Retail Watchers

Kroger recently (within the last week) rolled out delivery with Harris Teeter (part of Ocado) in the Washington DC area. Really begs the question why they're investing in this if they basically want to discard Harris Teeter in the area anyway. (Unless the merger falls through, of course, then it's all cool).

https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com ... y-metro-dc

pseudo3d wrote: ↑September 27th, 2023, 7:53 am Kroger recently (within the last week) rolled out delivery with Harris Teeter (part of Ocado) in the Washington DC area. Really begs the question why they're investing in this if they basically want to discard Harris Teeter in the area anyway. (Unless the merger falls through, of course, then it's all cool).

https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com ... y-metro-dc

Still plenty of Harris Teeters not in proximity to Safeways (largely in new-growth areas, where Safeway has failed to catch up), plus Ocado delivery does not necessarily need to be affected by divested physical storefronts.

BatteryMill wrote: ↑September 27th, 2023, 9:17 am

pseudo3d wrote: ↑September 27th, 2023, 7:53 am Kroger recently (within the last week) rolled out delivery with Harris Teeter (part of Ocado) in the Washington DC area. Really begs the question why they're investing in this if they basically want to discard Harris Teeter in the area anyway. (Unless the merger falls through, of course, then it's all cool).

https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com ... y-metro-dc

Still plenty of Harris Teeters not in proximity to Safeways (largely in new-growth areas, where Safeway has failed to catch up), plus Ocado delivery does not necessarily need to be affected by divested physical storefronts.

I'm very curious to see the list of the ten Harris Teeter stores that are being sold off. In Northern Virginia, Harris Teeter seems to have the most stores in the first ring suburbs and then the further out suburbs like Loudoun County. Safeway has a good string of stores from Sterling proper to Reston, down to Fairfax, Burke and over towards Springfield and Alexandria. The majority of the Safeway stores have received some sort of decor update in the past 18 months or so. Interestingly, the huge dual entrance stores (with the bakery, deli, wine grand aisles) in Kingstowne and at Pan Am Plaza didn't get any decor updates. Then again, Safeway hasn't exactly been expanding over recent years. The only new Northern Virginia store is the Fair City Mall location in Fairfax. But that was a purchase of what was a Shoppers. I was thinking that Safeway would be the chain to be divested as their stores are older and not perceived to be as upscale as the Harris Teeter locations. I also had the thought that the merged entity would keep the non-union stores to try to save on costs where they could while keeping the majority of the union stores in areas where they is much more overlap.