Crazy about retail.
https://www.retailwatchers.com/
Thank you for the clarification. In a way it makes sense why Aldi has basically put their Arizona stores adjacent to Fry's supermarkets. They expect the customer to get a small basket at Aldi and then the remainder of their items at Fry's. I've seen Aldi do the same thing with HyVee in Kansas.HCal wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2022, 6:05 pmGrocery Outlet buys opportunistically, so they take products that other stores may have ordered in excess. I have seen everything from HEB to Stop&Shop house brands at Grocery Outlet in California.storewanderer wrote: ↑April 1st, 2022, 7:04 pm I also notice a lot of Hy Top items at Grocery Outlet lately. Many spices and other odd fill ins like salad dressing and some condiments. I am not sure if it is a coincidence or they are having to go to a supplier to keep some categories stocked.
Cathedral City is a former Fresh & Easy.
Their own house brands are hijacked from Lucky. A number of years ago, they opened a store under the Lucky name and tried to steal the trademark, claiming that Albertsons had abandoned it. They also started using the Lady Lee and Harvest Day private labels. Albertsons went to court and successfully fought to get the Lucky trademark back, but apparently didn't bother with the private label brands, so I suppose Grocery Outlet now owns those.
While the company is technically franchised, I get the impression that their "owner-operators" are basically like managers who are independent contractors rather than employees. The company owns the stores, supplies the products, etc., and the local owners are essentially managing it with a bit more autonomy than a store manager at other chains. Perhaps they could be viewed like Uber drivers, running their own "business".
Back on the topic of this thread, Aldi is obviously much more consistent that Grocery Outlet or Save-a-Lot. They seem to be finding a niche in the ultra-low-price limited-selection market. With small stores, very few employees, and almost exclusively private label goods, they don't need full baskets to be profitable. A steady stream of customers buying the basics is sufficient. Those customers can then go across the parking lot to a larger store to get the rest of their things.
Their standard for new builds, either standalone or in a strip mall, is around 18,000 sq. ft total.norcalriteaidclerk wrote: ↑April 5th, 2022, 4:32 pm I couldn't find anything in the Wikipedia article,but I wonder what the typical square footage of an Aldi US location is...
I think they average 25-27k now, they have increased in size over the past few years. I have only been in a few stores- Fountain Valley had a training center, so it was larger than average. Salina, KS was pretty small when I was there, but they have since relocated.
The Aldi development website says they look for 17k now.bryceleinan wrote: ↑April 10th, 2022, 8:05 pmI think they average 25-27k now, they have increased in size over the past few years. I have only been in a few stores- Fountain Valley had a training center, so it was larger than average. Salina, KS was pretty small when I was there, but they have since relocated.
That's the exact impression I have of the stores in Arizona. The interesting thing about Arizona though is that WinCo is priced the same and Fry's and Walmart are priced very similarly to Aldi so Aldi doesn't really have a price advantage here.storewanderer wrote: ↑May 30th, 2022, 8:51 pm Having been in some Aldi units in the midwest and then in California I have to say I am not impressed with the operation in California. The stores I am seeing are a mess, dirty, the employees are terrible, and pricing seems 20% higher than it would be in the midwest.
The stores do seem to have decent foot traffic but transactions look smaller than I typically saw in the midwest.
I don't know if my memory is off but my perception is these California Stores have a lower variety of basic food SKUs than what I remember in the midwest.
Conversely the "Aldi Finds" general merchandise areas seem to have more items than I remember seeing in the midwest. The "Aldi Finds" areas are full of general merchandise that is not moving and are a disaster; they need to significantly downsize those areas or put more food into them. To make matters worse the stores manually mark these items down with handwritten shelf tags then the prices do not scan at the register. Getting the price corrected and how that went (cashier refusing to do anything, charging my card full price, manager who took 4 minutes to come up front then argue with me about the error rather than walk about 20 steps and check the price) reinforced my general opinion that this Aldi operation in California is very broken and not off to a great start at all.
Also- do these California Aldi units EVER open more than one cash register? Every location I have been into, only has one register open, it does not matter how long the line gets.
Lidl would be a much better fit. It would be nice if they would come. They'd knock Aldi out, or into the very worst neighborhoods only.