Perfectly aligned

Whether it was a coincidence or not (with how sloppy these remodels are, I'm betting it was), the produce department sign is almost perfectly centered on the mid-aisle cut through, which is pretty cool! Less cool is the flooring, which as you can see in the foreground has a very obvious transition between the aisles and the produce department -- I suspect this is from the mid-2010s refresh, which often expanded the woodgrain flooring somewhat (though normally in a more seamless way than this -- here, it looks like someone ordered the wrong flooring!).

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  1. Yeah, that's a flooring mismatch there for sure!

    It's interesting to see that this Safeway charges 69 cents/pound for 'regular' bananas. That's pretty similar to the prices for 'regular' bananas at Publix and Winn-Dixie stores in Florida. Here in Houston, most of the middle of the road grocers charge around 49 cents/pound for 'regular' bananas. Randall's usually pivots between 47 cents/pound-55 cents/pound, but they usually have a somewhat perpetual Just 4 U digital coupon for bananas at 47 cents/pound regardless of original price. Organic bananas at Randall's, and many other stores around here, are the same 69 cents/pound price that this Safeway charges for 'regular' bananas.

    I often use bananas to determine the overall prices that various grocers have in different markets, lol.

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    1. Huh, that's funny -- honestly, I hate bananas (my dad loves them and always tried to make me eat them as a kid), so that's not something I've ever paid attention to. Looking around online, it looks like most stores around here have them for about 60 cents/lb, so Safeway is more expensive but not that much. (Which is surprising, because Safeway typically has the best prices on produce of mainstream grocery stores...)

      I will note that I've often noticed prices that seem surprisingly low looking at grocery store pictures from elsewhere in the country. I suppose that's not too surprising, seeing as this is one of the more expensive parts of the country in general. And it's not universal -- there are some products (bread and milk in particular) that often seem rather expensive in other parts of the country, perhaps because we have local producers.

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    2. It's not surprising to me that the NW has higher prices than some other markets. I suspect that real estate, transportation, and labor costs are higher in the NW than in most of the rest of the country. OTOH, the NW does have at least some retail competition, which probably helps compared to some markets where there are near-monopolies, but I'm not sure how much of the competition in the NW is really focused on low prices versus having an upscale image and such.

      Here in Houston, the competition is very fierce and a lot of focus is put on prices. Many grocers want to be in this market. HEB, Kroger, Randall's/Safeway, Aldi, Walmart, Fiesta, Food Town, and a few others all have a major presence in this area. Articles from the past indicate that grocers like HEB use their monopoly areas to have higher prices to sort of balance out the areas where they keep prices as low as possible to try to drive away competition. Also, HEB and Fiesta use different prices in different stores within Houston depending on the level of competition in the area. This makes it difficult to shop based of sales circulars since different HEB &Fiestas have different sale prices/items.

      This compares to Florida where there is more limited competition and the most loved supermarket, Publix, has high prices. Although the cost of doing business is probably not much different in Florida than it is here in Houston, Publix can get away with charging a lot more since customers like them and probably expect their level of service. I suspect if grocer known for good service and low prices, like HEB, entered Florida, Publix would have to make some changes to prevent loss of marketshare. Fortunately for Publix, the list of grocers with high customer service and low prices is quite short, lol.

      We know from Retail Retell's reports that the amount of grocery competition in the Mid-South is quite minimal. I looked up banana prices at a Southaven Kroger and while they are marginally higher than Kroger's prices in Houston, they're still lower than what grocers in the NW and Florida charge. While I'm sure Walmart is powerful in Florida, perhaps they're even more powerful in the Mid-South and so maybe that's why Kroger can't ask for Florida Publix/Winn-Dixie prices even with the limited competition. I don't know, maybe Retail Retell can offer some insights if he's reading this!

      As for bananas, I wasn't a huge fan of them for many years, but I've come to appreciate the ease of eating them. They don't need to be washed and/or cut unlike some other fruits. Anyway, I've found that the prices of bananas often correlates with the prices of the store in general, but perhaps that's not quite true with NW Safeways if they generally have good prices on produce. Randall's prices on bananas might be competitive, but they're most certainly one of the most expensive grocers in Houston (though Randall's does run good sales and they have good digital coupons so it's possible to get good deals at Randall's if you do your homework).

      You might be displeased to learn that the last time I bought apples from Randall's, they were from Canada and not Washington, lol.

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    3. (1/2) I was asked to provide some insights, so here goes :) I’ve never really paid attention to the variations in pricing between stores before, mostly because when I go to photograph them I don’t intend for my pictures to be any sort of commentary on the state of operations of the store besides strictly the décor design and layout, or other things of that nature. That said, based on the discussion above, I do agree that the variations are kinda interesting to examine. Using the apps and websites of the following retailers, I was able to track down banana prices here in the Mid-South…

      Where I live in Hernando, bananas are 65¢/lb at Kroger. This is closer to the upper end of the spectrum as can be seen in the Northwest with Safeway and in Florida with Publix. However, after Hernando, I also checked banana prices at multiple other Kroger stores in the Memphis metro area – 14 other stores altogether, out of a total 34 stores in the metro. 13 that I checked all had bananas for 55¢/lb, like you saw at the Southaven Kroger you looked at. That’s 10¢ cheaper than Hernando! Evidently, Kroger thinks Hernando can get away with the higher prices to an extent the other stores cannot. True, we only have Kroger and Walmart in Hernando, but the other stores aren’t a far drive. Still, I guess they assume most of us wouldn’t make that drive, and with Walmart being the only other game in town, they think they’re free to charge us more (probably also a valid argument, realistically speaking).

      The last Kroger in the Memphis metro that I checked, on the other hand, is located in Raleigh, a neighborhood that is somewhat poorer than others. At that Kroger, bananas are just 49¢/lb. It’s good to see Kroger isn’t artificially inflating the price at that store, and in fact seems to be lowering the price to better cater to the shoppers in that area. I know there’s a Walmart in the same shopping center as that particular Kroger, but I didn’t check the price of bananas there, and I don’t know what other grocery options there are in Raleigh, if any.

      On a broader scale, I have mentioned in the past – and clearly you got the same impression – that competition here in the Mid-South is minimal. However, something you may not have heard is that, when Schnucks exited our market (selling out to Kroger) in 2011, they explicitly cited “high competition” as a factor in their exit. So what gives? Schnucks mentioned “nontraditional” grocers. I must admit that Memphis does have a handful of Whole Foods, Fresh Markets, even a Trader Joe’s nowadays (although that one wasn’t around in 2011, but still). On the other side of things, there are also some Save-a-Lots, lots of Aldis, and a number of Superlo Foods stores. But my question is – are those stores really enough to have such a big effect on other grocery stores, competition-wise? I honestly don’t know the answer.

      When I refer to a lack of competition I’m mainly doing it from a pure grocery store standpoint. That is, after Schnucks left, we now have only Kroger as our sole “regular” grocery store in the region. Walmart runs supercenters, Aldi is a discount grocer, Whole Foods is a high-end grocer, Superlo is an independent, etc. I guess it’s true that, if you look at it from a standpoint of “any retailer that sells groceries at all,” the competition is higher. Kroger and Walmart are still kings of that crowd, but the story isn’t as simple as I make it out to be when I simplify it by only referring to pure grocery stores.

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    4. (2/2) With all that out of the way, though… my personal opinion is still that the other players don’t make many waves in this market, but your interpretation of the situation is as good as mine. I personally think Schnucks just needed to make an excuse besides flat-out saying “Kroger and Walmart are kicking our butt.” Scale probably also played a role in Schnucks’s decision to exit. In 2010, Schnucks closed one of their local stores, leaving them with 12 at the time of their exit in 2011. Of those, four were closed, and Kroger took over the remaining eight (closing two of their own stores in the process, resulting in a net increase of six). The point is to say that, where Schnucks once had 12 or 13 stores, Kroger prior to 2011 had 37 stores in the metro area – and while I don’t have figures for Walmart, they had/have many locations as well. How was Schnucks supposed to be able to compete with that massive difference in scale?

      Further pointing to the disparity between the powerhouses of Kroger/Walmart and the comparatively miniscule impact of the other grocers in Memphis, in Kroger’s annual fact book, their number one competitor in Memphis has always been listed as Walmart. But ever since Schnucks’s exit, their number two competitor has most consistently been Walgreens, of all things. If that doesn’t say something about the lack of impact of the other grocers in the metro, I don’t know what does! Side note though, as of 2019 the second competitor has been changed to Superlo – so evidently Superlo is starting to make more of an impact. But back on the topic of banana prices, I checked three of Superlo’s nine stores, and they’re all firm at 69¢/lb – so, at least on that specific item, they don’t seem very competitive at all.

      Walmart is a different story. In Hernando, banana prices are 61¢/lb – so, a little lower than the Hernando Kroger, but still not as low as all those other Krogers in the region. I couldn’t check per pound prices at other Walmarts, but the app did give me approximate per banana prices. Where Hernando is approximately 24¢/banana, Southaven is 19¢/banana – so still a big difference there. The “higher prices where there’s no competition” theory certainly resonates in other areas, too: Senatobia, where there’s only a Walmart and an independent food mart, has 24¢/banana at Walmart, like Hernando does. And in Greenville, MS, where – again – there’s only Kroger and Walmart, Kroger again charges 65¢/lb. All of this goes to show that comparing the price of bananas certainly does seem to have a lot of merit in judging the competitive situation of a given area!

      Oh, and finally… of course, we all know that Target famously charges 29¢ for “banana’s by the each”! https://i.redd.it/ckz39ccidurz.jpg

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    5. Also, just as a quick follow-up: whereas after the Schnucks exit, Kroger had 42 stores in the Memphis MSA, as of present-day 2021 they now have just 34. It seems to me that usually, having the ability to close stores like that while still being able to remain in place as the dominant retailer in your category, points to yet more proof that there isn't really much competition in the area. (It also seems to result in stores being closed in neighborhoods that are often unfortunately left behind as food deserts, but that's a different story... and one where I don't think there's ever simply one good resolution, as I can understand both sides of the coin [no sense in operating a store if it isn't profitable]. But again, I digress...)

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    6. Wow, that is a lot of information! I never realized there was so much difference between prices at different stores of the same brand. I'm really only familiar with Safeway, and they tend to keep prices the same at all of their stores within a certain market (meaning that there are some things that are cheaper in rural Western Washington than in the Seattle urban area, but stores within the Seattle area all have the same pricing... and most items are even the same between urban and rural stores). I do know that Target often has different prices at different stores, but even then, generally stores that are close together have the same price. (Target even gives you different prices when shopping online depending on what store you have selected, something I've definitely never exploited! 😉)

      I'm quite surprised to hear how few Krogers there are in the Memphis region -- I would have guessed there would be many more! By comparison, there are about 85 Safeways plus 13 remaining Albertsons in the Seattle MSA... though, then again, the population is about three times as much (which I also would never have guessed!). That number would have been much higher a few years back, as many Safeways and Albertsons closed following the merger. I suspect that Safeway is even more dominant here than Kroger is there -- in the same area, we only have 20 Walmarts (quite a few of which are old-style ones with minimal groceries, even) along with about 30 QFCs and 30 Fred Meyers (their website is very frustrating so that's just a rough estimate from Google Maps). Like you, I'm also doubtful about how much the specialty and upscale grocery stores are really competing with normal ones, but I can't say for sure.

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    7. Hey, y'all asked XD Yeah, I never really realized the amount of variation either. It's certainly interesting though. The 55¢ per pound seems to be at mostly all the Memphis area stores, with only two of the ones I looked at deviating from that price, so it sounds like Kroger has a similar pricing strategy to what you describe of Safeway -- just not absolute for all stores, like Safeway's is. And yeah, I remember hearing stories about Target's pricing strategies -- that one's really strange...

      Goodness gracious that's a lot of Safeways!! And here I was thinking the Memphis area had a lot of stores -- I've found out that the Jackson area only has 12 Krogers, and like 3-4 Walmarts, which is waaaaay fewer than I would've expected. And they're not even big Krogers either... so much for being spoiled with my nice big DeSoto County stores :P Anyway, yeah, absolutely it's gotta be population driving the number of locations. That and the other usual suspects such as demographics, economics, etc. I had no idea the Seattle area was so large either! And while other competition may or may not play a role, at least you guys do have other pure grocery stores in your area. Besides independents (which I don't think are as competitive a lot of the time), pretty much all of Mississippi is just like Memphis, where there's only one pure grocery player. (Of course, there are Walmarts too, but again, I don't consider them pure grocery.)

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    8. Wow, Retail Retell didn't just give us some insights, but he also gave us some great research as well! That's some good information there and some of it is rather surprising.

      Schnucks' statement about the competition in the Mid-South could be a relative statement based on the level of competition in some of their biggest markets like St. Louis. I'm not too familiar with the grocery segment in St. Louis, but I do know that's one of the markets that Kroger abandoned along with several other major markets back in the 1980s. I reckon that Schnucks has a pretty large chunk of the pie in St. Louis and that some of their competition there is not nearly as powerful as the might of Kroger. Schnucks might have been able to run Kroger off many years ago in St. Louis, but perhaps they didn't have the same commitment to engaging in a price war in a market that was a bit distant from their headquarters. Sometimes regional grocers find themselves to be a fish out of water when they expand beyond the market that they know.

      That's pretty shocking that Kroger would ever consider Walgreens to be their biggest competitor! Even if that's not what Kroger lists as their biggest competitor now, it does say a lot about the competition in the Mid-South.

      I'm quite surprised that there is as much variance in prices at Krogers in the Mid-South as there is. Granted, there doesn't seem to be a lot of variance within Memphis, but still. Like NW Retail's Safeways in his area, Kroger and Randall's here have pretty consistent prices as far as I can tell. I checked a handful of Houston Krogers in varying places and all were selling bananas for 49 cents/pound. But, yeah, it does seem that Hernando and other areas with higher prices might be subsidizing some areas of the Mid-South where perhaps there is more competition...even if that competition isn't all that stiff.

      It's interesting to look at Kroger's strategies in Houston versus the Mid-South. Kroger certainly has fierce competition in Houston from HEB who is rapidly approaching Kroger in marketshare. That's not to mention all the other competitors. I wouldn't say that Houston is slow to get renovations and new decor packages from Kroger, but new decor seems to be deployed at Mid-South stores quicker/more frequently than they are here in Houston even with all that competition! Perhaps Kroger is being very pro-active in trying to maintain their grip in the Mid-South and they're not risking yielding any ground by keeping their prices on the lower side (Hernando, Senatobia, and Greenville aside, perhaps, lol) and by keeping the stores up-to-date. Of course, Kroger has over a hundred stores in the Houston area alone so it might be harder for this division to be agile in deploying new store decor and such.

      I'm aware of Target's strategy of pricing bananas by item only and not by weight. For the most part, Target's grocery prices in Houston are ridiculously high compared to Walmart/supermarkets. They make shopping at Randall's feel thrifty, lol. I think Target was aware of their lack of competitiveness in this regard and built Super Targets rather sparingly in Houston...especially in North Houston...even though Target themselves has a large presence here. Most of the Super Targets that were built are not-so-Super now so that just highlights the lack of competitiveness.

      I've found that buying groceries from Target is like buying plain white tube socks from Macy's. The prices can be so outrageous that even the allure of one-stop shopping is not enough to make the purchase, lol.

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    9. Retail Retell: Yep, there's a reason I think of Safeway as being the king around here! There are 17 of them just in Seattle (though I suspect that includes this store, so... 16) and 171 in the state -- by far the most of any state except for California, and probably the most per capita by far (though I haven't done the math for the smaller states). Another big factor is that (as I've discussed extensively with Anonymous) Safeway is generally towards the lower end of the pricing scale (when it comes to staples -- certainly not for specialty food), and we don't really have the discount grocery options that most places have (just Walmart, which is pretty rare in the Seattle area itself, and Grocery Outlet).

      Anon: It's kind of hard to compare Kroger around here to other areas, since their two formats here are very much non-standard, but it's still interesting to see the differences. Even though QFC around here has a fairly small presence, they're still very slow to remodel their stores, which I suspect is a combination of Fresh Fare working well for them and their slow sales meaning that they don't have so much money laying around to remodel stores with. Fred Meyer, on the other hand, had been on a serious remodel kick until the recession kicked in, but I suspect their remodels were motivated in large part by a desire to change the merchandise mix in their stores, since their general merchandise departments are horribly uncompetitive these days, even while their grocery departments are very busy in most stores. They're really trending the opposite way from Target, funnily enough!

      And speaking of Target, at least around here, I've found their grocery prices to be a mixed bag. Fresh groceries are extremely overpriced, but for everything else, their prices are a good bit lower than Safeway/Fred Meyer/QFC and only a little bit higher than Walmart (which makes Target way more attractive for me, since they're about a 5 minute bike ride from my apartment rather than an hour-plus bus ride!). But they're really trying to make a push into the Seattle market, while Walmart seems to have largely given up on our area, so I imagine they're motivated to undercut the existing stores. And all that being said, you can typically get things for at least as good of a price as Target on sale at Safeway, though Safeway hasn't been running very many good sales since COVID started so I've been shopping at Target more. Back when I shopped in Ballard, though, I was really hoping for Target to have competitive prices with Safeway when the new Target opened, but I almost never shopped there since the pricing wasn't nearly good enough to justify the second stop (since Target's grocery selection is rather pathetic, even in their newest stores).

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    10. @Anonymous: That's definitely a fair point about Schnucks. In addition to the competition aspect, something else they cited upon their exit was a lingering high-price perception. Schnucks had acquired the stores from Albertsons, who in turn had acquired the stores from Bruno's, who in turn had acquired the original banner: Seessel's, a beloved family-run grocery chain in Memphis. All of those owners kept the Seessel's name, but increasingly altered the chain to their own appearance -- by the end of Albertsons' run, they were Albertsons in all but name. Schnucks decided to take that last step and change the name away from Seessel's. I can understand what they were thinking, but ultimately my impression is that some people soured on that and never cared for Schnucks as a result. And as for other people, well, Seessel's had been known for its high quality -- kinda like Publix; not really its cheapness. So even though Schnucks changed the name, I guess the high price perception stuck with them -- bad combination when you're losing customers already from the name change... (But that's a whole other can of worms!)

      Right?! Walmart still is and always has been listed as Kroger's number one competitor in the Mid-South, but for that period there after Schnucks left, it was commonly Walgreens at number two. Wild.

      Yep, good summary there -- competition seems to be affecting prices somewhat in Memphis, but the competition certainly isn't all that stiff by any means. And as for your theory on Kroger's greater focus on remodels in the Mid-South, I'd say you're definitely onto something there. Kroger absolutely wants to keep its stronghold in our area. After Schnucks left they committed to being more responsive and remodeling more. A lot of Memphians want Publix to come to the area. I'm sure Kroger is doing all they can to keep Publix out.

      As a matter of fact, Publix has probably had a few chances already -- if not in 2011 when Schnucks left, then back in 2002 when Albertsons sold out the first time. Obviously, Schnucks bought the Memphis stores, but in Nashville Albertsons sold to Publix instead. That says to me that Publix wasn't interested in Memphis at the time -- and for all I know, they were contacted but passed on the stores in 2011, too. Now granted, Publix tends to prefer its own store builds rather than existing buildings, I know, but I truly do wonder how desirable Publix assesses expansion into Memphis to be. I know at least one person who seems to suggest that Publix will not only come to Memphis but also all throughout Mississippi and Arkansas in the future. Without going too off-topic here, I'll close this conversation by saying that that simply is not feasible.

      We only had one Super Target, and it closed in 2019, as you might have seen on my flickr page. I don't know how many people in the area go to Target for their groceries, but yeah, I don't imagine that Target is very competitive when it comes to that arena. (LOL at the Macy's comparison!)

      @NWRetail: Wow, yeah, that's insane! Those factors definitely explain a lot, though.

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