They were late to Detroit because Meijer had an extensive fleet of supercenters in Detroit and Kmart (which was Detroit based) had the GM market cornered with stores everywhere.BatteryMill wrote: ↑September 22nd, 2021, 5:15 pmWalmart's Supercenters were late to Detroit... what were other such examples? They took until 2009 to introduce the D.C. metro area to these stores.Bagels wrote: ↑September 22nd, 2021, 3:49 pm In 2010, Publix surpassed Kroger as the market share leader in Atlanta, but Kroger quickly regained the title back and has maintained it since. But both chains have since lost market share to Walmart. I realize that Kroger isn't the fan favorite on here, but they generally run excellent stores with competitive pricing and great sales pricing, which is unquestionably the reason Publix didn't stay on top in Atlanta long.
Farmer Jack was a very profitable grocery store in the 1990s; it failed because rather than reinvesting some of the profits back into the stores, A&P put the profits into its failing NE operations. Investors were pulling for Safeway to dominate much of the Midwest, and after the chain overpaid for Dominick's, A&P thought it could command a high price for Farmer Jack (and Kohls). But Safeway lost interest in the Midwest, likely after it struggled to digest Dominick's, and Farmer Jack quickly fell to despair, garnering a horrible reputation. It was that poor reputation that ultimately killed off Farmer Jack -- Kroger maintained a large number of neglected stores in the area that were among the last in the chain to be renovated. Probably why Kroger's been replacing so many Detroit-area stores, when new construction is otherwise a rarity for the chain.
Walmart was a nonfactor - its first Supercenters opened in 2008 (FJ was defunct by 2007).
Even today Meijer has 2-3 times the number of locations in Metro Detroit as Walmart.
Michigan was also historically very pro union (it's much less so now) and there was significant opposition to a non-union shop (Walmart) versus Meijer (which is union).