Crucial times for Shoppers

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. No non-grocery posts.
Bradford011
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by Bradford011 »

I for one adored Shoppers Food's doughnuts, a good value for the price. If someone brought doughnuts to work odds were good they were from Shoppers.

At first Shoppers carried a lot of off-brands including Big Valu Corn Chips which were just as good as the name brand and a lot cheaper.

It was later when the big companies forced Shoppers to stop carrying the off brands and only carry name brands that prices were no longer in serious competition with Giant and Safeway. So it wasn't worth the drive to the north side of town where Shoppers was but much easier and no more expensive just to walk to Safeway (less than 2 minutes from my door to theirs) on the south side of town.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by mjhale »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: December 21st, 2021, 2:22 pm Spent some time in Va. back in SFW's heyday and found them to be sort of an enigma. While their name could imply deep discount, I really didn't see that. Their pricing wasn't especially high but nothing they offered would really bring someone in vs. another chain. Honestly, what did/do they stand for?
Shoppers was the primary grocery store for me when I first moved out on my own in the late 1990s. I wasn't making a lot of money. Shoppers pricing at the time was better than Giant and a lot better than Safeway in the area that I lived. Buying the loss leader sales at Giant and Safeway plus "staple" type items at Shoppers is what kept me going in those early days. Quality at Shoppers, especially in produce and meat, was always a bit iffy so I would supplement at Giant if needed. As I earned more money I "graduated" to shopping at Giant which is where my family had always shopped when I was growing up.

Had the DC area stayed a four store race between Giant and Safeway being dominant and Shoppers as the lower priced option with Magruders filling in where they had locations, I think Shoppers could have retained their lower priced image. Add in the donuts (which I like a lot too) and their hot bar and other prepared foods, Shoppers could have retained what they had grown to during their heyday. However, when out of town competitors started opening in the DC area, Walmart added grocery and the deep discounters moved in SuperValu felt that they wanted Shoppers to compete in the great mid-class where Giant and Safeway exist. Pricing went up and Shoppers lost any image of being a better priced option that they had before. Washington is a transient area but there are enough people who have been here a long time to get the perception that Shoppers lost its image. People went to other grocers whether mid-priced, high end, deep discount or ethnic. Shoppers never regained a reason to keep coming back except maybe the donuts for some. But those donuts aren't enough in my mind to make Shoppers a regular stop. This is especially true when Giant and Safeway run better stores, there are multiple true low priced options and the high end is filled out too. Shoppers got lost in the middle and never made it back out again.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by mjhale »

buckguy wrote: December 21st, 2021, 3:57 pm They lived up to the name in the 90s. The stores were a hodgepodge of castoffs with a few purpose built stores. They had two stores almost across the street from each other in Langley Park in shabby looking castoffs---one looked like a pylon Safeway.
You are so right about Shoppers being in cast off locations from others. I shopped quite a bit at the Lincolnia Shoppers which was an old Maria Safeway just west of I-395 on Little River Turnpike. The store was old, broken down and not the cleanest. The refrigeration looked like it was original from when Safeway built the place. The other Shoppers I'd go to was in Annandale next to Kmart. This was an old Grand Union that probably hadn't changed much since Grand Union closed. Small, cramped, limited selection. But as I said in another post in this thread I wasn't making much money so Shoppers fit the budget back then. I appreciate Shoppers for that. At the same time I am thankful that I have been able to advance to the point where I can shop at a mid or upper tier grocery store.

I do miss those old cast off stores though. There was a certain "feeling" about being in a store that you knew was shoe horned and adapted to the space. Maybe I just enjoyed the creativity of it all and the "organic" nature of those store designs. I was kind of reminded of this when I was in Fresh World in Springfield, VA this past weekend. They had aisle markers from Giant-PA, register lights from Shoppers and wall lettering from the Safeway Marketplace interior. I'd love to poke around at a reseller of old grocery interior decor items. Might be fun to find some oddball stuff.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by buckguy »

Losing their niche (willingly) was a big part of their ultimate decline. They would have had to compete with Aldi, but Aldi enters markets slowly and good management could have figured out how to make sure they had a strategy for that. Their ability to target families and to have items you wouldn't expect at a discounter might have worked in that way, esp. if they upgraded the perishables. I haven't been to a PriceRite, but I'd imagine they are something like that.

DC isn't transient in the same way as, say, Atlanta which despite its entrepreneurial image is lacking in iconic local retail (restaurants are a somewhat different story in part because it doesn't take much imagination to stand out there). A lot of people who come to the DC area stay and others come back after an assignment elsewhere in the military, commissioned corps, state dept, govt contractors, etc., so there are "local institutions" here and people look fondly on them.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

buckguy wrote: December 22nd, 2021, 7:20 am Losing their niche (willingly) was a big part of their ultimate decline. They would have had to compete with Aldi, but Aldi enters markets slowly and good management could have figured out how to make sure they had a strategy for that. Their ability to target families and to have items you wouldn't expect at a discounter might have worked in that way, esp. if they upgraded the perishables. I haven't been to a PriceRite, but I'd imagine they are something like that.

DC isn't transient in the same way as, say, Atlanta which despite its entrepreneurial image is lacking in iconic local retail (restaurants are a somewhat different story in part because it doesn't take much imagination to stand out there). A lot of people who come to the DC area stay and others come back after an assignment elsewhere in the military, commissioned corps, state dept, govt contractors, etc., so there are "local institutions" here and people look fondly on them.
Shoppers offered more product and larger stores than any deep discounter, especially when they tried the Shoppers Club concept (~60k sq. ft.), which sets them apart.

As for donuts, sometimes the surface melded nicely into the stuffing and made it enjoyable to eat, other times not. Perhaps it was better in the day.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

Now this is an interesting turn for Shoppers. UNFI is back to investing in the chain. Three locations have been taken back from Compare Foods who bought these sites out in 2019. Remodels are also underway.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... ing-Stores
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: September 29th, 2022, 5:43 pm Now this is an interesting turn for Shoppers. UNFI is back to investing in the chain. Three locations have been taken back from Compare Foods who bought these sites out in 2019. Remodels are also underway.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... ing-Stores
Compare Foods on these three locations appears to have been a complete disaster. I find it very interesting UNFI decided to reopen them. I'm not sure if we can interpret this in UNFI being interested in the chain or just not wanting to lose the supply business from these 3 stores, or potential lease terms requiring operation of a store in these spaces...

Reading the reviews of Compare Foods, very troubling comments in the reviews on multiple of the locations. Not referring to just food quality/pricing concerns either. Would not be surprised if some of the other issues people were experiencing did them in. I wonder if these UNFI idiots were somehow tied to this business and got dragged into some issue and ended up arranging to take the stores back before more issues came up. This is what happens when you are so desperate to unload stores, you unload them to unqualified buyers. These neighborhoods are very lucky to get Shoppers back. Let's just hope Shoppers stays around...
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

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...
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by storewanderer »

BatteryMill wrote: June 28th, 2021, 7:17 pm
mjhale wrote: June 28th, 2021, 6:07 pm
BatteryMill wrote: June 24th, 2021, 5:57 pm
Contrary to the Waldorf store which retained the Shoppers name. I'd be willing to wager that this is because it's more comfortably in McKay's home market than Waldorf which is closer to Shoppers' base.
Am I understanding this correctly that McKay's now owns the Shoppers store in Waldorf but is still operating it under the Shoppers name? Google Maps marks the store as Shoppers (featuring McKay's). I wonder how much of the Shoppers operation McKay's kept in the Waldorf location? I wouldn't want to walk into a Shoppers branded store only to find out it is really a McKay's inside.
Mostly the same decor, although some service departments/other offerings may be lacking vs. UNFI Shoppers. Most of the Compare Foods acquisitions have retained the Shoppers interior as well.
Appears the Shoppers in Walforf (McKays) closed without notice. Not clear when. Maybe UNFI can help that one out too and take it back and run it in a way that works.
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Re: Crucial times for Shoppers

Post by BatteryMill »

storewanderer wrote: September 29th, 2022, 10:26 pm Compare Foods on these three locations appears to have been a complete disaster. I find it very interesting UNFI decided to reopen them. I'm not sure if we can interpret this in UNFI being interested in the chain or just not wanting to lose the supply business from these 3 stores, or potential lease terms requiring operation of a store in these spaces...

Reading the reviews of Compare Foods, very troubling comments in the reviews on multiple of the locations. Not referring to just food quality/pricing concerns either. Would not be surprised if some of the other issues people were experiencing did them in. I wonder if these UNFI idiots were somehow tied to this business and got dragged into some issue and ended up arranging to take the stores back before more issues came up. This is what happens when you are so desperate to unload stores, you unload them to unqualified buyers. These neighborhoods are very lucky to get Shoppers back. Let's just hope Shoppers stays around...
To gauge whether UNFI is interested in Shoppers we will need to see if this happens on a wider scale, if they remodel more or they branch out to any completely new locations.

Now, the sales were conducted in late 2019. This was done with the expectation that the remaining ~25 locations would be sold several months after that. But guess what was going on several months later? A pandemic. Citing increased sales, UNFI elected to first halt the sales of Shoppers and Cub for 18 months, and last year it was amended to simply "indefinitely". So who knows, maybe it was just to ease off debt from SuperValu or perhaps the folks there had a change of heart.

I certainly wonder what's next. There are a few other locations besides Bladensburg that seem to still be under Compare's control, so perhaps those are scheduled to flip to Shoppers later or are doing decently enough.
storewanderer wrote: September 29th, 2022, 11:27 pm
BatteryMill wrote: June 28th, 2021, 7:17 pm
mjhale wrote: June 28th, 2021, 6:07 pm

Am I understanding this correctly that McKay's now owns the Shoppers store in Waldorf but is still operating it under the Shoppers name? Google Maps marks the store as Shoppers (featuring McKay's). I wonder how much of the Shoppers operation McKay's kept in the Waldorf location? I wouldn't want to walk into a Shoppers branded store only to find out it is really a McKay's inside.
Mostly the same decor, although some service departments/other offerings may be lacking vs. UNFI Shoppers. Most of the Compare Foods acquisitions have retained the Shoppers interior as well.
Appears the Shoppers in Walforf (McKays) closed without notice. Not clear when. Maybe UNFI can help that one out too and take it back and run it in a way that works.
It seems like the California location UNFI spun off, also to McKay's, has gone bust within a year of opening.
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