Crucial times for Shoppers

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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by mjhale »

storewanderer wrote: September 29th, 2022, 11:21 pm It appears Compare Foods did retain one store in Bladensburg. Quite similar theme to the reviews there to the reviews of the others. This Compare Foods is quite a chain.

I see a display of 4016 Red Delicious Apples from June 2022 at 3.29/lb. Wow; I've never seen those priced that high. And this is supposed to be a store catering to... hispanics? And they price produce like that?

This Compare Foods is not supplied by UNFI and is not using UNFI systems like these 3 stores being taken back were...
Compare Foods had a store in the Tall Oaks Village Center in Reston, VA. Took over from a failed Fresh World that took over from Giant. Giant had been in Tall Oaks since it opened in the 1970s. Compare Foods lasted a year, 2010-2011. High prices, dirty store, questionable freshness of products. I wasn't surprised then they closed.
Last edited by mjhale on September 30th, 2022, 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by mjhale »

Did UNFI actually sell the former Shoppers stores to Compare? Or was Compare just operating them? Reason I ask is that the decor never changed and based on pictures on Google it looks like a Shoppers with Compare merchandise. I know it is nothing new for an ethnic grocer to take over another store and make no changes. However these old Shoppers still look too much like a Shoppers even under Compare to make me think there was an operating arrangement here. It looks to me like when UNFI took them back they just carted out the Compare products and moved back in theirs.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

mjhale wrote: September 30th, 2022, 9:49 pm Did UNFI actually sell the former Shoppers stores to Compare? Or was Compare just operating them? Reason I ask is that the decor never changed and based on pictures on Google it looks like a Shoppers with Compare merchandise. I know it is nothing new for an ethnic grocer to take over another store and make no changes. However these old Shoppers still look too much like a Shoppers even under Compare to make me think there was an operating arrangement here. It looks to me like when UNFI took them back they just carted out the Compare products and moved back in theirs.
It appears to me these 3 Compare Stores continued to use Shoppers point of sale system, carts, and various signs including cart racks, etc. Some photos even show meat with Shoppers price stickers (leftovers I assume). My guess is Compare was not really qualified to operate these stores but UNFI/Supervalu was desperate to unload the stores to someone, anyone, vs. outright closing them so they found this Compare. Compare does not appear to typically be a UNFI customer so they make a deal forcing Compare to keep using UNFI for supply business and then hope in the future maybe this will work out and Compare will switch to UNFI for all of its other stores supply needs as well. Compare had no funds to do any work on the stores and clearly ran them very poorly. Of course the arrangement fails and any hope of the other Compare Stores moving to UNFI for supply appears remote at best given what happened with these 3 stores. So now UNFI steps in and takes back over to ensure their supply business remains viable. At the end of the day UNFI keeping Cub, etc. appears to be all about maintaining the supply business for these stores. There was a reason Supervalu kept those odd scattered corporate stores; they needed them for otherwise not busy enough distribution centers to be viable.

But the 4th Compare in Bladenburg or wherever still looks like Shoppers inside, but is not supplied by UNFI, has a different point of sale system, sells Best Yet products... McKays same thing they kept using UNFI in that former Shoppers but the other McKays use some different supplier (maybe the one Compare uses normally)?
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by buckguy »

Compare has a funny collection of stores stretching from Providence to the Carolinashttps://www.shopcomparefoods.com/locations/. It looks like they are a co-op under Associated, which otherwise mostly sticks to small independents under other banners in the NYC areahttps://www.asghq.com/ . It would be odd for them to be an operator for UNFI supplied by someone else. More likely is that Compare is a vehicle for bigger stores in new markets and they've been undercapitalized and strategized--a sort of low beduget version of what Wakefern has done with PriceRite (in fact they compete with a couple PriceRites).

What's interesting about the remodels is that a couple of them are in the same "town" (geography in Maryland gets confusing because most places are unincorporated with fuzzy boundaries and incorporated towns are sometimes very tiny and lack a real identity) and that all of them are in suburban areas that have seen better days. The Baltimore store is in Baltimore City but the area has similar characteristics-----also, it's near an old shopping center (Northwood Plaza) that is being redeveloped and so there may have been some landlord pressure to make the store more competitive. That makes me wonder if there was landlord pressure at any of the PG County locations. None of these stores is in a real growth area or one experiencing gentrification, although there is plenty of price sensitive competition like Aldi and Price Rite, as well as conventional competition from Giant and Safeway. Maybe they do "well-enough" for now, but it doesn't seem like a real strategy going forward unless the "well enough" means a cash flow big enough for them to care about keeping it going.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by Romr123 »

storewanderer wrote: September 30th, 2022, 11:25 pm
mjhale wrote: September 30th, 2022, 9:49 pm Did UNFI actually sell the former Shoppers stores to Compare? Or was Compare just operating them? Reason I ask is that the decor never changed and based on pictures on Google it looks like a Shoppers with Compare merchandise. I know it is nothing new for an ethnic grocer to take over another store and make no changes. However these old Shoppers still look too much like a Shoppers even under Compare to make me think there was an operating arrangement here. It looks to me like when UNFI took them back they just carted out the Compare products and moved back in theirs.
It appears to me these 3 Compare Stores continued to use Shoppers point of sale system, carts, and various signs including cart racks, etc. Some photos even show meat with Shoppers price stickers (leftovers I assume). My guess is Compare was not really qualified to operate these stores but UNFI/Supervalu was desperate to unload the stores to someone, anyone, vs. outright closing them so they found this Compare. Compare does not appear to typically be a UNFI customer so they make a deal forcing Compare to keep using UNFI for supply business and then hope in the future maybe this will work out and Compare will switch to UNFI for all of its other stores supply needs as well. Compare had no funds to do any work on the stores and clearly ran them very poorly. Of course the arrangement fails and any hope of the other Compare Stores moving to UNFI for supply appears remote at best given what happened with these 3 stores. So now UNFI steps in and takes back over to ensure their supply business remains viable. At the end of the day UNFI keeping Cub, etc. appears to be all about maintaining the supply business for these stores. There was a reason Supervalu kept those odd scattered corporate stores; they needed them for otherwise not busy enough distribution centers to be viable.

But the 4th Compare in Bladenburg or wherever still looks like Shoppers inside, but is not supplied by UNFI, has a different point of sale system, sells Best Yet products... McKays same thing they kept using UNFI in that former Shoppers but the other McKays use some different supplier (maybe the one Compare uses normally)?
Hmmm...Haggen East....
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: October 1st, 2022, 6:11 am

Hmmm...Haggen East....
Haggen actually had a high operational standard for its original batch of stores...

Compare Foods... what a collection of stores. The one in Central Falls, RI does not even appear to use shelf tags or scanning, Items are individually priced. It appears they previously used shelf tags but gave up on the idea. What kind of a "chain" is this? This is really bad.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

mjhale wrote: September 30th, 2022, 9:49 pm Did UNFI actually sell the former Shoppers stores to Compare? Or was Compare just operating them? Reason I ask is that the decor never changed and based on pictures on Google it looks like a Shoppers with Compare merchandise. I know it is nothing new for an ethnic grocer to take over another store and make no changes. However these old Shoppers still look too much like a Shoppers even under Compare to make me think there was an operating arrangement here. It looks to me like when UNFI took them back they just carted out the Compare products and moved back in theirs.
I feel like there was a sale price in that buyout so there may have been some cost passed over to Compare. Multiple other locations went to Lidl and McKay's while four closed outright for other retailers to buy in separate transactions.

These Compare locations too look to have less of an ethnic mix than the bulk of their locations, and going by any franchising rules, these could have been part of a different batch than other Compares. It is therefore more likely little was needed to be done from Shoppers remodel-wise.
buckguy wrote: October 1st, 2022, 5:04 am What's interesting about the remodels is that a couple of them are in the same "town" (geography in Maryland gets confusing because most places are unincorporated with fuzzy boundaries and incorporated towns are sometimes very tiny and lack a real identity) and that all of them are in suburban areas that have seen better days. The Baltimore store is in Baltimore City but the area has similar characteristics-----also, it's near an old shopping center (Northwood Plaza) that is being redeveloped and so there may have been some landlord pressure to make the store more competitive. That makes me wonder if there was landlord pressure at any of the PG County locations. None of these stores is in a real growth area or one experiencing gentrification, although there is plenty of price sensitive competition like Aldi and Price Rite, as well as conventional competition from Giant and Safeway. Maybe they do "well-enough" for now, but it doesn't seem like a real strategy going forward unless the "well enough" means a cash flow big enough for them to care about keeping it going.
If anyone wants to, they should go and check out the remodels once those wrap up this month. I am intrigued to see how this one looks in comparison to all the other Shoppers decors of years past. Also, looking through Google Maps the Silver Hill location looks to have a backroom with remnants of a vintage package. I am pretty confident that Shoppers is still stronger there than it was in the places that have lost the chain over the years.
Romr123 wrote: October 1st, 2022, 6:11 am Hmmm...Haggen East....
I'm not sure how. This was on a smaller scale than Haggen was.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: October 1st, 2022, 9:55 am

If anyone wants to, they should go and check out the remodels once those wrap up this month. I am intrigued to see how this one looks in comparison to all the other Shoppers decors of years past. Also, looking through Google Maps the Silver Hill location looks to have a backroom with remnants of a vintage package. I am pretty confident that Shoppers is still stronger there than it was in the places that have lost the chain over the years.
I see that photo with a produce wall fixture in the backroom. Did Shoppers not used to have a back room and they built a backroom into the stores when they became more like a conventional store?

I think UNFI hoped to sell Shoppers (and maybe Cub) to Albertsons. Clearly that never worked out. It would have been a poor fit due to pricing, and those franchise Cubs in MN are also an issue as you'd only get part of Cub and when people talk Cub's marketshare in MN you are hearing about marketshare from franchise units too. The irony is I wonder if Albertsons were to take Shoppers over, re-price/re-merchandise the DC Safeway units to the Shoppers model that has a more basic product mix, clean bright store, lower everyday pricing and no loyalty card (not necessarily Shoppers banner), would they be more effective?
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

storewanderer wrote: October 1st, 2022, 10:58 am
BatteryMill wrote: October 1st, 2022, 9:55 am

If anyone wants to, they should go and check out the remodels once those wrap up this month. I am intrigued to see how this one looks in comparison to all the other Shoppers decors of years past. Also, looking through Google Maps the Silver Hill location looks to have a backroom with remnants of a vintage package. I am pretty confident that Shoppers is still stronger there than it was in the places that have lost the chain over the years.
I see that photo with a produce wall fixture in the backroom. Did Shoppers not used to have a back room and they built a backroom into the stores when they became more like a conventional store?

I think UNFI hoped to sell Shoppers (and maybe Cub) to Albertsons. Clearly that never worked out. It would have been a poor fit due to pricing, and those franchise Cubs in MN are also an issue as you'd only get part of Cub and when people talk Cub's marketshare in MN you are hearing about marketshare from franchise units too. The irony is I wonder if Albertsons were to take Shoppers over, re-price/re-merchandise the DC Safeway units to the Shoppers model that has a more basic product mix, clean bright store, lower everyday pricing and no loyalty card (not necessarily Shoppers banner), would they be more effective?
Prior to SuperValu stepping in, Shoppers was a warehouse grocery store (similar to WinCo or Redner's... a.k.a. Wegners). Along the lines of this format, Shoppers employed warehouse shelving and was able to stock pallets above the aisles. While I have seen some backrooms from that era, I can't imagine there was a ton of space for warehouse shelving there. I am sure that SFW had to figure out something once they became a conventional grocer, but I cannot tell what they did other than at stores like this. I also cannot tell what the salesfloor looks like there now as they seem to have carved out a sizable chunk of perishables,

As for Albertsons, I think that'd work for Cub but I'm not quite sure about Shoppers. I favored Kroger since there's less overlap between it and Harris Teeter.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:19 pm

Prior to SuperValu stepping in, Shoppers was a warehouse grocery store (similar to WinCo or Redner's... a.k.a. Wegners). Along the lines of this format, Shoppers employed warehouse shelving and was able to stock pallets above the aisles. While I have seen some backrooms from that era, I can't imagine there was a ton of space for warehouse shelving there. I am sure that SFW had to figure out something once they became a conventional grocer, but I cannot tell what they did other than at stores like this. I also cannot tell what the salesfloor looks like there now as they seem to have carved out a sizable chunk of perishables,

As for Albertsons, I think that'd work for Cub but I'm not quite sure about Shoppers. I favored Kroger since there's less overlap between it and Harris Teeter.
I feel like when they closed the pharmacies in Shoppers, the ship sailed for selling them to a legitimate operator like Kroger.

I forget but wasn't Shoppers always a conventional around Baltimore but was a warehouse format in DC/VA? I went into a couple Shoppers that clearly had always been conventional (smaller stores, lower ceilings, small departments). I think those stores have since closed or sold.

UNFI's best path forward with these stores is to push volume as high as possible and run them breakeven to maintain the supply business. Not sure why they are remodeling anything but we will see how the remodels look.

Will also be interesting to see if they take back what few pieces are left of Farm Fresh. Guessing no on that.
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