Acme to close 4 stores

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storewanderer
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Acme to close 4 stores

Post by storewanderer »

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/ ... 943543001/

Looks like we have here 2 former Pathmarks which look lousy (unremodeled) but large stores, one former A&P banner of some kind which looks pretty decent, and another former A&P banner of some sort that also looks pretty decent and Acme remodeled.

It is striking however, how high volume it appears these once were, specifically the Pathmarks. Looks like between A&P and Albertsons, volume really got driven down. Tough to imagine how Acme is doing worse than A&P did though.
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Re: Acme to close 4 stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

This is the same story over and over again. Anything that Albertsons takes over and rebrands loses business. It is probably the terrible pricing, terrible selection, converting full time employees to part time, loss of loyal customers, and brand loyalty. Albertsons tries to run stores in their own way, without regard to what the local customers want or are used to. It might work in other areas, but it does not work everywhere.

People are very loyal to the other local and familiar supermarket brands in the area. Many longtime full time employees were lost when the employees were converted to part time. Albertsons was trying to save money and ended up alienating the longtime customers.
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Re: Acme to close 4 stores

Post by storewanderer »

Did Albertsons do that converting FT to PT with these A&P to Acme conversions? I don't know much about them. I guess that is one way to handle volume declines without laying people off... though people often do not stay, when you do that to them. Save Mart did a ton of that with the Albertsons Stores they bought (cutting FT to PT, eliminating various department manager positions, etc.) as volumes fell off the cliff the first few years they ran them, and many people simply moved on.

I will say from what I saw of a couple DE Acmes earlier this year, they have a very large center store mix in their stores and product freshness was also pretty good. Regional items were present and in general I was pretty impressed with the places. Pricing was on the higher end compared to the Shop Rite I went into, but it was much better than the DC Safeways just over the state line in MD (also way better mix and freshness at the Acmes) which were pretty bad in every way.
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Re: Acme to close 4 stores

Post by pseudo3d »

Alpha8472 wrote: August 18th, 2019, 11:25 am This is the same story over and over again. Anything that Albertsons takes over and rebrands loses business. It is probably the terrible pricing, terrible selection, converting full time employees to part time, loss of loyal customers, and brand loyalty. Albertsons tries to run stores in their own way, without regard to what the local customers want or are used to. It might work in other areas, but it does not work everywhere.

People are very loyal to the other local and familiar supermarket brands in the area. Many longtime full time employees were lost when the employees were converted to part time. Albertsons was trying to save money and ended up alienating the longtime customers.
That hasn't really been true in twenty years, and it's arguable how much of that is actually true chain-wide and not just Lucky. They sold off a few of the other stores they rebranded during this time (Smitty's-MO, some Bruno's, Super One) but the information on what these stores were really like is poor (though for instance, Smitty's-MO kept the in-store restaurants based on classifieds), if they really were objectively major failures or just distractions that the company couldn't afford to keep and maintain. Post-breakup, they did acquire the Raley's stores when they left that market, and those stores seem to have done fine.

With ACME and A&P, the company bit off more than they could chew, and absorbed the employees and the union--the same union that would not let the dying company find a suitor for its stores without them giving approval. Whether the union had a part in dooming A&P or not is another issue altogether, but the high cost of maintaining unionized FT employees for a new company already dealing with high debt load was something Albertsons didn't want to deal with, and thus many of them got bought out of the union.

Furthermore, the vast majority of stores they bought from A&P were kept, and still do well enough to remain open. If it was a big failure, then more stores would be closed. The former A&P stores (and the areas around them) might have already been going down the drain before the ink dried.
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Re: Acme to close 4 stores

Post by klkla »

pseudo3d wrote: January 24th, 2020, 4:45 pm Post-breakup, they did acquire the Raley's stores when they left that market, and those stores seem to have done fine.
I assume you mean in Albuquerque? If that's the case they probably did well because they were repurchasing their own stores that they had divested to Raley's a few years earlier.

The Las Vegas Raley's were bought by Kroger IIRC.
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Re: Acme to close 4 stores

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: January 24th, 2020, 6:17 pm
pseudo3d wrote: January 24th, 2020, 4:45 pm Post-breakup, they did acquire the Raley's stores when they left that market, and those stores seem to have done fine.
I assume you mean in Albuquerque? If that's the case they probably did well because they were repurchasing their own stores that they had divested to Raley's a few years earlier.

The Las Vegas Raley's were bought by Kroger IIRC.
Actually they have closed a few stores in Albuquerque in the past ~5 years.
Central/Coors- Closed in 2019 (this was a Raleys they bought back, Raleys did a light remodel to it), pretty iffy area
13150 Central SE- Closed in 2014 (this was a former Jewel/Lucky with poor visibility)
3301 Southern, Rio Rancho- Closed in 2016 (don't really understand why this one closed)

Albertsons LLC actually did not close any stores in Albuquerque back when it bought the stores in 2006. The closures there started toward the era of the Safeway merger. Smiths didn't add any stores so I don't know what happened that caused Albertsons to need to close stores. I assume it was any Safeway ideas being used there went over quite poorly because that was a really good market for Albertsons LLC pre-Safeway merger. Remember Albuquerque shifted from Albertsons LLC Southwest which did a real good job, into a combined Albertsons+Safeway Southwest which seemed kind of lost its first few years but has since gotten better, but then a couple years ago these stores got shifted again to United-TX region.

The Raleys stores acquired by LLC were a mixture of former Albertsons (most of which had been remodeled by Raleys extensively), former Furrs, one almost brand new but closed Furrs reopened/remodeled by Raleys, and one store built by Raleys. So actually I think only about 2 of those Raleys they bought, were buy backs of old Albertsons. Most were actually old Furrs as Raleys bought some Furrs. It is my understanding Raleys was profitable in NM (they used a wholesaler) but the decision was made to exit the market due to the isolation from the rest of the store base. They ran a little bit different type of operation in NM than they ran in CA with smaller sized stores and more basic merchandising.

A couple of these still appear to have Raleys interiors:
Ventura Ave NE (this was the new Furrs that was closed then Raleys bought the closed building, remodeled it, and reopened it)
Juan Tabo Ave (this is the one Raleys built itself, floor plan is like a Bel Air in CA not like a Raleys of that era)

Most had either Raleys interiors or Lucky interiors until about 2015 or so. A couple had Jewel interiors too.
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Re: Acme to close 4 stores

Post by veteran+ »

"the same union that would not let the dying company find a suitor for its stores without them giving approval. Whether the union had a part in dooming A&P or not is another issue altogether, but the high cost of maintaining unionized FT employees for a new company already dealing with high debt load was something Albertsons didn't want to deal with, and thus many of them got bought out of the union."

Sorry to say but the above is a popular and well received narrative that is not very accurate.

But, it is a very efficient and frequently used scapegoat that never dies.

;)
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