pseudo3d wrote: ↑March 16th, 2022, 8:32 pm
Bagels wrote: ↑March 16th, 2022, 7:23 am
I was using sales per sq ft, not market share. Albertsons passed Kroger in this metric several years ago, and planned additional stores, which forced Kroger to pour additional resources into the market (including several new build stores, in an era in which new store growth is otherwise stagnant). This should have never happened - in the late 2000s/early 2010s, the Albertsons-bannered stores performed so poorly, they were expected to close. I recall a LVRJ article from the early 2010s in which a local expert predicted Kroger would acquire the Albertsons-banned stores (which wouldn't face regulatory hurdles, due to poor sales), and would keep the best of Smiths / F4L / Albertsons, ultimately rebranding the consolidated chain under the Kroger name (he noted that many loyal Kroger shoppers that moved to LV didn't recognize Smith's as part of the chain). He also thought that Safeway would close the Vons locations by mid-decade, as the stores skewed older and had yet to see renovation. Of course, they later accelerated the Lifestyles concept and even planned an additional store or two.
From what I've seen, the Albertsons banner seems to do better in LV than Vons these days. One of the locations that Safeway was building as Vons (put on hold during the recession and remained a half-built shell) eventually was finished and opened as an Albertsons, not as Vons.
I am highly doubtful Albertsons has higher per square foot sales in Las Vegas than Smiths based on what I have seen of the stores in both chains. The only way that is possible is if Smiths Stores are that much larger (I don't think they are), or there are serious performance issues with the F4L conversions (this may be it but my observation is they have a lot of foot traffic and appear to have higher per basket sales than F4L had).
As far as the performance of Albertsons under Supervalu in Las Vegas, they still had a number of 00's build stores in various newer parts of Las Vegas/Henderson that were performing well even under Supervalu despite everything that was going wrong (similar to how the central coast Albertsons still looked pretty good at that point in time). The converted Lucky stores in the center core of Las Vegas suffered significantly under Supervalu; many ethnic stores had opened, Kroger was going at them with both Smiths and F4L, it was a very competitive environment.
As for Vons in Las Vegas, Vons never did great there, but Safeway completely ran it into the ground.
I think Vons was around 20 stores in Las Vegas/Henderson in 2000.
The Vons on Durango, Windmill (LV), Windmill (H), Horizon Ridge all have the first generation Lifestyle interior.
The Vons on Twain, Sky Point, and Desert Inn never even got Lifestyle remodels (they had the last interior prior to Lifestyle).
The Vons at Anthem Village which I believe Safeway built was built with the later Lifestyle interior.
The Vons on Tropicana is a Cardboard Lifestyle store.
In 2021, Albertsons has done a couple of remodels to Vons units but kept them named Vons:
fairly extensive remodel into Florida package for Anthem Village
low budget remodel for Sky Point
I think the Twain, Sky Point, and Desert Inn Vons were opened right around the time the Lifestyle program got going. So it is possible those never got remodeled because they would be "last on the list" for a remodel and performance of the market was so bad for Safeway that by the time those should have been remodeled, they opted to just not remodel them. Desert Inn, in particular, is a quite attractive looking store and I think it performs okay. It has an exposed ceiling and the interior is very nicely done. Twain is a dog store in the wrong location and Sky Point it appears to me they did a cheap remodel to see if they can save the store.
Safeway did not do any Lifestyle remodels in Las Vegas in the 10's so I am not sure what was accelerated there. Other than perhaps store closures. So I am not sure what you mean as acceleration of the Lifestyle concept. At the time Albertsons got Las Vegas basically only 2/3 of the stores were even Lifestyle stores (and I am generously including Cardboard Tropicana as a Lifestyle store- I shouldn't include it) and most just first generation lifestyle. This was a very low rate as at the time of the merger with Albertsons over 90% of the store base had a lifestyle remodel. While there was an odd pockets like Southeast Colorado where most stores were not lifestyle stores, other than that, you'd find a few non-lifestyle stores here and there around VA, OR, or CA, but if you looked it at on a division basis every division was well over 90% lifestyle stores.
I see little reason for the Vons banner to exist in Las Vegas given its perpetual failures in the market and low store count. If they were a unique format it would be one thing. But they are not. Given the stores are run by Southwest Division, they aren't even a real Vons Store comparable to what someone from SoCal would expect who is used to SoCal Vons. They are basically the same as the Albertsons in the market, but require a club card for sale pricing, and called Vons. 6 of the stores are long overdue for remodels at this point and maybe that is part of why they keep them as Vons. Maybe they will get them all remodeled then do a conversion to Albertsons. Not sure Tropicana or Twain are worthy of the Albertsons banner. Would like to see Twain converted to Lucky format similar to what is being done in Utah- might be viable- but warehouse/hard discount formats don't seem to catch on too well in Las Vegas and often fail fast (Food Source failed so fast in 1999 if you blinked you missed it, same for Mega, Save a Lot, Grocery Outlet, etc.).