The remodel kept the exact same layout in the health and beauty section, even including the weird offset between the frozen and health/beauty aisles, but again, there's still a very obvious change in how this store feels following the remodel. Sadly, part of that is because the remodel removed all of the interesting features from the health and beauty section, and didn't even include any of the fancy features (such as LED lighting integrated into the shelving) that were frequently added in Lifestyle v3-based mid-2010s refreshes of stores with fancy health and beauty departments like this one. And is common in recent local Safeway remodels, this store doesn't have proper endcap displays at all, instead just having plain shelving.
The Lifestyle v2 design of the pharmacy area is certainly more elaborate, and perhaps classier, looking than this, but this does not look too bad all things considered at least relative to what we see at some other supermarkets. This certainly looks brighter, but also 'cooler' than the v2 design in terms of the general colors switching from yellowish colors to bluish colors.
ReplyDeleteI would have guessed 2020 judging by the hand sanitizer on the endcap (and perhaps the toilet paper in the cart, but maybe those are kitchen paper towels). These days, it seems Kroger and Randall's are fire selling whatever hand sanitizer they overstocked on during the 2020 pandemic. One Kroger was giving away bottles of sanitizer at the register and Randall's seems to frequently have digital coupons for free hand sanitizer (though, admittedly, I have not actually seen the brand they have for free in my local store so I have not been able to take them up on the free offer). Before that, they were selling hand sanitizer bottles for 25 cents.
Here's a shameless plug, but here's a link to a guest blog post I had published at Houston Historic Retail today. It's mostly about cutting edge things local supermarkets were doing here around 1990 including pre-Internet online selling of groceries! Yep, groceries have been sold online since at least 1988. You might like reading this article. As a bonus, it includes some Kroger Neon photos from Retail Retell! It's nothing you have not seen before, but it's worth seeing again if you have not seen it in a while! Link: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/2021/11/19/online-shopping-at-gerlands-and-other-unique-houston-grocers-from-1989-90/
Ha, I normally think of 2020 as the year when stores didn't have hand sanitizer, but clearly that's not quite right!
DeleteThat's a cool post! It's crazy to think about how Sears was at the forefront of technology for so long, before completely losing their way.