Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter
Originally Posted by donnyj08
Similarly there is a Walmart about 2 miles from the Meijer I frequent that is well maintained. However, the other Walmart's near me (within 10miles) are horribly kept and the aisles are always in disarray.
When I compare the shopping experience between the Meijer stores and Walmart's, the experience is better at Meijer. Similar to your Freddy's stores, prices are a tad higher at Meijer vs Walmart. Rollback oil at Walmart is usually the best price.
Are your Freddy's locations the Fred Meyer supercenters owned by the Kroger Co?
Yeah, we just call em Freddy's for short (I think they're Krogers in the south, right?). A nice perk of shopping at Freddy's is the help...in just my humble opinion, they seem to be friendlier and more helpful in general. I rarely have a "bad" customer experience there - seriously. Whatever they're doing it's working. Maybe it has something to do with the wages and benefits or it could be a workplace culture thing or better hiring process. dunno.
I'm sure the spartan approach Wally's takes to it's store layout and CS is by product of their prices/margins. Kmart was this way.
The Kroger Company is actually based in Cincinnati, OH. I believe they are the largest Grocer in the U.S. Kroger owns 2800 Grocery and "super-grocers" In 35 states. The largest brands are Kroger, Ralphs, Dillons, Smith's, King Soopers, City Market, Fry's, QFC, Fred Meyer, and Harris Teeter.
We have "Fred Meyer" Jewlers inside super Kroger stores here so the name was familiar to me.
Kroger Employees are Union and their wages are pretty high for a Grocery/Supercenter chain. Their typical bag boy or cashier is paid quite a bit more than their Walmart counterparts. Kroger stock reflects the high labor costs.
Kroger is very well ran. Most thought Walmart would kill Kroger 20 years ago, but they innovated and built supercenters, focused on customers satisfaction and produce quality, added fuel centers and have thrived dispite higher prices providing the experience you described above.
Many worried when Amazon bought Whole Foods, but Kroger was already winning that war. If they can beat Walmart at the Grocery Game, Whole Foods has their work cut out to steal markets share.
Kroger is one of the companies Jim Collins talks about in the book "Good to Great".