Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

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Alpha8472
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Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by Alpha8472 »

Not even 1 month after Sprout's closed, a new Korean supermarket has been announced. Mega Mart is a South Korean chain that is expanding in the U.S.

In San Francisco, the former Albertsons which is now a Korean supermarket called H Mart, is expanding to over 70,000 square feet. The Korean supermarkets draw huge crowds and are very profitable.

Why doesn't Albertsons just buy up some Korean supermarkets in the U.S.? They will make a ton of money.
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Re: Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by storewanderer »

These Korean Supermarkets are over-confident. They don't have a wide appeal. I think they may be over expanding.

Also Sprouts is quite small for this type of format.
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Re: Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

In Sacramento so far, it's still largely koreana plaza in Rancho Cordova and maybe a few small mom-and-pop operations.No h-marts yet,not to mention that there aren't yet enough 99 Ranch,Shun Fat, seafood city,and/or Island Pacific locations locally as there could be.

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Re: Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by storewanderer »

norcalriteaidclerk wrote: July 15th, 2022, 12:21 am In Sacramento so far, it's still largely koreana plaza in Rancho Cordova and maybe a few small mom-and-pop operations.No h-marts yet,not to mention that there aren't yet enough 99 Ranch,Shun Fat, seafood city,and/or Island Pacific locations locally as there could be.

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Koreana Plaza though, they are trying to be a true International Marketplace. Beyond Asian items, they have heavy Hispanic items and heavy "Euro" food items as well, plus full sort of abbreviated assortment of normal American groceries, over on the side of the store closest to the checkstands. Looking at their pricing and promotions most of it is on the Asian foods. The other categories are just sort of there. I think 80% of their business is Asian items and they do a great job from a mix standpoint with the various Asian food categories, not just Korean. They are a great store.

Sacramento has a surprising number of small grocery stores to cater to various ethnic groups, scattered throughout the area. Many of these are long term businesses. Over at 80 at Madison offramp there are a couple of small Russian stores even, some good tea assortments there were what interested me. One is mostly a deli with prepared foods which I was told are very good as well but not sure on that myself. These stores have been around for years.
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Re: Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: July 14th, 2022, 10:28 pm These Korean Supermarkets are over-confident. They don't have a wide appeal. I think they may be over expanding.

Also Sprouts is quite small for this type of format.
Mega Mart opened its first U.S. location in the (now dead) Gwinnett Place Mall back in 2010 in a former Macy's (Davison's). While it was difficult to fill the space (the third floor was always events space, and a second floor has been sporadically open, with at least one failed attempt at an apparel department), Sprouts is much, much smaller than a former department store, and usually half the size of a "real" supermarket. So I'm very doubtful about how that would work, and it's not good to have wildly inconsistent store locations for fairly young chains.

H Mart, on the other hand, seems to run a consistently popular operation. I've been to three of its locations. One in the "Chinatown" part of Houston (their smallest location, though still had the Asian/French bakery), one in a former Randalls (which included a food court where most of the old perishable departments were), and one in Austin, which is huge and composed of two smaller big box stores (one of which being a Sports Authority). There, the food hall and associated smaller stores take up half the store with the main grocery section in the other half (a ramp connects the two halves)...I think I mentioned this recently.
Alpha8472 wrote: July 14th, 2022, 7:18 pm Not even 1 month after Sprout's closed, a new Korean supermarket has been announced. Mega Mart is a South Korean chain that is expanding in the U.S.

In San Francisco, the former Albertsons which is now a Korean supermarket called H Mart, is expanding to over 70,000 square feet. The Korean supermarkets draw huge crowds and are very profitable.

Why doesn't Albertsons just buy up some Korean supermarkets in the U.S.? They will make a ton of money.
There's only a small number of Korean supermarket chains in the United States, and outside of a few metro areas, there's not really a lot of places to go. Plus, they tend to rely heavily on fresh product (in particular, fish--H Mart has excellent seafood departments). The Asian supermarkets are wildly different in format from traditional supermarkets (even in floor plan), and while every supermarket chain has tried some sort of Hispanic format, most of them have been failures. I can't imagine them trying to do anything with Asian supermarkets.
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Re: Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by Romr123 »

Only thing is that Loblaw's has been successful with a Chinese supermarket concept (T&T) which they've expanded nationwide from their base in Vancouver.
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Re: Sprouts In Fremont To Become Mega Mart

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: July 15th, 2022, 1:42 pm Only thing is that Loblaw's has been successful with a Chinese supermarket concept (T&T) which they've expanded nationwide from their base in Vancouver.
T&T is not nearly as "integrated" into Loblaw's as the other chains they own are. T&T does not have the same systems as the other Loblaw chains, has very little PC product, and really if you weren't looking close you'd never know they owned it.
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