Safeway is Gearing up for Competition

I had a chat with a fellow at Safeway today. I asked him...

Why I saw the parking lot partially fenced off. Also when I was inside I found many isles were in disarray with items moved all over the place.

I went to one of the employees who I know. I asked him what was going on. He said Safeway is getting ready to remodel the store to be a Lifestyle market. It is a special kind of Safeway store that feels very high end. It has more focus on the departments. I have been into several of them in the Rev Martin Luther King Jr County.

He said Safeway has found those stores compete with WalMart well. He said that WalMart can beat Safeway on the prices of canned and dry goods. But Safeway will have better produce and other departments that WalMart cannot compete with.

So Safeway has found that they can and do compete with WalMart. But what's left of PARD should be worried about Safeway, as we all know it is one of our local stores. You know... any national chain in Pullman right now is local.

Anyway, another interesting thing was about the gas station. We all saw Safeway put in a gas station about a year and a half ago or so. I was told by this Safeway employee that WalMart dropped the idea of installing a gas station. This seems to be directly related to Safeway putting in one. Interesting.

Lastly, he said he believes we will see ground breaking in Feb.

That is all...