I was going to blame this aisle marker on sloppy installation, like so much else with Banner, but it looks like the whole thing is a bit wonky, so perhaps it was run into at some point. I'm pretty sure there's nowhere to stand where you can see the left side of the tri-sider without really craning your neck! Moving on, dairy is always a good department to have a lot of wall space in Banner, since it has a lot of secondary elements that can take up space -- basically the opposite of Artisan, where the dairy department always has
way too much blank, white wall space.
Interesting place to put a tri-sider! I wonder if the side facing the wall has anything on it or if it is blank. I also wonder why the number box is not in the center here. This is probably weird enough to be classified as a signage fail.
ReplyDeleteThat said, just about everything about Banner is better than Artisan! Well, the fake wood used by both decor packages are about equally fake and cheap looking, but otherwise, it is clear win by Banner! Unfortunately, Banner might be considered obsolete at least by the Dallas and Houston Kroger divisions.
This is not related to the aforementioned signage oddity that will be on HHR next month, but check out the Kroger logo on this letter that the local Houston Kroger union is passing out to customers! That's an odd logo.
Most customers will surely notice the Kroger deficiencies noted on the leaflet. I'm not sure how much of that can be directly related to the loss of full-time workers, but it'll be interesting to see if customers start demanding action from Kroger in this regard. Given that HEB does staff their manned checkouts at a pretty reasonable level, it's possible some Kroger shoppers wanting manned checkouts have stopped shopping at Kroger. Still, Kroger has more stores than HEB so not everyone can shop at HEB and others, like myself, are put off by HEB's complete lack of care for store appearance.
Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/10afzvz/staff_was_handing_these_out_to_customers_as_they/
If you look really closely, you can see that there actually is text on the useless side of this aisle marker! Such a strange design choice.
DeleteHonestly, I think that even the fake wood is better in Banner than in Artisan, though not by all that much! I believe Fred Meyer has completely dropped Banner in favor of Artisan too, though their pace of remodels has dropped off considerably in the past few years (and unlike in some areas, they don't seem to be interested in remodeling stores away from Banner).
Wow, that is a weird logo -- not something I've ever seen before! And wow, that union is bold to have employees handing those out in stores! All of those listed problems are pretty much the norm at all grocery stores around here, from Safeway to Fred Meyer to Walmart... heck, my local Safeway has completely given up on staffing its customer service center lately, which is a new low for Safeway (after previously eliminating staffed floral and bakery departments and cutting all other staff positions to the absolute bare minimum).
Ouch, I don't think the problem is so bad at Randall's as it is at your Safeway stores. I was at my local Randall's today, which is usually one of the more stingy Randall's in terms of open manned registers of the ones I've been to the last couple of years, and they actually had three manned registers open during a non-peak time. I also can't say I have seen Randall's go without the customer service desk being manned.
DeleteWhile the merger may well change things here soon, at least for now, Kroger and Randall's are still competitors and maybe Randall's is seeing Kroger's stature here in Houston start to slip. I really can't say if this is the case, but perhaps they think they can win over some Kroger customers if they improve their staffing. It's hard to say. It seems Safeway isn't so motivated to try hard over in your part of the word though.
It's hard to say exactly what's going on around here, as when I went to Eastern Washington -- a less competitive area which is run by the same division as the stores here -- their stores were much better staffed. That may be because the cost of living is lower there and there aren't as many higher-paying jobs available, but stores in lower cost-of-living areas in Western Washington still tend to have limited staffing. My local store is by far the worst-staffed Safeway I've ever shopped at, but the ones in Port Angeles (which are the rural ones I'm most familiar with) still have far lower staffing levels than they did a few years ago, so it seems to be a widespread issue.
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