What exactly happened with Kroger?

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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: April 25th, 2020, 11:58 am I hate to say it, but given the current situation, it appears all of the money Kroger is spending on the robotic fulfillment and online ordering centers may actually end well.

This virus situation has pushed tons of customers to using online services and those services cannot keep up with demand. Adding additional capacity will likely be easily absorbed by demand as demand for these services will probably stick even after this whole virus thing is over. I talk to a lot of people who say they will not go back to shopping in-store again unless it is for a few quick items. What is funny is people don't even mind all of the item substitutions or unavailable items with the order fulfillment, they just accept it as the situation right now and do not hold it against the online ordering service or curbside pick up service, which is pretty interesting.

Add to that the issue of virus outbreaks in distribution centers due to employees working too close. If the center has a lot of robotic stuff happening, that significantly reduces the number of employees needed and should alleviate a lot of the "employees working close together" thing.
Makes sense that they aren't so concerned about the missing/substituted items with the current scenario. The question is, will they change their minds when the situation improves, particularly if the services stay busy and thus may still have issues getting things filled correctly even when the items are actually available (if they are pushing people to pick the orders more quickly due to the demand).
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by storewanderer »

BillyGr wrote: April 26th, 2020, 1:20 pm
Makes sense that they aren't so concerned about the missing/substituted items with the current scenario. The question is, will they change their minds when the situation improves, particularly if the services stay busy and thus may still have issues getting things filled correctly even when the items are actually available (if they are pushing people to pick the orders more quickly due to the demand).
As long as we are in this pandemic, the public is being conditioned to accept less than optimal standards and a "be happy for what you can get" culture is being promoted.

I do not think customers will be satisfied with a pick success rate of 65% as a number of the grocery store curbsides were having over the past month, but maybe a 90% pick rate will be acceptable going forward (previously, that was not acceptable to the chains who were looking for pick rates in the high 90%s.

We will see. The robotic warehouses, will those stock all of the SKUs the stores stock? Will they really stock 10+ different SKUs of Kroger flour (2lb, 5lb, bigger bag, bleached, unbleached, wheat, bread)? Do we really need that many sizes?
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

I wonder what will happen to the remaining Ralphs in San Diego... They are down to 20 stores in the county, with a handful of closures done over the past few years. Kroger has remodeled some Ralphs here, but they haven't built a new store in the county since 2007 (the Fresh Fare in 4S Ranch, near Rancho Bernardo). Kroger also has 13 Food 4 Less stores.
Meanwhile, Vons/Albertsons/Pavilions has at least 71 stores in San Diego County. I'm not making this up. They are aggressively remodeling stores here. They are building a store in Valley Center (could be either Albertsons or Vons).
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by klkla »

The Vons/Albertsons/Pavilions monopoly in San Diego is amazing. I don't know how that ever got passed regulators. BTW the remodel on that Pavilions looks awful thanks to the awful cement floors and mismatched ceiling tiles:

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x ... CnoECBkQBg

As for Ralphs I doubt they will go anywhere. They have some good stores in San Diego and there's no reason to close profitable stores. It's not likely they will ever catch up to V/A/P in market share but as long as they have a profitable operation there's nothing to be concerned about.
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: September 10th, 2020, 2:46 pm I wonder what will happen to the remaining Ralphs in San Diego... They are down to 20 stores in the county, with a handful of closures done over the past few years. Kroger has remodeled some Ralphs here, but they haven't built a new store in the county since 2007 (the Fresh Fare in 4S Ranch, near Rancho Bernardo). Kroger also has 13 Food 4 Less stores.
Meanwhile, Vons/Albertsons/Pavilions has at least 71 stores in San Diego County. I'm not making this up. They are aggressively remodeling stores here. They are building a store in Valley Center (could be either Albertsons or Vons).
Ralphs had some pretty marginal stores around San Diego and I think rather than try and make them work they opted to just shut them down. A number of locations had late 90's interiors and needed remodels. I think the decision was made to close rather than continue to run a run down low volume store. These were stores that weren't located terribly well, had access issues, or similar. They had a good shot to pick up some nice large stores during the Haggen thing but for whatever reason they didn't, and neither did Stater. So San Diego for whatever reason has been left for Albertsons to really dominate. There is that one Stater in far North San Diego, which was just remodeled out of the 90's Lucky interior in the last few years. Stater does very well north of San Diego. Also you get the sprinkling of independents like Major in Escondido and Fallbrook which is an interesting operation.

I feel like the Ralphs down on Midway (?) is newer... it is laid out like a Kroger typical build store- nothing like a Ralphs layout. I think it is a former Mervyns building? 4S Ranch still has a Ralphs layout. It replaced a late 80's or early 90's store that was in the same center. Then there is that little Ralphs down Rosecrans that replaced the Vons which moved to Liberty Station. They also bought a small 76 station across the street to have a Ralphs gas station there. That was a true new store, but not in a new building. That little Ralphs is very much like a QFC.
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by SamSpade »

Kroger posts another record quarter, beating forecaster expectations this week.

The company had a large increase in eCommerce and expects 2021 to remain a good year if shoppers continue to eat more at home.
https://www.reuters.com/article/kroger- ... SL4N2G82UC
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by storewanderer »

SamSpade wrote: September 12th, 2020, 11:51 pm Kroger posts another record quarter, beating forecaster expectations this week.

The company had a large increase in eCommerce and expects 2021 to remain a good year if shoppers continue to eat more at home.
https://www.reuters.com/article/kroger- ... SL4N2G82UC
I have noticed Smiths promotions improved drastically in the past month. I have shopped there more in the past few weeks, than I had in the past few months, due to better promotions (and comparatively lousy promotions and price increases over at Safeway). I did not shop Smiths much in that last reporting quarter- every time I went in I kept encountering rather messy stores and tons of out of stocks (I guess that is what happens when you have a record quarter). But I have to say after returning to Smiths more- they really do know how to do center store. Being removed from shopping there much, then returning with more frequency lately, they really excel on center store mix, pricing, and private label programs, relative to any competitor. Bakery is terrible and deli isn't much better. Produce I've had surprisingly good luck with- they seem to have changed something there.
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: September 10th, 2020, 11:25 pm
Ralphs had some pretty marginal stores around San Diego and I think rather than try and make them work they opted to just shut them down. A number of locations had late 90's interiors and needed remodels. I think the decision was made to close rather than continue to run a run down low volume store. These were stores that weren't located terribly well, had access issues, or similar. They had a good shot to pick up some nice large stores during the Haggen thing but for whatever reason they didn't, and neither did Stater. So San Diego for whatever reason has been left for Albertsons to really dominate. There is that one Stater in far North San Diego, which was just remodeled out of the 90's Lucky interior in the last few years. Stater does very well north of San Diego. Also you get the sprinkling of independents like Major in Escondido and Fallbrook which is an interesting operation.

I feel like the Ralphs down on Midway (?) is newer... it is laid out like a Kroger typical build store- nothing like a Ralphs layout. I think it is a former Mervyns building? 4S Ranch still has a Ralphs layout. It replaced a late 80's or early 90's store that was in the same center. Then there is that little Ralphs down Rosecrans that replaced the Vons which moved to Liberty Station. They also bought a small 76 station across the street to have a Ralphs gas station there. That was a true new store, but not in a new building. That little Ralphs is very much like a QFC.
Yes, the Ralphs on Midway is a former Mervyns. The store in 4S Ranch replaced an older Ralphs in Rancho Bernardo/Poway, east of I-15 (now a Sprouts).
They recently remodeled a 1990 build store in Carmel Mountain Ranch, located adjacent to a Rite Aid (former Payless with abandoned garden center)
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by klkla »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 11:55 am Yes, the Ralphs on Midway is a former Mervyns.
The building that housed Target and Mervyn's was built as a FedMart. It was FedMart's number one store and had sales of over $1 million a week in the the late 70s. Ralphs had just entered the San Diego market a few years earlier with newly built stores in La Jolla and Point Loma (at Sports Arena Blvd. and W. Point Loma Blvd. now a Grocery Outlet).

Ralphs then built a free-standing store next to Mervyn's. There's currently an Old Navy and Forever 21 in that location. I'm curious if you know whether they demolished that store. Or did they build the building that is now Dick's Sporting Goods to connect the original building with the former free-standing Ralphs?
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Re: What exactly happened with Kroger?

Post by rwsandiego »

klkla wrote: September 20th, 2020, 11:20 am
retailfanmitchell019 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 11:55 am Yes, the Ralphs on Midway is a former Mervyns.
The building that housed Target and Mervyn's was built as a FedMart. It was FedMart's number one store and had sales of over $1 million a week in the the late 70s. Ralphs had just entered the San Diego market a few years earlier with newly built stores in La Jolla and Point Loma (at Sports Arena Blvd. and W. Point Loma Blvd. now a Grocery Outlet).

Ralphs then built a free-standing store next to Mervyn's. There's currently an Old Navy and Forever 21 in that location. I'm curious if you know whether they demolished that store. Or did they build the building that is now Dick's Sporting Goods to connect the original building with the former free-standing Ralphs?
After Ralphs moved into the west end of the old Mervyns (Target expanded their store into the rest of the Mervyns), the Ralphs was razed and the current building was constructed.

The free-standing Ralphs was a dive from the time I moved to San Diego until they tore it down. The replacement Ralphs was built with the then-current decor package (which is quite nice, IMO) but I never liked that store, either. Could never put my finger on why, though.
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