Lacey, WA TOP Foods to close

[Super S]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/01/2 ... th-no.html

Lacey has had two other recent closings, an Albertsons, and a Kmart. I am curious if Haggen is still planning to phase out the TOP name, or if there are more closings planned. Time will tell.

Haggen also opened a TOP store in Kelso in the early 90s, and it never seemed to do particularly well. It closed about 12 years ago and Safeway took over the location.

[storewanderer]

There is also a vintage QFC in Lacey (last remodel was probably, I don't know when...). I wouldn't expect it to make it.

I see a few more closures for Haggen/Top Food. Unfortunate, but, there is an awful lot of competition...

[Super S]

I would not be surprised for the few remaining Haggen stores in the Portland area to leave. They seem to be gradually disappearing. The "upscale" types of stores need to have a reason to justify higher prices in this economy. And TOP is not always competitive on price, at least in Kelso they were not. A store like TOP, which advertises low prices, needs to keep that promise or they won't stay around. I am under the impression that Haggen as a whole is losing its focus.

As for QFC, they have not done particularly well in Portland either. They seem to do ok in the Seattle area, but I have noticed quite a few have moved away from 24 hour operations and a number of locations have closed. I have to wonder if the QFC name will eventually go away though, as it is interesting that Kroger has kept both the Fred Meyer and QFC names in the same markets.

[marshd1000]

As for the continued existence of the QFC name, I don't think it will go away, at least in the Puget Sound area. While Fred Meyer is very popular in Seattle as well as Portland, QFC is very strong in Seattle. It has always had the reputation of being a upscale store, while Fred Meyer has been generally positioned as more middle class. Having said that, Freddy's does have some stores that are upscale. Because QFC has not been in Portland for that many years and there are only a handful, I have wondered if QFC would go away. A thing I could see is the Portland/Vancouver QFCs becoming Fred Meyer Northwest Best stores. But while those stores are very QFC-like, I don't think converting the Seattle QFCs to Fred Meyer Northwest Best stores would go over well!

[storewanderer]

I was in the Federal Way Top Store recently (another one I expect to close soon). I noticed the pricing looked a little bit better than in the past. They seem to keep scaling back bakery, deli, and even produce more and more. I saw various private labels present; Haggen, Western Family, and Food Club. The store seems well stocked on dry goods. Staffing levels are low and customer counts are even lower.

For the type of store Top tries to market itself as, its prices are too high, and so is the quality of the product they are selling. They also have too wide of a merchandise selection. I am not saying they are a bad store, but their pricing, quality, and product mix are not in line with a supposed discount format store.

I also got to the Puyallup Top and customer counts there definitely looked better than Federal Way.

The QFCs in Portland are an interesting little case. It would not surprise me to see Kroger put those under Fred Meyer but then they would need to move to a Fred Meyer price scale and that scale is way lower than the QFC scale for a lot of the exact same products. A few of those are tiny, tiny stores.

QFC reminds me so much of the old Cala/Bell Stores that Kroger shuttered in NorCal.

I am sure QFC is a profitable group of stores for Kroger and it is the one division that has been successful in an urban setting at capturing an upscale customer. I believe Kroger has learned a lot from QFC when it comes to running an upscale bakery, deli, produce, and meat operation. The Bellevue Plaza QFC is the second nicest store I've seen in all of Kroger (the Frys SIgnature Marketplace is the best in the whole company, I am sure). I find the QFC Stores to have very good quality, interesting selection, and excellent service. They have some lousy stores like Lacey and Marine View, but those are exceptions. I suspect Fred Meyer picked up some ideas from QFC, too. QFC deserves more credit than it probably gets.

[Brian Lutz]

When the Bellevue store got converted to Haggen Northwest Fresh, the plan was to eventually convert all the Top Foods stores to that format. On the other hand, I have not heard of any other conversions after the first one, so who knows what they're going to do?

[storewanderer]

I am guessing the cash is just not there to convert more Top Stores to Haggen. I would expect the ROI on that remodel in Bellevue was probably non-existent. That Bellevue Store was largely unimpressive; I saw a lot of pointless changes (like rebranding the Belterra bread, moving bulk foods up front, and various other odd decor moves) and not very many changes that really made any sense.

They don't need to reinvent the wheel: they have solid perimeter programs, excellent quality, and pretty good employees. What they need to do is drive sales and get their prices down. But with the number of Top Stores in close proximity to Wal Mart Supercenters in what look to me like somewhat high rent locations, I am afraid it may be a lost cause.

Really, really good operator but they really got burned (maybe a better word is toppled) by competition with Top.

[bm10k]

WinCo Recently Opened A Store In Lacey As Well, So That Might of Hurt TOP as Well

[Brian Lutz]

Yes, I'd have to say the short-lived Redmond Top Foods (the former Larry's Market) was probably one of the two nicest stores in Redmond (the other one being the Bella Bottega QFC, although the Whole Foods is pretty nice but too expensive to be practical for a lot of people,) but I imagine they just weren't doing enough volume to make the store profitable. My parents did most of their shopping there, and will actually make the trip out to the Haggen to shop there as well, but it seems to me that a lot of the changes they made to the store were kind of pointless. All the so-called local branding on the perimiter departments is nice if you happen to live up in Bellingham, but to someone in Bellevue all those places might as well be on the East Coast.

Then again, if Haggen is going to make a go of it anywhere, Bellevue seems to be the place. Sure Walmart has moved in not too far away, but they've made a pretty weak showing with their Neighborhood Market here so far. No service deli/bakery departments, a store that feels cluttered and hard to find things in, and prices that really aren't all that great, especially in the perimeter departments.

[storewanderer]

These current Walmart Neighborhood Markets will never do much volume. They are clearly designed not to. No service departments, often not too large in size, skeleton staffing levels, marginal pricing, awful atmosphere...

But I think they will capture enough volume to force a number of marginally performing conventional grocers out of business in various locations where Walmart does not yet have much of a grocery presence. The various low volume and non-lifestyle Safeways around Denver, various Save Marts throughout NorCal, and scattered poorly performing stores of other chains that are barely hanging on cannot afford a 10-20% sales drop and even though that isn't much for a strong store to lose, it will spell the end of these already marginal stores.

To me, the standout in these newer Walmart Neighborhood Markets is actually the drug area. They have a large selection of cards, OTC, HBA, and other goods. Prices are much better than most grocers and way, way better than WAG (worst), CVS (middle), or Rite Aid (cheapest of the drugstores now, or for now...).