunch of self storage units (??) into the interior of the store.

The signs for IGA/Sierra Foods Market are still up as well as signs on the door saying closed for remodel/see you in 2023. Yeah, I never thought that store would open back up.

I am disappointed this is not taken over by another grocer as it would have been perfect for a Hispanic or Asian format. Not sure what the deal with this shopping center is but whatever I guess.

There is nothing about how to lease these storage units posted on the property, a coming soon sign for the storage units, or anything else.