Wegman's is Coming! Wegman's is Coming! (Charlotte, Columbia: buy, organic, prices)

[Carolina Knight]

When determining market share, I like to see both sales and store count from the most recent year compared against the previous year.

[lukas1973]

Originally Posted by Carolina Knight

When determining market share, I like to see both sales and store count from the most recent year compared against the previous year.

Yes of course. But without sales figures you can't determine the market share. It's relatively easy to count the number of stores. But the companies will not disclose the sales figures for individual stores. So you have to estimate the sales that the stores make in a certain area. But that's extremely difficult and expensive.

Some thinkable methods to determine sales and market share:

1. A research institute maintains a consumer panel with at least 1,000 households. The households will report all their grocery spendings over the whole year to the research institute. That's the most accurate method to determine the market share of all grocery chains, but that's extremely expensive. This method is normally only used for whole countries.

2. They could make telephone surveys and ask the telephonees about their shopping habits. It's relatively cheap but it would be an extremely inaccurate method. For example many people will probably be dishonest about their shopping habits.

3. Listed grocery companies disclose figures about average sales per store or average sales per sq ft. But those figures are national averages. Research institutes could assume that the average sales of the stores in the considered area are identical to the national averages. But it's very unlikely that this is the case.
Additional problem: Some grocery retailers are privately owned. Those companies normally don't disclose any sales figures. Sales figures for those companies are estimated. The guesses are often very different.
Estimated sales figures for Trader Joe's and Aldi in 2014:

Guesses from the National Retail Federation:
Aldi: $11,728m
Trader Joe's: $9,388m

Guesses from Supermarket News:
Aldi: $10,100m
Trader Joe's: $13,000m

What figures are the correct ones?


I absolutely don't see how they are able to determine the sales figures for a couple of stores in a certain area. I really doubt that those figures can be accurate.

Here is a pretty nice overview about the sales and market shares for Richmond in 2014 and 2013:

Martin's remains No. 1 in grocery rankings, but rivals gaining ground - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Richmond Area Business News

This overview imparts the impression that it's highly accurate. Store count with exact sales figures and market shares with two digitals places. But it's just a spurious accuracy.

How do they know that this single Whole Foods store in Richmond had sales in 2013 of $25.2m and of $26.1m in 2014? The company doesn't disclose sales figures for this store. There is no way that they are able to determine the sales of this store so accurately.

I suppose that they use national figures for sales per sq ft and multiply this figure with the sq ft of the sales area at the local grocery stores. And most likely that they use annual same store sales changes to determine the sales in the following year. And they will probably try to adjust those calculations by some observations in the local market.

Taken together a lot of guesses and it's pretty unclear how accurate those calulations are.

[Food Lover]

I love Wegman's and have been watching since December 2015 for one in Winston-Salem. Fuel prices are low right now, so Cary is not impossible. However, if fuel prices go up, that would eliminate any possibility of my getting there. PLEASE! We need Wegman's in Winston-Salem. PLEASE!

[GoPhils]

Originally Posted by lukas1973

The way they calculate or raise those market share figures is highly questionable. As far as I know they do telephone surveys and ask at which grocery store the interviewed person spend the most money in the last month or week. Or they just take the national average of revenues for one store and multiply them with the number of stores in a certain area. That leads to extremely inaccurate market share figures.

It's practically impossible to calculate reliable market share figures for relative small areas. To get reliable data they would need to raise the spending habits of at least 1,000 households throughout a whole year. Or they had to add all receipts from all stores in the area over at least a few weeks. But that would be way to expensive.

They even publish data for much smaller areas:

Top 20 Fredericksburg-area grocery stores by market share - Fredericksburg.com: Local Business

There is no way that there are able to quantify the revenues accurately for such a small number of stores.

In Ireland for example Kantar has changed it's calculation method. By using a different method the market share of Aldi and Lidl jumped from about 17% to about 22%. Just by using a differen method.

I don't know for sure how those market shares are determined, but store-specific data is available for most of the bigger chains.

They do sometimes use sample data, but it's not from telephone surveys, people choose to be on the panel and have a scanner to scan their purchases - National Consumer Panel | NCP Home

[Tarheelhombre]

Wegmans Food Markets plans to make a greater push into North Carolina, a move that would put it up against some of the largest grocery store chains in the country trying to take advantage of a weak market.

Wegmans has confirmed that it is "considering multiple sites" in the Raleigh-Durham area but declined to share further details.

"Until there are firm deals for each site, we are unable to share the locations or other details," Wegmans' spokeswoman Jo Natale said in a written statement. "North Carolina is seeing continued growth, and we have been able to identify multiple sites in the Raleigh/Durham area that met all of our criteria."

The target

The Raleigh-Durham area, commonly known as the Research Triangle, is a growing area of the state and home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University and Duke University. There are about 2 million people living there, according to 2014 census records. The median annual household income is about $56,600, about $5,000 more than the Rochester metro are


Wegmans targets North Carolina for expansion

[Tarheelhombre]

He said Publix and Wegmans combined efforts would push out a number of under-performing grocers in North Carolina.

"They will use Publix as muscle to help drive out all the ineffectual competitors in North Carolina," he said. "Food Lion, Lowes, Piggly Wiggly, Bi-Lo, The Fresh Market, and Earth Fare are just taking up space and appear to be low hanging fruit to be picked."

[Carolina Knight]

The specified grocers in supermarket and specialty segments that are underperforming and have issues will struggle and shutter. Some participants are in the process of exiting activity.

[js4life]

I do think Bi-lo & Lowes Foods are on the endangered list, Wegmans might have some difficulty finding prime locations in the Charlotte region especially in Mecklenburg County. HT & Publix are sucking up most of the new grocery retail slots & HT in particular is starting to build larger format stores with fuel centers along the 485 loop

[Tarheelhombre]

I think Lowes is an attractive buyout target. I wonder if Wegmans will go to the Triad next, or just leap all the way to Charlotte.

[rnc2mbfl]

Originally Posted by js4life

I do think Bi-lo & Lowes Foods are on the endangered list, Wegmans might have some difficulty finding prime locations in the Charlotte region especially in Mecklenburg County. HT & Publix are sucking up most of the new grocery retail slots & HT in particular is starting to build larger format stores with fuel centers along the 485 loop

I am sure that HT isn't going to just lay down and wait to die in the face of Wegmans. I expect them to put up a huge fight on their home turf in Mecklenburg.