Retail Watchers

https://hoodline.com/2024/04/fry-s-food ... ger-talks/

Fry’s still dominates the Phoenix Metro grocery scene, with 28.3% market share. Albertsons/Safeway has 14% share. 42% share for Kroger if the merger goes through (all but not happening at this point). Walmart is losing ground in market share- they now have 17.8% in the Phoenix metro.


The union/non-union situation in AZ for Safeway/Albertsons will cause headaches for C&S.

Fry’s is the dominant retail advertiser in Phoenix- TV, radio, online, outdoor. You can’t go more that 10 minutes without a Fry’s ad popping up somewhere. AlbertSafeway and Bashas’/Food City seem to only use radio and outdoor.
A/S seems to be going to weekly ads through the mail. We get several of their flyers weekly in the mail-some for the following week’s sale items.

I expect Wal Mart's store growth program to help them in Phoenix.

Fry's has kept up well with new stores and a few new Safeways have opened too.

When did the last Wal Mart open?

I noticed current Fry’s radio ads include the phrase “You’re never more than 5 miles from a Fry’s”

storewanderer wrote: ↑April 10th, 2024, 10:49 pm I expect Wal Mart's store growth program to help them in Phoenix.

Fry's has kept up well with new stores and a few new Safeways have opened too.

When did the last Wal Mart open?

Unfortunately, they have quite a few stores that are absolute dogs. During their next round of remodels they need to do more than paint and department signs. They need a thorough cleaning and modernization w/new doors, coolers, etc. So many of their stores just feel old. You don't really see that with Safeway, save for the one at Seventh Street and Thunderbird Road where they rebuilt the entire front end but kept many of the dingy ABCO fixtures.

rwsandiego wrote: ↑April 17th, 2024, 4:32 pm

storewanderer wrote: ↑April 10th, 2024, 10:49 pm I expect Wal Mart's store growth program to help them in Phoenix.

Fry's has kept up well with new stores and a few new Safeways have opened too.

When did the last Wal Mart open?

Unfortunately, they have quite a few stores that are absolute dogs. During their next round of remodels they need to do more than paint and department signs. They need a thorough cleaning and modernization w/new doors, coolers, etc. So many of their stores just feel old. You don't really see that with Safeway, save for the one at Seventh Street and Thunderbird Road where they rebuilt the entire front end but kept many of the dingy ABCO fixtures.

I did notice on a Walmart near me that they started a remodel last year where they were just doing the basic relay of merchandise, paint and airplane signs but then stopped mid project and determined the site needed to be fully overhauled. At that point they had already reset and moved all of foods, household goods, pharmacy, half of the home product and most of apparel. They started again from scratch and fully replaced all gondolas and shelves, fully rebuilt all refrigeration including replacing the doors, all shelves and panels so to the customer it is in effect a 100% new cooler or freezer, and systematically replaced every fixture in the store. They also determined that store would be added to the flagship program with a dozen or so fully luxurious upgraded stores, that program has since expanded and is going to hit a thousand Walmart buildings now as their Store Of The Future program. This was going to be a 2 month remodel, and 11 months later they just finished the final touches on the pickup area. By the time the remodel was done they had reset the entire grocery department at least three times and probably the same or more for other areas around the store. So Walmart does review these stores as they start these projects and then may make the determination that they need to replace the equipment instead of reuse it.

rwsandiego wrote: ↑April 17th, 2024, 4:32 pm

storewanderer wrote: ↑April 10th, 2024, 10:49 pm I expect Wal Mart's store growth program to help them in Phoenix.

Fry's has kept up well with new stores and a few new Safeways have opened too.

When did the last Wal Mart open?

Unfortunately, they have quite a few stores that are absolute dogs. During their next round of remodels they need to do more than paint and department signs. They need a thorough cleaning and modernization w/new doors, coolers, etc. So many of their stores just feel old. You don't really see that with Safeway, save for the one at Seventh Street and Thunderbird Road where they rebuilt the entire front end but kept many of the dingy ABCO fixtures.

Safeway replaces almost no refrigeration in its remodels and the same goes for Kroger in the past decade or so. The only time they replace refrigeration lately seems to be when they re-size departments. These two have a lot of 1990's refrigeration still sitting in their stores. In the case of Kroger they've covered a lot of it with glass doors... I have seen Kroger replace a lot of seafood cases and deli cases as they resize departments though. But things like produce cases, frozen cases, just aren't getting replaced much by either one of these chains. Safeway did some replacements of things around the perimeters back in the lifestyle remodels but the current crop of Albertsons remodels doesn't seem to touch refrigeration very often. I'm not sure which chain does less.

In the Wal Mart remodels lately (past 2 years) I've been seeing deli refrigeration replaced and some new produce displays installed (island displays, never the main vegetable cooler). Not seeing them touch freezers, dairy, bakery, or meat refrigeration. Bathrooms are literally being bulldozed and started over but I'm not sure how much it helps. In Wal Mart remodels prior to the past 2 years they never touched refrigeration.