Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by veteran+ »

bryceleinan wrote: February 7th, 2022, 6:12 pm
storewanderer wrote: January 15th, 2022, 10:18 pm
rwsandiego wrote: January 15th, 2022, 10:01 pm Had Raley's opened two new O-N-E stores instead of converting two existing stores, this could have worked. Taking two stores and yanking out products like Coke and Tostitos and replacing them with "organic" equivalents was just a bad idea. If Sprouts suddenly replaced its organic and "all-natural" (whatever that means) product with conventional product they would experience a similar backlash.

You're right about starting with bakery. I don't think anyone would have minded if they "went clean" with ingredients as long as the products tasted as good or better than the old stuff. Fresh bakery is a premium product that sells for a higher price, so they really ought to be made with premium ingredients. Replacing conventional meat and produce with organic is tricky, as the price of organic is so much higher than conventional products.
That takes an investment in labor and shrink... since you can't get as much shelf life out of clean ingredient stuff and it would take more labor to handle it. They did have some ONE-specific bakery items but they were not premium; they were closer to inedible. Luckily they have reverted back to the old Raleys bakery/deli program in this store but there is a lot less product than before and freshness isn't like it was before.
Interesting article in the RGJ today from Raleys, and this store was a main point of discussion:

https://www.rgj.com/story/life/2022/02/ ... 317119002/

Looks like Raleys is sold on this concept - no idea why.


I would suggest HUBRIS!

:x
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by ninersdd »

During a Sacramento Republic(local USL soccer team) highlights on the news a couple of nights ago, one of the ads near the scoreboard on the TV was of Raleys ONE Market(another one was the normal Raleys). Interesting considering the only one in the Sacramento area is 20-30 minutes east of the city(El Dorado Hills), plus the other 2(Truckee and Reno 2 hours over the mountains).

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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

ninersdd wrote: March 19th, 2022, 10:47 pm During a Sacramento Republic(local USL soccer team) highlights on the news a couple of nights ago, one of the ads near the scoreboard on the TV was of Raleys ONE Market(another one was the normal Raleys). Interesting considering the only one in the Sacramento area is 20-30 minutes east of the city(El Dorado Hills), plus the other 2(Truckee and Reno 2 hours over the mountains).

Just wait. After they royally screwed up El Dorado Hills and Reno, in May, those conversions will turn a year old. The absolute worst results they had in the conversion stores were in the months after the conversion. After they added in various "regular" items to the bottom shelves in El Dorado Hills and Reno, traffic started to pick up to an extent (in the case of Reno, traffic is still nothing even close to what it was before the conversion, but it is noticeably more traffic now) and soon these stores will be starting to show positive comp sales year over year. Just wait for someone to see that and highlight that and call the format a success.

I think the new Roseville Store opening soon is still supposedly going to be a Raleys ONE.

They are not letting up on this format.

Still wondering if they are... like actually trying to purposely let Safeway roll over them or what.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

Latest happenings in this store: in April/May they had $ off total transactions either via mailer or right on the print ad for many weeks, some $10 off $50, some $30 off $100, etc.

Print ad is advertising HARD that "your favorites are back." Customers were going and asking where the stuff was (it is all on the bottom shelves). So now they have installed a bunch of signs "back by popular demand" on front of the various items they added back in but again these are all down on the bottom shelves so I can see how it is easy to miss.

In the past few days they have hung hundreds or thousands of clearance tags throughout the grocery aisles on various of the ONE products. Also noticing more second from the bottom shelves being occupied by previously banned products, so I think I missed some reset activity lately. So it looks like even more "favorites" are being added back in. Maybe soon they will occupy the third from the bottom shelf too.
One2.jpg
One1.jpg
Still on a higher pricing scale than the other Reno stores. For instance, 5.19 can of Progresso Soup (on the bottom shelf); 4.99 at most other Raleys; 4.79 at the marginal locations near a Smiths (Sparks McCarran, North Hills, Carson City).

I am still real turned off by the attitude and pricing of this store. I really wanted to give it more business but it just isn't working out well.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: June 2nd, 2022, 9:45 pm Latest happenings in this store: in April/May they had $ off total transactions either via mailer or right on the print ad for many weeks, some $10 off $50, some $30 off $100, etc.

Print ad is advertising HARD that "your favorites are back." Customers were going and asking where the stuff was (it is all on the bottom shelves). So now they have installed a bunch of signs "back by popular demand" on front of the various items they added back in but again these are all down on the bottom shelves so I can see how it is easy to miss.

In the past few days they have hung hundreds or thousands of clearance tags throughout the grocery aisles on various of the ONE products. Also noticing more second from the bottom shelves being occupied by previously banned products, so I think I missed some reset activity lately. So it looks like even more "favorites" are being added back in. Maybe soon they will occupy the third from the bottom shelf too.

One2.jpg
One1.jpg

Still on a higher pricing scale than the other Reno stores. For instance, 5.19 can of Progresso Soup (on the bottom shelf); 4.99 at most other Raleys; 4.79 at the marginal locations near a Smiths (Sparks McCarran, North Hills, Carson City).

I am still real turned off by the attitude and pricing of this store. I really wanted to give it more business but it just isn't working out well.
They don't know when to give up and clearly have no idea what BRAND EQUITY means.

They are trying to establish a new brand - Raleys ONE - and state the meaning of the brand is organic, nutritional, healthy, no artificial ingredients or chemicals, natural etc.

And the customer has voted no on the new brand.

So now they continue to maintain the same ONE brand but with plenty of artificial ingredients, chemicals, etc. which goes against everything ONE stands for.

As a result of their negligence they have put a stake through the heart of this new brand before it could ever be established. Raleys ONE is meaningless to the customer now, it's just the store in town that has higher prices and weird merchandising where the Kraft Dinner is on the base deck and the Annie's organic is at eye level.

Raleys ONE has zero brand equity now, and the parent brand Raleys reputation has been tarnished as well.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by lake52 »

storewanderer wrote: June 2nd, 2022, 9:45 pm Latest happenings in this store: in April/May they had $ off total transactions either via mailer or right on the print ad for many weeks, some $10 off $50, some $30 off $100, etc.

Print ad is advertising HARD that "your favorites are back." Customers were going and asking where the stuff was (it is all on the bottom shelves). So now they have installed a bunch of signs "back by popular demand" on front of the various items they added back in but again these are all down on the bottom shelves so I can see how it is easy to miss.

In the past few days they have hung hundreds or thousands of clearance tags throughout the grocery aisles on various of the ONE products. Also noticing more second from the bottom shelves being occupied by previously banned products, so I think I missed some reset activity lately. So it looks like even more "favorites" are being added back in. Maybe soon they will occupy the third from the bottom shelf too.

One2.jpg
One1.jpg

Still on a higher pricing scale than the other Reno stores. For instance, 5.19 can of Progresso Soup (on the bottom shelf); 4.99 at most other Raleys; 4.79 at the marginal locations near a Smiths (Sparks McCarran, North Hills, Carson City).

I am still real turned off by the attitude and pricing of this store. I really wanted to give it more business but it just isn't working out well.
Raley’s has been doing quite a few department resets lately. This is at a standard “non-ONE” store. It started with teas a couple months ago, and then the beauty section. I’ve also seen them reset the cracker and granola bar sections. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen the Asian foods department have a lot of clearance items. It does seem like they’re reducing SKUs but it’s not a full reduction.

For teas they reduced space or eliminated quite a few brands, but added a few new ones and more variety for the brands they kept. The brands they did add were mostly more upscale but they also added a significant private label selection.

It seems like they’re cutting out the non-leading but branded products in these categories and focusing on having a wide variety of the top selling brand. Then they’ll have a store brand option and a more upscale option. Basically trimming the “middle” to make room for a better price / quality range.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

lake52 wrote: June 3rd, 2022, 1:43 pm
Raley’s has been doing quite a few department resets lately. This is at a standard “non-ONE” store. It started with teas a couple months ago, and then the beauty section. I’ve also seen them reset the cracker and granola bar sections. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen the Asian foods department have a lot of clearance items. It does seem like they’re reducing SKUs but it’s not a full reduction.

For teas they reduced space or eliminated quite a few brands, but added a few new ones and more variety for the brands they kept. The brands they did add were mostly more upscale but they also added a significant private label selection.

It seems like they’re cutting out the non-leading but branded products in these categories and focusing on having a wide variety of the top selling brand. Then they’ll have a store brand option and a more upscale option. Basically trimming the “middle” to make room for a better price / quality range.
Those resets you are referring to with tea, cracker, Asian, etc. are standard and happen at least once a year. Raleys historically has had a much better product selection in center store than competitors.

In the Reno ONE store, it is various of the ONE items that are getting clearanced out in various grocery categories. Nothing is getting clearanced in the bottom shelf areas of these sets, it is strictly from the ONE area of the shelves (green shelf backers). This is similar to what they did last October or November when they reset the store to bring back the "banned items" to the bottom shelf; a large block of ONE items needed to get clearanced out.

This ONE format is a complete loser in Reno and they need to just let it go and convert the store back to a normal Raleys and be done with it. It is time to stop handing Safeway hundreds and thousands of dollars of volume every week in Reno (and probably El Dorado Hills too) just to keep this ONE thing going for whatever reason.

We will see if they can do better with the new ONE Store in Roseville. At least with a new store they will not be displacing and upsetting thousands of high income customers every week with zero price sensitivity who were used to shopping the previous full line Raleys like they did in Reno.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by HCal »

lake52 wrote: June 3rd, 2022, 1:43 pm Raley’s has been doing quite a few department resets lately. This is at a standard “non-ONE” store. It started with teas a couple months ago, and then the beauty section. I’ve also seen them reset the cracker and granola bar sections. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen the Asian foods department have a lot of clearance items. It does seem like they’re reducing SKUs but it’s not a full reduction.

For teas they reduced space or eliminated quite a few brands, but added a few new ones and more variety for the brands they kept. The brands they did add were mostly more upscale but they also added a significant private label selection.

It seems like they’re cutting out the non-leading but branded products in these categories and focusing on having a wide variety of the top selling brand. Then they’ll have a store brand option and a more upscale option. Basically trimming the “middle” to make room for a better price / quality range.
From what I understand, Raley's primarily buys through Topco. I haven't seen similar changes at other Topco-supplied stores, so this is probably their own choice. I wonder if they get a better price when buying more of one brand. This seems like a good move to me, but I'm not the type of person who is loyal to brands. I imagine they may lose some customers whose favorite brand product disappeared, but they make it up in efficiencies.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: June 4th, 2022, 2:12 am
From what I understand, Raley's primarily buys through Topco. I haven't seen similar changes at other Topco-supplied stores, so this is probably their own choice. I wonder if they get a better price when buying more of one brand. This seems like a good move to me, but I'm not the type of person who is loyal to brands. I imagine they may lose some customers whose favorite brand product disappeared, but they make it up in efficiencies.
There is no widescale program going on at Raleys that is involving cutting SKUs or eliminating certain brands. They do these resets every year. Raleys always carries significantly more SKUs than Safeway in given categories especially those noted in this thread like tea and ethnic foods. In a lot of cases because Raleys will carry SKUs that other stores do not carry, those SKUs end up being discontinued by the manufacturer but then new items pop up and Raleys jumps on those and picks them up to replace the items that go away. So Raleys will often have more "clearance" items when they do category resets, than competitors out west have.

The bigger entire center store resets are on a store by store basis. Raleys has its stores segmented into a number of different merchandising models (ONE, "Premium," and various base models) based on their loyalty card data. Stores move from one segment to another from time to time but that tends to be a more major process.

Raleys gets most dry groceries from the same warehouse as Save Mart (SSI) but handles some items in its own distribution center as well, particularly perishables. Raleys gets most natural/organic/ethnic from UNFI/Supervalu (old Certified Market Center). Raleys slots Top Care for drug/HBA per contract with Topco and that is also coming from UNFI/Supervalu (they are slotting that stuff special for Raleys in CA due to the agreement Raleys has with Topco to carry Topco brands, and due to the agreement Raleys has with UNFI/Supervalu to buy non food from them; it is not an optimal arrangement as UNFI/Supervalu wants to sell their Equaline items, not Topco items). Raleys own private label is very extensive and has standard groceries, Organic, and limited drug/HBA (vitamins and soap). They do slot Topco labels for drug (as described above), pet and paper products (finally consistent with Save Mart on those categories so they can pull from SSI).

I have seen a few instances where Raleys will do a widescale SKU cut to a given store. To give an example, there is a store in Sparks on Pyramid and McCarran. This used to be a very busy store. What felt like a 10 year roadwork project in front of the store (I think it was more like a 4 year road work project) absolutely killed business at the store for a number of years. This store is a big store and it was very heavily merchandised. After a year or two into the road work this store was in awful shape in terms of customer traffic and was having massive spoilage; they covered some of the produce cases up, pulled out aisles, didn't fill entire perimeter, and did major center store resets cutting out a ton of SKUs because the store no longer had the traffic to justify the mix it once had. Since the road work finally completed the store has been picking traffic up again and they have recovered most of the perimeter but so far center store is not yet what it once was, but even a cut center store mix at Raleys is more extensive than a Safeway center store mix.

Another store I've seen Raleys do widespread SKU cuts to is the store at Stateline at South Lake Tahoe (casino area). This store is basically a tourist snack and liquor store, not a place people go do full shops at. So this store also has gone through multiple widescale SKU cuts over the years.

So it is possible the store lake is referring to is doing something like re-segmenting itself (moving from a base model to a premium model, eliminating some Natural items since a ONE is opening nearby if it is in Roseville, etc.) or something has happened in a localized manner that is causing these changes.
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Re: Raleys converting Reno Store to ONE Market Format

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: June 4th, 2022, 1:24 pm
HCal wrote: June 4th, 2022, 2:12 am
From what I understand, Raley's primarily buys through Topco. I haven't seen similar changes at other Topco-supplied stores, so this is probably their own choice. I wonder if they get a better price when buying more of one brand. This seems like a good move to me, but I'm not the type of person who is loyal to brands. I imagine they may lose some customers whose favorite brand product disappeared, but they make it up in efficiencies.
There is no widescale program going on at Raleys that is involving cutting SKUs or eliminating certain brands. They do these resets every year. Raleys always carries significantly more SKUs than Safeway in given categories especially those noted in this thread like tea and ethnic foods. In a lot of cases because Raleys will carry SKUs that other stores do not carry, those SKUs end up being discontinued by the manufacturer but then new items pop up and Raleys jumps on those and picks them up to replace the items that go away. So Raleys will often have more "clearance" items when they do category resets, than competitors out west have.

The bigger entire center store resets are on a store by store basis. Raleys has its stores segmented into a number of different merchandising models (ONE, "Premium," and various base models) based on their loyalty card data. Stores move from one segment to another from time to time but that tends to be a more major process.

Raleys gets most dry groceries from the same warehouse as Save Mart (SSI) but handles some items in its own distribution center as well, particularly perishables. Raleys gets most natural/organic/ethnic from UNFI/Supervalu (old Certified Market Center). Raleys slots Top Care for drug/HBA per contract with Topco and that is also coming from UNFI/Supervalu (they are slotting that stuff special for Raleys in CA due to the agreement Raleys has with Topco to carry Topco brands, and due to the agreement Raleys has with UNFI/Supervalu to buy non food from them; it is not an optimal arrangement as UNFI/Supervalu wants to sell their Equaline items, not Topco items). Raleys own private label is very extensive and has standard groceries, Organic, and limited drug/HBA (vitamins and soap). They do slot Topco labels for drug (as described above), pet and paper products (finally consistent with Save Mart on those categories so they can pull from SSI).

I have seen a few instances where Raleys will do a widescale SKU cut to a given store. To give an example, there is a store in Sparks on Pyramid and McCarran. This used to be a very busy store. What felt like a 10 year roadwork project in front of the store (I think it was more like a 4 year road work project) absolutely killed business at the store for a number of years. This store is a big store and it was very heavily merchandised. After a year or two into the road work this store was in awful shape in terms of customer traffic and was having massive spoilage; they covered some of the produce cases up, pulled out aisles, didn't fill entire perimeter, and did major center store resets cutting out a ton of SKUs because the store no longer had the traffic to justify the mix it once had. Since the road work finally completed the store has been picking traffic up again and they have recovered most of the perimeter but so far center store is not yet what it once was, but even a cut center store mix at Raleys is more extensive than a Safeway center store mix.

Another store I've seen Raleys do widespread SKU cuts to is the store at Stateline at South Lake Tahoe (casino area). This store is basically a tourist snack and liquor store, not a place people go do full shops at. So this store also has gone through multiple widescale SKU cuts over the years.

So it is possible the store lake is referring to is doing something like re-segmenting itself (moving from a base model to a premium model, eliminating some Natural items since a ONE is opening nearby if it is in Roseville, etc.) or something has happened in a localized manner that is causing these changes.
I think there are going to be more changes in store if they wind up closing their remaining pharmacy locations, similar to the trajectory of Bi-Mart. Not sure if the Bashas acquisition changes things any for Raley's, however, I do not know how strong of a player they are in pharmacy any more.
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