Special Report: One More Visit to Stop & Shop!

One more time to check out some NJ-area Stop & Shop stores! My last two posts (here and here) were quite popular -- actually, the first one was my most-viewed post ever and the second one was my third-most viewed post. Well, I wish I had some real news to report, but as I've said, that's going to have to wait until May 8th, when Ahold Delhaize is set to report Q1 2024 and will have a "full answer" on Stop & Shop and other US brands. Will that be a major announcement or just something like a new remodel project? Rumors include that the stores are to be shifted to the Giant-PA division or that the stores are to be sold, possibly to Kroger. I would take any of that with a grain of salt, but I still think there's something coming. Some of the stores I've visited have been exceptionally good, some have been truly awful. Still, the trends I'm seeing are oversized, understocked, understaffed, aging stores that appear to mostly be low- to mid-volume, with some that are really, really nice and obviously higher-volume. And because I have figured out how to get the Placer.ai foot traffic statistics, I put in monthly visits for March 2024 -- foot traffic can be a decent proxy for sales volume. Let's check out what I've been seeing, in the order I've visited the stores (March 22 through April 19). Click on the store name for my tour if I have posted one.

Morris Plains

This is an exceptionally well-run store. The whole store, including the entire perimeter, looked great. The produce department was not just adequately stocked, it was actually extremely well-stocked and attractively merchandised.

The grocery aisles, including HABA, were no different. Side note: this store has not been renovated for real for quite a while, but the deli/prepared foods areas have new-ish decor from around 2019.

Despite the copious competition in this immediate area, or possibly because of it, this store seems to be very well-run. The few areas with items out of stock or lightly stocked were obviously because of normal sales volume.

This Stop & Shop gets a very respectable 82,000 visits per month per Placer.ai, or around 1.1 visits per square foot. That's compared to 67,500 at Uncle Giuseppe's across the street, 1.4/sq ft; Wegmans, 155,500 or 1.1/sq ft; ShopRite, 201,000 or a whopping 2.3/sq ft.

The one spot that was empty was what I believe used to be socks, in the HABA aisle. This is different from what I'd seen at other stores, because not only is it completely empty, so it's obviously part of a reset, but there was actually signage about the empty shelves. I've yet to see that in any other store, and I haven't seen it since.

West Caldwell

The produce department was very well-stocked here too! Most interesting: the random empty spaces in the produce department's refrigerator cases, where it appears there used to be organic loose produce, has been reset to remove that section:

Still, you can see the stock is thin in packaged salad mixes and such. The rest of the store was completely stocked, including HABA, which has been a problem at other stores. Placer.ai says this store got 57,000 visits last month, or 1 per square foot. ShopRite around the corner, 138,100 visits, or 2.7 per square foot. Foodtown to the east in Caldwell is 37,300 but that equates to 2 per square foot because it's smaller than these other two.

Several of the Stop & Shop stores have gotten new self-checkouts, including this one. Here's the old fixtures.

Clifton - Broad St

This is clearly a pretty high-volume store. 88,200 visits last month, or 1.1 per square foot. The ShopRite in Bloomfield down the street is way higher, though: 193,900 visits, working out to a crazy 3 per square foot. To the west, Kings and ACME in Montclair are on the lower side, but they're small. Kings is 26,000 or 1.4/sq ft, and ACME is 68,800 or 2.1/sq ft.

This store is run extremely well. Nearly every shelf in every department was perfectly-stocked. Check out that water shelf! Cereal was really similar, too...

There were a few empty endcaps, but nearly every one had someone come and stock it within minutes. There were two empty produce islands, but a man with a cart full of produce was rolling towards it, and another had a guy actively vacuuming it. No problems here!

Except HABA. Deodorant was looking good, but still, a bit light. Quite a few of these were only one or two items deep.

But why is there so much space in lotion? Many of these have been faced so that there's one at the front, but there's only one or two products.

Similar deal in toothpaste and toothbrushes. There was nobody stocking any of this. What gives?

Clifton - Kingsland

Kingsland Road in Clifton Commons is the other store in town, and while it looks good, it's not nearly as well-run as Broad St. Still, some produce looked good, like the apples above. But there are still problems: the produce department seems to have been cut back, and an entire row of produce refrigerators was filled with nothing but apple cider. Much of the produce remaining on the shelves had clearly been sitting for too long: I saw slightly slimy herbs, yellowed greens, and wrinkly bell peppers. What surprises me is that, according to Placer.ai, this is actually a higher-traffic store than Broad Street -- 95,000 visits last month, or 1.4 per square foot. But ShopRite in Nutley gets 157K, 2.9/sq ft. ShopRite in Belleville gets 176K, or 2.4/sq ft.

Bloomfield

Oh boy. This is where things get bad. What the heck is wrong with Bloomfield? The store was built around 2000, replacing an older store to the south. (It sounds like this store may have been planned as an Edwards, but S&S briefly occupied the older store then moved here, so it never operated as an Edwards. It's clearly the Edwards prototype, though.) Random empty spaces on the shelves, in vinegar and several places in the international aisle, such as soda.

Rice was inexplicably cleaned-out too. The store does very solid business, actually -- 141,300 visits last month, working out to 2 per square foot. SuperFresh around the corner in Belleville has a slightly lower 124,800 visits per month, but that's 3.2 visits per square foot.

This Stop & Shop is definitely higher-volume than most Stop & Shop locations, but I don't see how its sales volume would clean out the prepared foods department like this:

Or the meat department like this. It's not a weekly sale item, either, notice the Everyday Low Price sign. Why can't they keep a case of chicken stocked? Or if it's being transitioned to a sale item, why is it just sitting empty?

Dairy endcap empty, although this one appears to have stock waiting to go out. There was barely anyone working in this store, so it seems like some of the problems with things sitting empty for too long stem from understaffing, not an inability to get product into the store. How long was this (obviously refrigerated -- I think that's yogurt) product sitting out before going into the cooler?

And let's forget the sale displays and endcaps for a second. Why the heck does the regular juice section look like this? I suppose it's possible the store sells enough juice that they couldn't keep it on the shelves coupled with the obvious understaffing here. That feels unlikely, though.

And what about HABA? If this store sells enough deodorant and shaving cream that they can't keep it on the shelves, then this store must sell the most deodorant and shaving cream ever. Is it possible there's a theft problem? If so, this store has bigger problems than just empty shelves.

I've never seen something like this before. Is it preparing for a reset?

And toothpaste/toothbrushes are just ridiculous.

How is it possible this store got to this point? It can't just be incompetent management, because I've seen similar problems across the chain. So again, what gives?

And they're advertising new items. Is this advertising for a product that hasn't come in yet? Or one that sold out immediately? Or one that they can't even get?

Brooklyn - Cropsey

Let's head over to New York City for our next two stores, both in southern Brooklyn. The Cropsey Avenue store is a bit of a mess, but it also seems very high-volume. Located in Gravesend, this store was a Pathmark acquired in 2015. It got a minimal interior renovation and a thoroughly confusing exterior renovation (the outside is the first picture in this post). They actually squared off the Pathmark stripe (and not in the successful way, like SuperFresh in Irvington). And the store was terribly stocked, with major, noticeable empty spots in meat.

Sale items are clearly the worst, but regular stuff was pretty light too. Pathmark remnants abound, and the store hasn't been renovated. This store gets around 80 visits per month, or 1.7/sq ft. For comparison, a Key Food not too far away at Neptune Ave and W 5th St gets 39K, but is way smaller so that's 2.3/sq ft. For what it's worth, both Key Foods on Coney Island were immaculately stocked when I visited the same day as this Stop & Shop.

The stock problems here weren't awful, but there's definitely no reason the shelves should look like this when that Key Food I referenced looked like this.

Maintenance in this store was also clearly slipping, like this, um, gorgeous dairy sign. The store felt dirty and messy, both inside and out.

I suppose that works too, for the baker department. I'm not sure if this store has an in-store bakery, but there's no service counter, which is unusual for a Stop & Shop.

Brooklyn - Ave Y

The other Stop & Shop in this part of Brooklyn, Avenue Y in Sheepshead Bay, is a totally different experience. The store is spacious, well-maintained, bright, clean, and pretty modern. It was also really busy when I visited. 141,300 visits last month, 2.3 per square foot. A fascinating independent called Sheepshead Bay Marketplace sells all manner of international foods and a giant selection of produce on the same block, with about 60,000 visits per month or 2.2 per square foot. But even in this store -- empty space in the cut fruit area, and an entire section of the (admittedly pretty solid) kosher department was empty. That I assume is more of a maintenance thing -- maybe the case was down? -- but that in and of itself is an issue. When do you see a section this big completely empty for any reason at all in another big-chain supermarket? Something's up.

Meanwhile, the rest of the supermarket's grocery aisles were extremely well-stocked.

But again, HABA. Toothbrushes and toothpaste were light, although not terrible like some stores.

Baby products were also very light.

East Brunswick

Now back to New Jersey for the latest group of stores I visited, last Friday! I'll say this: none of the central Jersey stores I visited that day had any apparent stock problems, and all were very, very well-stocked. Still, it's a bit concerning that the stores haven't been renovated in a long time (close to 10 years, for the most recent renovation), and even more so -- the majority of them were completely empty of customers. East Brunswick, an A&P acquired before the final bankruptcy, is in great shape these days but concerningly deserted. 71,600 visits per month or 1.3 per square foot, which is not bad at all, so I guess it gets busy other times. Still, ShopRites nearby are way busier, with East Brunswick to the north getting 157K or 1.9/sq ft, and Spotswood to the south getting 181.3K or 2.6/sq ft. Tropical Supermarket in South River gets only 11,000 visits a month, but because it's so small, that ends up to be a perfectly solid 1.7 per square foot.

Monroe

Monroe was very busy when I visited. This is a rather large store of around 70,000 square feet, and the only supermarket for many miles around, so I have no doubt it does just fine. Still, maintenance is not great, and that starts on the outside where the paint is visibly faded and there's significant mold or mildew buildup around the building. Nothing a powerwash and a quick paint job couldn't fix. The inside is in good shape except for a few burnt-out lights, but it's still got the Taste & Time decor from when the store was built around 2000-2005 (correction: it was built in the 90s as a Mayfair Foodtown, then converted to Edwards in 1995, then converted to S&S around 2000-2001. S&S expanded it, not built it, in the 2000-2005 time frame). It's got really good visits of 101,000 last month, which works out to a solid 1.5 per square foot. Out in East Windsor, the ShopRite does similar but slightly higher volume with 167,000 visits or 1.9/sq ft.

Jackson

Jackson was built around 2000 (correction again: this one, too, was a Mayfair-turned-Edwards and was expanded, not built, right after Edwards switched to S&S), and still has its original Super Stop & Shop decor. It has a really low volume of 64,000 visits per month, or 0.9 per square foot. The ShopRite up the street gets 133.8K, or 1.9/sq ft.

Side track here for an interesting observation: it's easy to jump to the conclusion that there are more than a few of these un-renovated stores across Stop & Shop's store base, so therefore the chain is struggling. Here's what I find interesting: this decor dates back to the store's original opening around 2000, which means that when they rebranded to the fruit-slice logo around 2008, they replaced the sign on the outside but didn't redo the inside. Now fast-forward to 2018, when they return to the traffic light logo. Only the stores that were renovated have gotten the new sign outside, with only one exception I'm aware of (Emerson). To me that feels like they may be preparing to close some of these old stores that haven't gotten a renovation and haven't even gotten the new logo outside. I could definitely be wrong, but it feels strange that the logos haven't been updated outside on so many stores, especially in New Jersey.

UPDATE: This store is set to close next fall. As a matter of fact, that information alone makes me think that it's unlikely a dramatic change will come to Stop & Shop in the near future -- like significant store closures or a sale of the whole chain. Why would the chain announce one single store closure, set for a long time in the future, when a bigger announcement was coming? Why wouldn't they just roll it all in together?

Howell

Yikes. Howell is a nice looking store, but it was almost eerily empty of customers and employees when I visited. Looking at foot traffic data, it looks like that's pretty normal: this store gets only 50,000 visits per month, which I believe is the lowest we've seen yet. Because this is a massive store of around 70,000 square feet, that works out to just 0.8/sq ft. ShopRite up the street in a former Kmart? 171,600 visits, 2.1 per square foot.

There was nobody checking out when I was here, and only a handful shopping. The only cashier was standing here in the middle of the front end talking to a grocery clerk. Nobody (and no clerk) at the self-checkouts. How does this store stay in business?

Toms River - Lakewood Rd.

A very cool former Grand Union in a terrible strip mall. How is it possible they built this place with only one exit lane from the entire strip mall?! When I was trying to leave, traffic was backed up across almost the entire strip mall. The inside is in great condition, and the store seemed moderately busy. There was even a fully functional service seafood counter! It gets a perfectly respectable 95.5K monthly visits, or 1.6/sq ft. This is about halfway between ShopRite stores in Manchester (139,600 monthly visits or 2.1/sq ft) and Brick (206,300 or 2.7/sq ft).

Whiting

Way out to the west in Whiting, home to several senior communities and lots of forest, this Stop & Shop seems busy enough. It's a strange and no-frills version of the Taste & Time decor where the text is strangely narrow. The store gets 67.5K visits per month, or 1 visit per square foot. ShopRite to the northeast in Manchester gets 139,600 visits, or 2.1/sq ft.

I visited many of these Central Jersey stores, which I hadn't been to before, just to document them in case something happens. Let's put it this way: interstate 287 essentially circles New York City, and in New Jersey, it goes roughly from Staten Island to the northeastern part of the state. The densest suburbs of northern New Jersey are inside the 287 ring. It's a good representation of where the core NYC suburbs turn into the outer reaches of the region. There are 29 Stop & Shops outside the 287 ring, and only two have been renovated since 2018. That suggests that they're struggling outside of the immediate NYC suburbs, I'd say.

But that's all! The discussion on the past Stop & Shop posts has been robust, to say the least, so I want to hear what you all think -- and what your experiences with Stop & Shop's other locations are. Based on my observations this time around, it seems that certain stores are having significant problems with having the right amount of stock on the shelves, many have maintenance issues, and even more simply have old decor with a clear lack of investment in terms of renovation and fixture replacement. Meanwhile, many of the remodels that do happen are extremely minimal. To me, this seems to suggest a pattern of actions designed to cut costs and do things cheaply, all while barely holding on to their slipping market share (which has declined, albeit only slightly, in New Jersey, New York City, and the overall NYC metro area in the last five years) and revenue. I think this will be my last Stop & Shop post -- that is, of course, unless something shocking happens on that May 8th call. Let's wait and see!