Trader Joe’s opening two new locations in Reno/Sparks, NV

[bryceleinan]

Trader Joe’s officially announced their new South Reno (Summit) and Sparks (Spanish Springs) locations. South Reno is at the Shayden Summit (former Summit Sierra), in the recently-vacated Orvis location. Spanish Springs is the recently-vacated World Market.

As @storewanderer and I could both tell you, the existing Reno location at McCarran and Virginia has more business than it knows what to do with it. Two additional locations would help the market out, since the only other store in the area is down in south Carson, off Topsy in Douglas County.

https://locations.traderjoes.com/nv/reno/278/

https://locations.traderjoes.com/nv/sparks/279/

[ClownLoach]

They are aggressively trying to address the overloaded locations. I suspect that after many years of just adding staff they're realizing with rising labor costs that it is just plain inefficient to keep throwing absurd amounts of labor at one store that is so busy it requires a full stocking crew during all open hours just to keep the shelves full and multiple deliveries throughout the day. It's probably cheaper now to add another location or two especially when they can probably run all three with the same staff that used to run a single location and eliminate all the small fill-in delivery loads

[storewanderer]

They are aggressively trying to address the overloaded locations. I suspect that after many years of just adding staff they're realizing with rising labor costs that it is just plain inefficient to keep throwing absurd amounts of labor at one store that is so busy it requires a full stocking crew during all open hours just to keep the shelves full and multiple deliveries throughout the day. It's probably cheaper now to add another location or two especially when they can probably run all three with the same staff that used to run a single location and eliminate all the small fill-in delivery loads

They'll build volume with the new locations. They will increase customer frequency by being closer to more customers. They will also increase customer frequency from people who didn't shop there because the single store "was too crowded."

They need to get a couple locations in the West/Northwest portion of Reno. That area is awful for grocery stores- no presence of WinCo, Smiths, Whole Foods, Grocery Outlet, or Sprouts. Two terrible Save Marts that don't do very well, three so-so Raleys that do very well, one marginal Raleys that doesn't appear to do all that great (former Scolaris), a poor Safeway that does okay, and a marginal Wal Mart that does fantastic volume. Multiple closed Scolaris boxes there ranging from store 2 to their second newest store which was I think store 29 that are now non-grocery uses (4th/Stoker, McCarran/Kings Row, Sharlands/I-80) or demolished (California/Booth- that one was a former Safeway). Also a closed Super Kmart that was very low volume that is now non grocery use (Summit Ridge/I-80).

[ClownLoach]

They are aggressively trying to address the overloaded locations. I suspect that after many years of just adding staff they're realizing with rising labor costs that it is just plain inefficient to keep throwing absurd amounts of labor at one store that is so busy it requires a full stocking crew during all open hours just to keep the shelves full and multiple deliveries throughout the day. It's probably cheaper now to add another location or two especially when they can probably run all three with the same staff that used to run a single location and eliminate all the small fill-in delivery loads

They'll build volume with the new locations. They will increase customer frequency by being closer to more customers. They will also increase customer frequency from people who didn't shop there because the single store "was too crowded."

They need to get a couple locations in the West/Northwest portion of Reno. That area is awful for grocery stores- no presence of WinCo, Smiths, Whole Foods, Grocery Outlet, or Sprouts. Two terrible Save Marts that don't do very well, three so-so Raleys that do very well, one marginal Raleys that doesn't appear to do all that great (former Scolaris), a poor Safeway that does okay, and a marginal Wal Mart that does fantastic volume. Multiple closed Scolaris boxes there ranging from store 2 to their second newest store which was I think store 29 that are now non-grocery uses (4th/Stoker, McCarran/Kings Row, Sharlands/I-80) or demolished (California/Booth- that one was a former Safeway). Also a closed Super Kmart that was very low volume that is now non grocery use (Summit Ridge/I-80).

Absolutely. At this point it seems they have tremendous momentum and I definitely agree that they lose shops because the store is too crowded. I would shop them more often if it was less of a hassle, and now I'm getting one of the largest stores they operate anywhere closer to home than my current store. And you're correct that if 50% of the customers migrate from store A to new store B, store A is not going to lose much in sales. I learned this in the San Diego area where I operated a overloaded store that was too small, too little parking. I opened another location just a couple miles down the road and half the customers immediately switched to the new store, but the old store only dropped about 15% of its sales. Yes I had two overheads now but it increased sales by a net 65%, took market share, and was more profitable overall. The secret is labor was basically the same to run both stores as when I only had the overloaded unit, and all the employees were happier since their jobs got easier with less crowds and much less restocking and cleanup needed. Plus customer survey scores skyrocketed along with basket size. I imagine Trader Joe's is having identical experience. More than half the customers of my current store will likely move to the new one, but I think everyone else will add more shops and make up for it at the expense of everyone else in the area.