Shaw's
Opened: 2005
As the Price Chopper just east prepares to close, the Shaw's at Webster Square Plaza has finished a reset. I was hoping they'd also remodel the store, but they haven't. The nearly 80,000 square foot store, located in a former Zayre department store, is clearly too big for Shaw's, as they've reduced the store in every way they can without actually shrinking the footprint. The perimeter and service departments don't seem to have changed, but the grocery aisles certainly have.
In the first few aisles, the separated natural foods and international foods departments have been removed, with the selections integrated into the rest of the store. (You can see how it previously was set up in my original tour here.) The different-colored flooring remains, though...
But the selection across the store has been cut back, too. As I mentioned on that post, the aisles were widened, and one side of the soda aisle is now refrigerated single-serve drinks. I can't think of any reason to do this -- something I haven't seen in any other Shaw's, or even any other Albertsons Companies store -- other than to fill floor space.
One side of an entire aisle -- front and back halves -- is now greeting cards, an almost laughably big selection definitely intended for the same reason.
The grocery aisles have also been reduced, with the aisles getting shorter. The aisles all used to be the same length as the frozen food aisles, but now they're shorter, as you can see below. This is in the middle dividing aisle of the store.
And if you look carefully across the vast front-end, you'll see the same thing. The aisles all used to extend as far as the produce cases did, which you can see where the Polar Seltzer display is straight across the sales floor.
Opened: 2005
Owner: Albertsons Companies
Previous Tenants: Zayre
Cooperative: none
Location: 68 Stafford St, Worcester, MA
Photographed: January 13, 2025
This has to be one of the largest Shaw's out there, if not the largest, and on the bigger side for Albertsons Companies stores in general. And there's simply not much you can fill such a large space with, except for general merchandise -- which was greatly reduced in this reset, and some categories like toys were eliminated entirely, plus this store doesn't even have a pharmacy -- or specialty offerings like international foods or prepared foods. At least in this area, Albertsons Companies isn't too keen on prepared foods or in-store cafes, and given that the reset actually removed the international foods department (or at least integrated it into the aisles), I doubt Shaw's would add more international foods to fill space. But this store still seems to do a decent business, and will likely pick up some customers with Price Chopper closed. Read more about several other Worcester stores here!
With those drinks, are they in addition to others or just replacing them?
ReplyDeleteFor instance, I see quite a bit of Gatorade in the closest cases - do they have non cold Gatorade in another aisle or just changing what would have been a non-refrigerated drink aisle into one with refrigerated beverages instead?
If it's the latter, perhaps they are using it to test and see if this changes sales.
The other part (of eliminating a section of shelves in each aisle at the front and middle) seems logical, as no one will complain of having aisles that are too large but would complain if the extra shelves were there and filled with stuff, leading to items that are sitting too long and expiring.
May just be that it is not too easy in many places to actually shrink the store space, since most (if not all) outside walls have items that are harder to move (cold foods, fresh cases etc.), so they are instead trying these easier to do options to see if that helps.