The present and future of Randalls

Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. No non-grocery posts.
storewanderer
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by storewanderer »

Greggo wrote: September 30th, 2021, 6:52 pm While I think Randalls sadly has a very limited future in Austin and especially Houston, I do know for a fact they were planning to remodel this store to Colorful Lifestyle. So they still had faith in it. An employee was geeking out and told me many months ago that he was pumped about the sushi kiosk they were supposed to be getting. It’s fairly well known that Randalls was looking to add a small urban store (think Dallas Tom Thumb) to a new high-rise development adjacent to downtown Austin, but the zoning debates for the project went off the rails and it was resubmitted with no retail. It seems like they want to try, but they are cursed or inept. Within the last 1-2 years they lost one Austin store to H‑E‑B in a lease bidding war, closed an Austin store they said had low sales and are now closing another Austin store after losing their lease. And they don’t have a big store count in Austin to begin with. I will say it is interesting the RXs for the closing West 35th Street store were sold to Walgreens instead of just being transferred to the Randalls on Balcones. Seems like you’d want to drive customers to another nearby store. I guess they thought selling the records was more lucrative. Mixed messages.
Pharmacy in Balcones Store looks on the small side (though it does have the Steve Burd/Theranos clinic built in, which up until the COVID vaccines showed up was largely dead space not being used for anything) so maybe it couldn't handle the additional volume.

They need to do something different because it is clear the Randalls format is not working. The Safeway-patterned formats Randalls and Tom Thumb are not working in Texas in general. Need a new approach.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: September 30th, 2021, 6:39 pm
storewanderer wrote: September 30th, 2021, 6:07 pm They say they are looking for new sites to build new Randalls Stores in Austin. The bigger question is, do Austin shoppers actually want new Randalls Stores?

Should take a carbon copy of one of the two Boise Albertsons Market Streets, plant it in Austin, and see what happens... (don't call it Randalls...).
Yeah, return Albertsons to Austin after a 14 year absence.
They need a different format in Texas in general. They could just call it Market Street. It isn't about the name of the store as much as it is about the format.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by Greggo »

The liquidation sale has started at the West 35th Street Randalls in Austin. Gotta love that whopping 5% discount :lol: :lol: :lol: Starbucks closed. Floral closed. Pharmacy closes next Friday. They’ve already started their usual MO of shipping in random crap … unsold sports clothing and all the unsold Debi Lilly vases that have been sitting in storage at the warehouse since … forever.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by SoleOwnerOfMyName »

Greggo wrote: October 5th, 2021, 7:35 pm The liquidation sale has started at the West 35th Street Randalls in Austin. Gotta love that whopping 5% discount :lol: :lol: :lol: Starbucks closed. Floral closed. Pharmacy closes next Friday. They’ve already started their usual MO of shipping in random crap … unsold sports clothing and all the unsold Debi Lilly vases that have been sitting in storage at the warehouse since … forever.
A five percent discount? What a deal! That means that instead of the something costing 40 percent more than an identical item would sell for at HEB or Walmart, it now only costs 33 percent more!

That just goes to show that, even when they are conducting liquidation sales, they continue to honor the "Everyday High Prices - Guaranteed!" pledge that has earned them the sort of success that they have achieved in Houston/Austin ever since they were taken over by Safeway.

And with the return of inflation, the future looks especially bright for them. While shoppers at other stores will be distressed by higher prices and might cut back, shoppers who have access to other stores but choose to shop at Randall's clearly don't care what they pay for groceries. Some might even cheer on and embrace higher prices on grounds that one gets what one pays for. "Look at the price for a Diet Coke. Wow. That must mean that the Diet Coke here is MUCH better and far more premium than the ordinary Diet Coke sold elsewhere!

And in the works is a new advertising slogan that will roll out for Randall's (and for Tom Thumb in Dallas/Fort Worth) that should help them make huge gains in market share: "Randall's: Albertson's quality...at Whole Foods prices!!"
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by storewanderer »

In a different thread some predicted these prices may be a pre-move for a national EDLP campaign roll out at Albertsons/Safeway.

Let's hope that is the case.

We know they centralized center store buying and merchandising earlier this year. Doing that would make it much easier to do a nationwide/chainwide EDLP campaign on various items, than it would have been to do that before.

We can hope...

The 5% off liquidation sales remind me of how they liquidated a block of closing NorCal Stores before they sold the division of Albertsons there to Save Mart. But that discount was also applicable on sale prices. Whatever was on sale the day before the store closing sale started, those sale prices were "locked" in place so the discount would be on top of whatever sale prices they had.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by Greggo »

Randalls customers no longer need a Remarkable Card to get sales prices. Everyone now gets them automatically. They’ve plastered signs all over the Austin stores letting shoppers know. Not sure what prompted this decision at this time, but if they’re trying to be competitive … the time for that was about 2 decades ago. Seems rather desperate.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

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Greggo wrote: November 25th, 2021, 8:34 pm Randalls customers no longer need a Remarkable Card to get sales prices. Everyone now gets them automatically. They’ve plastered signs all over the Austin stores letting shoppers know. Not sure what prompted this decision at this time, but if they’re trying to be competitive … the time for that was about 2 decades ago. Seems rather desperate.
Seems to only be happening at Randalls, not at Tom Thumb... including Houston...

I wonder if something is about to happen on this front chainwide. I have noticed this week at Safeway that after club card is scanned, the discount line prints as
"SALE (item name)"

Before it printed as
"CLUB (item name)"

The receipt still shows it as "Member Savings" though.

I think it would be a very wise move for them to implement the practice in place at Albertsons, Jewel, Acme, and Shaws across all of their banners where the sale prices are automatic and the use of the club card is strictly for digital coupons/offers. It would really clean up the ads and it would streamline the transaction process across the banners.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by pseudo3d »

I was told a peak at the Houston circulars revealed no card either. Tom Thumb should switch to this, and start advertising about it too, as the Dallas-Fort Worth stores have the most to lose.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

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pseudo3d wrote: November 28th, 2021, 3:16 am I was told a peak at the Houston circulars revealed no card either. Tom Thumb should switch to this, and start advertising about it too, as the Dallas-Fort Worth stores have the most to lose.
I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make. But it eliminates a hassle/friction point to just have items ring at the sale prices outright and not screw around with the card pricing.

They are still heavily pushing the app and "app only" offers and that is all good and well I guess, for the customers who want to mess around with it. For the customer who just wants to walk in and shop it is just one less step at checkout.
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Re: The present and future of Randalls

Post by Greggo »

It appears the days could be numbered for the Champions Village Randalls in Houston, one of their most profitable stores.

The shopping center on FM 1960 is for sale and marketing materials indicate the store’s lease ends in 2024 with no remaining options. The flyer says Randalls is paying “well below” market rates and says the new owners could redevelop and get someone else in there who pays more. Not sure that I believe that considering the center is currently 35% vacant. If Randalls goes, it’ll be around 50% vacant.

Albertsons could always sign a new lease but I doubt they’d be willing to pay what the new owners would be asking for.

https://res.cloudinary.com/jll-global-c ... pzowuw.pdf
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