Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: December 2nd, 2020, 2:50 pm The bins have hard plastic underneath the product as they do now. There is also plexiglass in front of the product. Functionally these cases are not that different than what they have already been using. They just display the product a little better and are more space efficient.
Actually, they are much different functionally. These displays look to permit 3-4 layers of product depending on the size of the product. With something small like a plum or apricot it would probably have 4-5 layers. They could potentially box them from the bottom up, so product does not go all the way to the bottom, on delicate items.

The current Smiths produce displays are not something I have seen outside Smiths. These displays are designed for only a single layer of produce. Sometimes they put 2 layers out, but they are not designed for 2 layers. Smiths (and only Smiths- not the rest of Kroger) maybe 3 years ago put in their current produce displays to put the fixtures in a square box set up where the employee would work "in the middle of the displays" and fill product "from the inside." The idea was they could better rotate produce that way, not be in the way of customers shopping for produce, and keep more produce back-stock out on the sales floor for efficiency purposes. Basically they tried to make the produce restock process like a dairy stocked from the back. That idea took up too much space and for other reasons that I am not aware of, evidently flopped and Smiths basically took the displays out of the "square box" arrangement and pushed them together into aisles again.
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by veteran+ »

klkla wrote: December 2nd, 2020, 2:50 pm The bins have hard plastic underneath the product as they do now. There is also plexiglass in front of the product. Functionally these cases are not that different than what they have already been using. They just display the product a little better and are more space efficient.
Oh okay.

I did not notice the plastic (vertical?) resting against the Metal? grating.

Vertical and horizontal plastic pieces would make it easier to clean :-)
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by klkla »

Regarding the produce bins, I noticed Gelson's is using a similar fixture in the Silverlake store. I should have tilted my phone camera up a little because it has a built in awning as part of the feature. And it is quite a bit bigger than the Smith's fixture. These fixtures are definitely able to to display more product in a smaller footprint.
ProduceBin.jpg
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: December 17th, 2020, 7:22 pm Regarding the produce bins, I noticed Gelson's is using a similar fixture in the Silverlake store. I should have tilted my phone camera up a little because it has a built in awning as part of the feature. And it is quite a bit bigger than the Smith's fixture. These fixtures are definitely able to to display more product in a smaller footprint.

ProduceBin.jpg
There seems to be another thing these displays accomplish: blocking a good chunk of the produce on display from the lights.
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by Bagels »

klkla wrote: December 17th, 2020, 7:22 pm Regarding the produce bins, I noticed Gelson's is using a similar fixture in the Silverlake store. I should have tilted my phone camera up a little because it has a built in awning as part of the feature. And it is quite a bit bigger than the Smith's fixture. These fixtures are definitely able to to display more product in a smaller footprint.

ProduceBin.jpg


I agree; the bins make it easier to access the product while taking up a lot less space. At Kroger, they’ll allow the chain to expand its produce/fresh offerings at smaller, lower-volume locations (e.g. Smith’s). I agree they’re a poor fit for high volume stores, like Ralph’s.
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: December 26th, 2020, 11:25 pm
I agree; the bins make it easier to access the product while taking up a lot less space. At Kroger, they’ll allow the chain to expand its produce/fresh offerings at smaller, lower-volume locations (e.g. Smith’s). I agree they’re a poor fit for high volume stores, like Ralph’s.
I'm not sure the assessment of Smiths locations being smaller and low volume is exactly accurate. Smiths has done an excellent job building its store volumes up over the past decade and even with Kroger's current and ongoing missteps, Smiths seems to be maintaining its volumes the past couple years. I can only think of a few Smiths Stores under about 50k square feet (somewhere near downtown SLC is one but it is high volume, another up in Twin Falls, one in Chubbuck, another in Albuquerque near the university, one in White Rock, NM- but those small Smiths are all good volume little stores), and there are also very few Smiths that run sales volumes under $500k a week (even excluding fuel and pharmacy sales)...

QFC Stores are certainly smaller and lower volume (that lower volume is more due to size- I would guess sales per square foot at QFC in Seattle area are very strong)...

I know Ralphs has dumped off most of its really low volume stores at this point but I've seen quite a few Ralphs that are large in size but do not seem to be doing much sales volume- certainly less than the typical Smiths. For instance, both of the ones around San Bernardino, the one in Temecula, the one in San Luis Obispo, some around San Diego (Chula Vista for one, but there are others), etc.
Last edited by storewanderer on December 26th, 2020, 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by Bagels »

I stopped at the Vons off Twain Ave in Las Vegas. Wow, what a time warp! It’s going on ten years since I was last in a Vons that didn’t feature some variation of the Lifestyles format. Is this the last Vons not to have been renovated? Granted, it’s in the pre-Lifestyles Safeway decor (and also has a gas station) and appears to have been built or underwent a major remodel in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Interestingly, the store featured a hodgepodge of Safeway-branded shopping carts.

It’s a nice store, but I’d be surprised if it’s around much longer — the surrounding area continues to deteriorate. Interestingly, there’s a pair of run down Albertsons within a mile.
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

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Bagels wrote: December 26th, 2020, 11:40 pm I stopped at the Vons off Twain Ave in Las Vegas. Wow, what a time warp! It’s going on ten years since I was last in a Vons that didn’t feature some variation of the Lifestyles format. Is this the last Vons not to have been renovated? Granted, it’s in the pre-Lifestyles Safeway decor (and also has a gas station) and appears to have been built or underwent a major remodel in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Interestingly, the store featured a hodgepodge of Safeway-branded shopping carts.

It’s a nice store, but I’d be surprised if it’s around much longer — the surrounding area continues to deteriorate. Interestingly, there’s a pair of run down Albertsons within a mile.
The fuel station is, I think, a former AM PM or former Chevron Station; Vons did not actually build that fuel station, rather, they moved into it. The Vons Store itself is a former Mervyns Store (part of it) and opened with that interior, hence the layout is a little different than usual and it is quite spacious in there. I think they had high hopes for that store. Having high hopes for that location is an example of how Safeway was quite inept and clueless with regard not only on how to run stores in Las Vegas but also where to locate stores in Las Vegas- and why Vons store count in Las Vegas shrunk so much under Safeway (I don't think Albertsons has closed any Vons since that Southwest Division assumed operations of the stores...). Vons once had around 30 stores in Las Vegas.

There is a second unremodeled Vons up on Sky Point in Northwest Las Vegas with the same interior as the Twain store. That one was a new build with that interior.

Both of those stores opened very shortly before the Lifestyle program started. I think they were skipped over for remodels due to being so new when the Lifestyle program was rolling through Las Vegas, and also because they were not performing well. Twain was the wrong neighborhood and wrong location to put a Vons.

There is also an unremodeled Vons in Sun City (run down former Alpha Beta, but decent sized with departments) and also one in Santa Maria (they should be embarrassed to even run that store- its offering was outdated in about 1960). There is a store south of Santa Maria called Spencer's with the same interior as that Santa Maria Vons. I assume at some point the two were related. The Spencer's store seems to do a surprising amount of business.
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by Bagels »

storewanderer wrote: December 26th, 2020, 11:49 pm
Bagels wrote: December 26th, 2020, 11:40 pm I stopped at the Vons off Twain Ave in Las Vegas. Wow, what a time warp! It’s going on ten years since I was last in a Vons that didn’t feature some variation of the Lifestyles format. Is this the last Vons not to have been renovated? Granted, it’s in the pre-Lifestyles Safeway decor (and also has a gas station) and appears to have been built or underwent a major remodel in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Interestingly, the store featured a hodgepodge of Safeway-branded shopping carts.

It’s a nice store, but I’d be surprised if it’s around much longer — the surrounding area continues to deteriorate. Interestingly, there’s a pair of run down Albertsons within a mile.
The fuel station is, I think, a former AM PM or former Chevron Station; Vons did not actually build that fuel station, rather, they moved into it. The Vons Store itself is a former Mervyns Store (part of it) and opened with that interior, hence the layout is a little different than usual and it is quite spacious in there. I think they had high hopes for that store. Having high hopes for that location is an example of how Safeway was quite inept and clueless with regard not only on how to run stores in Las Vegas but also where to locate stores in Las Vegas- and why Vons store count in Las Vegas shrunk so much under Safeway (I don't think Albertsons has closed any Vons since that Southwest Division assumed operations of the stores...). Vons once had around 30 stores in Las Vegas.

There is a second unremodeled Vons up on Sky Point in Northwest Las Vegas with the same interior as the Twain store. That one was a new build with that interior.

Both of those stores opened very shortly before the Lifestyle program started. I think they were skipped over for remodels due to being so new when the Lifestyle program was rolling through Las Vegas, and also because they were not performing well. Twain was the wrong neighborhood and wrong location to put a Vons.

There is also an unremodeled Vons in Sun City (run down former Alpha Beta, but decent sized with departments) and also one in Santa Maria (they should be embarrassed to even run that store- its offering was outdated in about 1960). There is a store south of Santa Maria called Spencer's with the same interior as that Santa Maria Vons. I assume at some point the two were related. The Spencer's store seems to do a surprising amount of business.
Thank you! I’m surprised that there’s one unrenovated Vons, let alone 4, given that it’s been nearly two decades since the Lifestyles program began.

I’m pondering Vons current Las Vegas store count. At the time of its acquisition by Safeway, it stood at 16, and it seems like Safeway closed a ton of stores early on. Then again, Las Vegas was an incredibly competitive market for many years, so it’s not entirely surprising there were losers (and Walmart, the new kid on the block, the big winner).
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Re: Albertsons & Smith's Las Vegas Observations

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote: December 26th, 2020, 11:49 pm The fuel station is, I think, a former AM PM or former Chevron Station; Vons did not actually build that fuel station, rather, they moved into it. The Vons Store itself is a former Mervyns Store (part of it) and opened with that interior, hence the layout is a little different than usual and it is quite spacious in there. I think they had high hopes for that store. Having high hopes for that location is an example of how Safeway was quite inept and clueless with regard not only on how to run stores in Las Vegas but also where to locate stores in Las Vegas- and why Vons store count in Las Vegas shrunk so much under Safeway (I don't think Albertsons has closed any Vons since that Southwest Division assumed operations of the stores...). Vons once had around 30 stores in Las Vegas.
They did have high hopes for the store. They already had a high volume Vons Value Center in the same center which was later redeveloped into a community park when they moved into the Mervyns space. What messed up their plan was Lucky building a larger store down the street at Sahara and Maryland Parkway.

At the time of the acquisition of Safeway’s Southern California / Southern Nevada stores Vons was doing well with Vons Value Centers which ran 35,000-40,000 sq ft. The Safeway’s were in rough shape and had been neglected for years. All but one of them have been closed since then.
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