Hy-Vee vs Fareway - Sunday Commercials
- Thread starter mynameisjonas
- Start date
A lot of it is probably because during March - June 2020 when things were shut down and a lot of people were scared to leave their houses for anything non-essential, Hyvee wanted to capitalize on their online shopping (who wouldn't), and then assumed people would still maintain the same attitude once things got back to normal. They even built Aisles Online buildings in the parking lots of many locations, and cars would be lined up like crazy. Now they seem to rarely have any lines of cars. They thought something would stick, and it didn't.
Is this a new development? A few years ago they were killing it, and I would think the pandemic only helped their situation.
Sinking money into Wahlburgers and building out areas for people to buy bath bombs and shoes didn't help.
JEWEL is the Hy-Vee of Chicago and they're getting pummeled here. Understaffed (I bag my own groceries), understocked and generally not a good vibe.
I commented to my wife just yesterday that because of the pandemic causing hiring and supply shortages, walking into a JEWEL is getting closer and closer to 1980's Russian supermarkets more than a robust, "American way", bountiful supermarket we're all used to.
The pandemic has just flipped 'normal' on its head and it's going to take a while to see where the pieces land.
Fareway is thriving it appears. They just tore down the old location in downtown Ames and built a new modern one in it's place. They're also opening locations in the west side of Des Moines on Mills Civic by Sammons Financial, and two on Hickman near the new Waukee high school (probably replacing the current Waukee location) and another location a few miles down the road to the east.
Hy-Vee's video from last Thursday said they were scaling back Aisles Online because people aren't using it as much as they were earlier in the pandemic, and relatively few stores make up the bulk of Aisles Online usage. Going from memory, it was something like 1/3 of stores comprise 88% of Aisles Online sales.
Obviously they could have other, unstated motives or simply not be telling the truth, but that's what they said.
Obviously they could have other, unstated motives or simply not be telling the truth, but that's what they said.
The Fareway Meat Markets are making a killing for them. That and focusing on quality over quantity of their products. They kind of went the opposite direction as HyVee.
HyVee has been hemorrhaging money since they went all in on the Market Grills, which has spiraled into even more marketing miscalculations. HyVee loves to show their sales growth but hide their piss poor investments. Go talk to a former HyVee exec and see what they have to say about the current regime
Is anyone more likely to buy food somewhere because they pay a lot of money to Patrick Mahomes and Caitlyn Clark?
They build new stores on credit and hope that some of their gambles pay off. They keep sinking money into failed adventures.
HyVee was printing money until they pushed their mega stores (Urbandale , Waukee, and Grimes model) into new footprint areas. These stores were HUGE financial investments and they grossly over estimated aesthetics and what consumers want.
I'm all in for bashing Hy-Vee but stuff like this is a relative pittance. And if they don't do this they're probably going to put those promotional dollars elsewhere.
The Mark Wahlberg fixation, however, is more than just a celebrity face endorsing products. It's a massive investment into his brand, and it seems to be going really poorly.
This part! I just don't get it! People who grew up with the Hy Vee experience don't want that shopping mall feel when at a grocery store.
They get a lot of their meat from the same suppliers, but people have built up this idea that Fareway has some mythical products in the meat departments when it really isn't true.
Buy a brat patty at Hy-Vee and one at Fareway. The Fareway one is much larger and less expensive.
Yeah they get their meat from IBP and now Brewer's meats, which is where Hy-Vee gets it. Fareway only purchases Choice and Prime, I can't speak for what Hy-Vee does. But putting the meat markets into new potential markets is what is helping Fareway.
The problem here too is that HYVee has forgot who is paying their bills. The Iowa consumer is what has made the company what it is today but they have turned their back on their top customers. These marketing mistakes aren't magically paying for themselves. Go out to the non metro stores and most don't have a stand alone store manager anymore. They have one manager that oversees multiple "rural" Iowa stores. They no longer care about their top consumers.
Right, but that's a choice on what they do with the meat once they get it, not in where they are buying it from.
