Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

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Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by storewanderer »

Kroger will open a 49k square foot online fulfillment center in Oklahoma City. This seems very small. It will basically take and consolidate orders from Dallas then deliver them locally.

It looks like the Kroger banner will be used on this center.

Nice to see some organic expansion even if it isn't physical stores.

Should open a group of these up in Northern California. But what banner do you use there?
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by Romr123 »

Kroger's version of a ghost kitchen. TBH they can use any nameplate they desire or that the customer prefers...Dillons/Bakers/Krog/whatever the customer types into the search bar will automatically say "yeah, we deliver there".
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by arizonaguy »

Romr123 wrote: December 24th, 2021, 4:51 am Kroger's version of a ghost kitchen. TBH they can use any nameplate they desire or that the customer prefers...Dillons/Bakers/Krog/whatever the customer types into the search bar will automatically say "yeah, we deliver there".
I still think the regional banners are living on borrowed time. By 2030 I expect everything to be bannered Kroger (both online and in store).
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: December 24th, 2021, 4:51 am Kroger's version of a ghost kitchen. TBH they can use any nameplate they desire or that the customer prefers...Dillons/Bakers/Krog/whatever the customer types into the search bar will automatically say "yeah, we deliver there".
Not sure, the online apps are still banner specific. For instance if I go to the Smiths app I can only shop from Smiths bannered stores.

Albertsons went backwards and did the same thing earlier this year for some reason (after having an online app that functioned with any division).
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: December 24th, 2021, 2:01 am Should open a group of these up in Northern California. But what banner do you use there?
Cala Foods, of course! :lol: :lol: :lol:

But in all seriousness, it would probably be called Foods Co. Something like that might give Foods Co more legitimacy, because it currently seems to be an afterthought.
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

HCal wrote: December 24th, 2021, 9:13 pm
Cala Foods, of course! :lol: :lol: :lol:
To compete with Kroger fulfillment in Oklahoma, Albertsons should open a Skaggs-Alpha Beta fulfillment center! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: December 24th, 2021, 9:13 pm
storewanderer wrote: December 24th, 2021, 2:01 am Should open a group of these up in Northern California. But what banner do you use there?
Cala Foods, of course! :lol: :lol: :lol:

But in all seriousness, it would probably be called Foods Co. Something like that might give Foods Co more legitimacy, because it currently seems to be an afterthought.
I don't think it would be run under the FoodsCo banner. FoodsCo pricing is too aggressive for this type of concept. Also the quality of products sold at FoodsCo tends to be on the lower end of the scale (for instance by this I mean from a supply chain standpoint where this is not the same as what Kroger sells at Ralphs or Smiths or Kroger- USDA Select Beef, small size produce, little Simple Truth and even less Private Selection) and I do not think it would compete properly with others doing online fulfillment.

Cala Foods may be an interesting banner to bring back from the dead. It had a... logo. It sounds "local."
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by bryceleinan »

arizonaguy wrote: December 24th, 2021, 10:06 am
Romr123 wrote: December 24th, 2021, 4:51 am Kroger's version of a ghost kitchen. TBH they can use any nameplate they desire or that the customer prefers...Dillons/Bakers/Krog/whatever the customer types into the search bar will automatically say "yeah, we deliver there".
I still think the regional banners are living on borrowed time. By 2030 I expect everything to be bannered Kroger (both online and in store).
I have to agree with you on this one - Kroger pickup is Kroger pickup, even if it’s another store brand. Outside of King Soopers and Fred Meyer, not sure if it would matter much what you call the remaining stores, and I think this concept is another sniff test for the Kroger brand. I could make the same argument with a lot of chains though.
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: December 26th, 2021, 7:59 pm
I have to agree with you on this one - Kroger pickup is Kroger pickup, even if it’s another store brand. Outside of King Soopers and Fred Meyer, not sure if it would matter much what you call the remaining stores, and I think this concept is another sniff test for the Kroger brand. I could make the same argument with a lot of chains though.
King Soopers? I think that is a banner that could be changed to Kroger. With the way so many people have moved into Denver from other places, there is no longer the lineage there once was in Denver. City Market strikes me as a generic name that could easily be changed.

I think Ralphs, Harris Teeter, and Fred Meyer (and Food 4 Less/FoodsCo) and possibly QFC and Mariano's (I say this only due to the small store size) are the banners that would not make sense to change to Kroger. The others- may as well. Kroger has been doing a sniff test for the Kroger brand in the other banners for a long time now with almost 100% of private label product being Kroger brand for 20+ years. Ralphs and Fred Meyer kept quite a bit of their own private label up until 5-10 years ago.

I think they could easily market "nothing's changed but the name" if they were to rebrand any of the banner stores to Kroger, and that would be a truthful message. I still keep coming back to a "why spend the money to change the signs..." thought. Plus if you have to keep some banners in tact due to the format being different...

If they were to rebrand Smiths, Dillons/Gerbes/Bakers, King Soopers/City Market, and Fry's they would have a large continuous Kroger territory throughout the middle of the US. Then outlying Harris Teeter, Ralphs, and Fred Meyer would remain as such. Not sure what that would accomplish though if the objective of a single banner would be to make marketing easier.
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Re: Kroger opening online fulfillment in Oklahoma City

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: December 26th, 2021, 8:17 pm Not sure what that would accomplish though if the objective of a single banner would be to make marketing easier.
Exactly, what would be the point? Grocery retail is very localized. There's no real benefit to having a single recognizable name throughout the country. It wouldn't do much to cut marketing or administrative costs. If anything, it would make stores feel more corporatized and sterile.

Changing banners would be risky, as people can be oddly emotional about such things, especially if they have been shopping at a store for years or decades. Just ask Albertsons what happened when they changed the Lucky banner. I know they made other changes as well, but IMO the name change was what really did them in. They seem to have learned their lesson, because when acquiring Safeway they promised to maintain all banners.

I can't imagine Kroger is going to eliminiate any banners except perhaps a few of the smallest ones, unless they are intentionally trying to shut down a division.
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