Lacey, WA TOP Foods to close
-
Super S
- Posts: 2723
- Joined: April 1st, 2009, 9:27 pm
- Has thanked: 17 times
- Been thanked: 63 times
- Status: Offline
Re: Lacey, WA TOP Foods to close
I was in the Tanasbourne area near Hillsboro, Oregon today, and noticed the Haggen store there has now closed. Not sure how many are left in the Portland area at this point, but I do know that Walmart is moving in to a couple of the closed locations.
-
storewanderer
- Posts: 14940
- Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
- Has thanked: 3 times
- Been thanked: 341 times
- Contact:
- Status: Offline
Re: Lacey, WA TOP Foods to close
Oregon City and Tualitin are still open... supposedly they will retain those two.
-
Super S
- Posts: 2723
- Joined: April 1st, 2009, 9:27 pm
- Has thanked: 17 times
- Been thanked: 63 times
- Status: Offline
Re: Lacey, WA TOP Foods to close
Down to only two stores in the Portland market. I am curious if Haggen actually owns these buildings or if they are leased. That could be a factor here. However, with a relatively weak distribution system compared to the competition, it is going to be very hard for them to be competitive on price, especially with Walmart rolling out its "neighborhood market" format.storewanderer wrote:Oregon City and Tualitin are still open... supposedly they will retain those two.
-
storewanderer
- Posts: 14940
- Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
- Has thanked: 3 times
- Been thanked: 341 times
- Contact:
- Status: Offline
Re: Lacey, WA TOP Foods to close
Yes, two stores in Portland far removed from the rest of the base doesn't make much sense. Those two stores are pretty close together and I would guess they can exist relatively easier for ad/vendor reasons. I have no idea how the stores do; Tualatin was the first Haggen I ever visited but I never have been to the Oregon City location.
Haggen cannot compete on price. There are a ton of reasons why they can't compete on price (distribution costs from a warehouse in Bellingham area (?) when most competitiors have warehouses much closer to Seattle and/or Portland, the size of the chain, the overhead from running that warehouse up there to supply so few open stores...). This is not an excuse to have outrageous prices (which I feel they had for a lot of years), though. I do think they have made some adjustments to the pricing recently, for the better.
They need to have fair prices. Prices below Safeway (something many independent stores can do, Safeway's pricing is so outrageous).
They need to compete on service, quality, and localizing their product. This means different merchandising in Seattle suburbs than in Bellingham, and different still in Portland. Their quality is excellent and they really need to market that. I think their best shot at surviving is to drive their deli, produce, bakery, and meat/seafood operations in a huge way. Especially, produce, bakery, and deli. Meat/Seafood is done well by some other competitors but I don't think any competitor stands out on the other three areas too much; most do a fine job but nothing remarkable. Their service has been... interesting. I've never had bad service, but things like dress code appear rather lax and their perimeter departments seem to have limited hours and rather minimal staffing.
Haggen cannot compete on price. There are a ton of reasons why they can't compete on price (distribution costs from a warehouse in Bellingham area (?) when most competitiors have warehouses much closer to Seattle and/or Portland, the size of the chain, the overhead from running that warehouse up there to supply so few open stores...). This is not an excuse to have outrageous prices (which I feel they had for a lot of years), though. I do think they have made some adjustments to the pricing recently, for the better.
They need to have fair prices. Prices below Safeway (something many independent stores can do, Safeway's pricing is so outrageous).
They need to compete on service, quality, and localizing their product. This means different merchandising in Seattle suburbs than in Bellingham, and different still in Portland. Their quality is excellent and they really need to market that. I think their best shot at surviving is to drive their deli, produce, bakery, and meat/seafood operations in a huge way. Especially, produce, bakery, and deli. Meat/Seafood is done well by some other competitors but I don't think any competitor stands out on the other three areas too much; most do a fine job but nothing remarkable. Their service has been... interesting. I've never had bad service, but things like dress code appear rather lax and their perimeter departments seem to have limited hours and rather minimal staffing.