Staggered! What stores never got back on track after COVID?

[athena53]

Originally Posted by BoSox 15

Anecdotal evidence, the most prepared store near me was Costco. When others were out of meat, TP, etc. I never had a problem there. Nationally I think HEB has been recognized for their planning as well.

I shop at Costco in a suburb of Kansas City. They were out of some of the in-demand items in April and part of May- there would be signs at the front indicating out-of-stock items, mostly toilet paper, paper towels and anything to do with sanitizing. Just yesterday their soup supply was still limited- I like to buy the canned varieties to donate to food banks but all they had were broths and condensed cream of mushroom- not a universal favorite. That's been going on for months.

I hope Marshall's and TJX continue in business. I like their food section (sometimes good prices on protein bars, flavored coffee, interesting random spice mixes, good prices on honey and olive oil although I always check country of origin). I did visit one in Des Moines in June hoping to buy underwear and they had nothing- said they might the following week, but I was headed home.

And I interpreted the OP's "after COVID" terminology to mean some sort of equilibrium we've reached after the initial panic.

[dk1111]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

This store was staggered from COVID - everything from canned goods, to TP, to meat was gone in the initial rush. Yet, while Food City and Walmart are back to normal, this Kroger's shelves are barren of a lot of staples like frozen chicken, ground beef, and even frozen vegetables, months after the rush and after everywhere else recovered. Prices have gone up, selection is reduced, the butcher shop is closed, and the store is a train wreck. Basic housekeeping isn't being performed. The bathrooms are defiled any time you go in there, the floors haven't been mopped or vacuumed in who knows when, e tc.

The staff is negligent. Yesterday, I came across two of the Simple Truth organic milk jugs (ostensibly a seller) that expired on 7/4. I didn't want to buy them, but put them in the buggy to give my piece of mind to the front end manager of this. No one is even monitoring these things.

COVID killed this store. What stores do you see that COVID staggered?

I used to work in retail. What you described only happens when management doesn't have enough staff operating a store. When we were fully staffed we had the store immaculately cleaned, all departments running smoothly, shelves well stocked and running like a well oiled machine with very happy customers.

Whenever management at the head office cut back our staff the store would go to absolute hell. Sounds like due to Covid19 issues the store does not have a full staff due to them cutting back the staff to save money or because staff is out sick or not enough people are willing to work. Also, if they are doing curbside, traditional home deliveries or store pick ups now, they could be utilizing all the staff to be doing that which is leaving a deficit inside the store with it being short staffed and not tended to sufficiently.

[dk1111]

Originally Posted by DanielAvery

A lot of the TJX stores and their competitors rely on the larger chains to sell their previous-season clothing and other cast-offs to them. These "off-price retailers" also stock their stores with closeouts that the major chains want to get rid of to make room for their new arrivals ("fashion changes"). When those major chains had their business disrupted (in many cases just closed outright), the supply chain for everyone involved was screwed up. The major chains had leftover winter stock locked up in their closed stores, while stores like Marshalls and Burlington were not getting any closeouts or cast-offs from those stores. Right now, the major stores are trying to improve their sales figures and are not as quick to sell off their merchandise to places like TJX companies, since they're still contending with supply issues themselves. It's really too late to lay in a large supply of summer clothing, and all the leftover winter clothing is still clogging up a lot of stores' racks. In a few weeks they might see an upturn in northern stores where people might still buy last-season's winter clothing at clearance prices. The TJX stores and competitors here in the south are half-empty and it doesn't look like things will improve, since we don't consume as much winter clothing at any time of year, and there was no summer clothing in the major stores that would normally end up in the off-price stores this time of year.

So the supply chain is really messed up, and until the larger chains get back to normal, the off-price retailers like TJMaxx and Ross will be in even worse shape, since they depend on the larger chains to provide much of their stock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkJ5U6yhTwg

[mycatz]

Originally Posted by Sundaydrive00

[/b]

They've been around for a few years now, so I wouldn't think it's a temporary concept.

Like I stated-I rarely go in Macy's. Guess it's been longer than I thought.