Meijer

[Rybak 187]

This story talks about how Meijer wants to have 400 stores by 2020. Do any of you think that they will be able to do it? They would have to more than double in size in about 13 years. Meijer currently has 181 stores now and 7 new stores opening in 2008.

[tamias6]

Making a jump from 181 stores to 400 is quite a big pill to shallow, esp. since Meijer is a privately owned company and thus far has made it clear that it's not for sale. However, given the many unexpected moves the company has made over the past several years, I bet the Meijer family has a trick or too up their sleeves to make that lofty goal. If they say they can be at 400 stores by 2020 they will do it.

My personal predictions for Meijer 2020 are as follows:

1. Meijer wants Chicago really badly, so most growth will be focus there. They will have achieved their goal of 30 to 40 stores. They will have unseated Dominik's and Jewels as the dominate grocer in the area. Wal-Mart will be a close second.

2. A Meijer distribution center will be built in northern Ill. to support Chicago land stores and for the next prediction.

3. Meijer will have finally entered Wisconsin with stores in Green Bay and a handful though out the southern most 1/3 of that state.

4. Meijer will have solidified the rest of Illinois

5. Southern Indiana will see a massive influx of new Meijer stores followed with a more solid position in KY.

6. Ohio, which is already heavily populated by stores, will be filled to near market saturation.

7. Northern Michigan will have seen a great number of new stores including the UP's first few Meijer stores.

8. Meijer will have made a beach head in western most Pennsylvania.

9. Meijer will have completed a renovation of the Fred Meijer Building which includes an addition to accommodate a company that has more than doubled in size.

10. By 2015 Wal-Mart will have passed its Zenith and begun a slow painful decline. In the wake of that decline Meijer and Target will have begun to purchase empty Wal-Mart supercenters to be converted into Meijer stores and Super Targets respectively.

Edit... forgot this....

11. Based on info, courtesy of Veloise, Meijer will operate two store formats. One is the standard Rockwell format in the average Joe's market while the second will be Meijer at Cascade clones in more affluent market areas.

12. Only the M@C clones will be 200,000+ sq. ft. while standard stores will be 150,000 sq. ft.

This story talks about how Meijer wants to have 400 stores by 2020. Do any of you think that they will be able to do it? They would have to more than double in size in about 13 years. Meijer currently has 181 stores now and 7 new stores opening in 2008.

Edited October 13, 2007 by tamias6

[tamias6]

Meijer 2020 predictions continued....

13. Meijer will have become one of the first companies to phase out accepting checks as a method of payment and go completely to electronic transactions.

14. At all of its stores, up to half of all check out lanes will be U-scanners or large order self check outs.

15. A new store will finally replace the 28th street and K'zoo store.

16. Meijer at Cascade will have undergone atleast 3 more renovations.

[Veloise]

Meijer 2020 predictions continued....

13. Meijer will have become one of the first companies to phase out accepting checks as a method of payment and go completely to electronic transactions.

14. At all of its stores, up to half of all check out lanes will be U-scanners or large order self check outs.

15. A new store will finally replace the 28th street and K'zoo store.

16. Meijer at Cascade will have undergone atleast 3 more renovations.

17. A store will open somewhere in the 313 south of Eight Mile and east of US-24.

[not holding my breath, though!]

[Rybak 187]

Here is my 2020 Meijer prediction:

1. by 2010 there will be an announcement about a Distribution center in Northern Illinois.

2. there will be Meijer stores in the thumb and more in northern Michigan

3. when the d.c. in Illinois is built they will start building stores first in Wisconsin then Iowa then Minnesota then the U.P.

4. stores will be built in the rest of Illinois

5. stores will be built in Indiana south of Indianapolis

6. they will enter most of Kentucky

7. they will start heading to Cleveland

8. they will enter West Virginia

9. they will be entering the outskirts of St. Louis (currently they have a store less than 100 miles away from downtown)

10. they will open a satellite office in the Chicago to manage the 30 plus stores they will have in the Chicago area

11. there will be talk of a d.c. in southern Illinois to handle the Meijer expansion into St. Louis and the new stores that were built in Indiana and Kentucky.

12. Meijer will open 5-10 urban Meijer stores one in Grand Rapids, one in Detroit, and the rest in the Chicago area.

Edited October 15, 2007 by Rybak 187

[Rybak 187]

This article talks about a new Meijer store. This one in Putnam Township outside of Pinckney, Michigan.

Here is an update on the proposed Fairfield Township Meijer store.

This article talks about yet another new Meijer store. This one in Marion, Indiana.

Edited October 15, 2007 by Rybak 187

[Rybak 187]

Anyone else who has a 2020 Meijer prediction feel free to post.

[Veloise]

M@C will be closed for a couple of hours on Monday 10/22. 6:30-9 PM. The notice claims, "as we put the finishing touches on a store unlike any other in West Michigan..."

Yeah, right. Let's lock the doors during prime time to fix the place up...like we didn't have construction running 24/7 and cement coming in via pipes.

Watch for red carpets, searchlights, and imperial storm troopers.

[tamias6]

^Let's see if I can come up with some more Meijer 2020 predictions.

1. Fred Meijer will have passed away and his remains interned in a special memorial at the Fredrick Meijer Gardens.

2. Fred will have contributed to one last major project before his passing, a new world class Performance Art's Center that will supplement and/or replace Devos Hall. It will have been been built either near Devos place or on the city own land where the defunct River Grand project was to be built.

3. Like Wal-Mart, Meijer is coming under more and more community resistance to the building of more supercenters. We are already seeing the effects in the fact that Meijer has pretty much abandoned its 207,000 sq. ft. store prototype in favor of its newest batch of 156,000 sq. footers. Wal-Mart has slimmed down its supercenter prototype to an even even smaller 99,000 sq. ft. Meijer will follow suit with a "sub-99" supercenter prototype aimed at urban markets and communities that put up a heavy resistance to incoming big box stores.

4. The first multi-story Meijer will have debuted in deep into densely urbanized areas of Chicago. It will most likely be a multistory varient of Meijer at Cascade's prototype.

5. Meijer will be one of the first retailers to replace UPC codes with RF tags. That could mean one could bypass the checkout lanes at head straight for the exit. Upon passing through the exit, an array of scanners built into the door will read the RF tags on all of your products and electronically debit the total cost of your purchases from your bank account or charge your credit card. No more waiting in line. Although one would have to resolve the need to bag groceries.

6. Meijer will have introduced a drive-up grocery service. The customer logs on to the online store, orders all the grocery's there then specifies a local store to pick them up at. Then that local store rounds up the order to be picked up by the customer at a special loading area at the front or side of the store. From placing the order to putting food on the table, this process would take a half hour. Think of Circuit City's online order/customer pickup service..only for groceries.

That's it I'm bone dry.

[GR_Urbanist]

By 2009 Meijer will have opened its first Meijer Express store at the corner of Market and Fulton. It will open a second one at the corner of Diamond and Wealthy at the site of the former Wealthy Street Liquor Store.

.... I hope.

[tamias6]

According to this article, it looks like Blu-ray scored again...at least at Meijer.com. Meijer's online store will have only Blu-ray movies for now. Eventually Meijer will add HD-DVD to their online offerings. But the reason Meijer is offering Blu-ray first is that the format is outselling HD-DVD at physical stores by a notable margin. So is Meijer foretelling a victor in Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war?

[jbr12]

Got this email today as a part of the Meijer email list:

On Monday, October 22nd, the Meijer at Cascade will be closed 6:30pm-9pm. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we put the finishing touches on a store unlike any other in West Michigan.

It then goes on to talk about the new store:

There's Something New In Store for You!

You're invited to see for yourself at the Meijer at Cascade!

The changes we've made celebrate what's new in the world of food, drink, and entertaining. Our team traveled the country and parts of Europe to review the best of the best and have brought them to the Meijer at Cascade.

Shopping Meijer at Cascade will take you on a culinary adventure around the world, and you'll savor every visit.

Bon appetit!

[tamias6]

^All I know is that based on my most recent visit, Meijer at Cascade lives up to every bit of the hype in those email quotes. Everything about that store is incredible esp. the grocery section. Being that the family and I are traveling 18 miles out of our way on monthly trips for the amenities and offerings M@C has that our local Meijer does not should speak volumes.

[Sunlover38]

Year 2020 - - Meijer - -your one stop shopping, get your hair cut, do your banking, get your coffee, get a pedicure, outfit yourself for the season, take a nap, go up 2 flights to your condo above the store, work mobile, never leave the Meijer bubble . . .beam me up Freddy.

[tamias6]

Year 2020 - - Meijer - -your one stop shopping, get your hair cut, do your banking, get your coffee, get a pedicure, outfit yourself for the season, take a nap, go up 2 flights to your condo above the store, work mobile, never leave the Meijer bubble . . .beam me up Freddy.

I'm saving for a down payment right now!

[Veloise]

M@C will be closed for a couple of hours on Monday 10/22. 6:30-9 PM. The notice claims, "as we put the finishing touches on a store unlike any other in West Michigan..."

Yeah, right. Let's lock the doors during prime time to fix the place up...like we didn't have construction running 24/7 and cement coming in via pipes.

Watch for red carpets, searchlights, and imperial storm troopers.

I guessed right! Yesterday one of the cashiers said it's by invitation only.

[tamias6]

The Standale Meijer has been retrofitted with the M@C's tea and coffee offerings. The new aisle is located in aisle 4 where the previous tea and coffee were located. The fixtures have the same up-scale wooden finish, black shelving, and graphics. The floor in the aisle has been fitted with alternating butterscotch and green tiles. Lastly the new aisle 4 now features most of M@C coffee and tea offerings.

In addition the Alpine Meijer's aisle 5 as received the same new flooring. So it too will have M@C's coffee and tea offerings.

This may mean that atleast some of M@C's new features will indeed find their way into other Meijer stores.

[Rybak 187]

This site has webcams of two upcoming Meijer stores that are being built in Davison, MI and Urbana, IL.

They have now added Clinton Township to the list of Meijer store webcams.

The Clinton Township store is at about the place in its construction as the Birch Run store except at Birch Run the gas station is further ahead.

[egrguy]

The Standale Meijer has been retrofitted with the M@C's tea and coffee offerings. The new aisle is located in aisle 4 where the previous tea and coffee were located. The fixtures have the same up-scale wooden finish, black shelving, and graphics. The floor in the aisle has been fitted with alternating butterscotch and green tiles. Lastly the new aisle 4 now features most of M@C coffee and tea offerings.

In addition the Alpine Meijer's aisle 5 as received the same new flooring. So it too will have M@C's coffee and tea offerings.

This may mean that atleast some of M@C's new features will indeed find their way into other Meijer stores.

This is also the case at the M6 & Kalamazoo Meijer. It appears that its going to be a change across the board.

[Veloise]

One last recon of M@C prior to their invitation-only party tonight...

The floors are polished to a mirror-like brightness. Striped and solid shirts are everywhere: adjusting price tags on the produce shelves, setting huge vases of flowers atop the black-covered sampling tables. Some private vendors are frantically setting and merching out displays (Yankee Candle back in the paper goods).

Near the fitting rooms, there's a full-sized grand piano ready for its musician.

Bunch of traffic cones in the parking lot. Presumably they'll use those to mark off the valet parking.

It's interesting to speculate on how they will sweep the proles out of the store prior to the big event, since they almost never have to do that. (I once enjoyed Christmas Eve in Livonia, with more and more potential customers pulling in as they noticed all the cars still in the lot at 8:30 pm.)

Edited October 22, 2007 by Veloise

[tamias6]

Grand pianos, valet parking, flowers, invitation only party. One would think that this is the grand opening of the JW Marriott more than the grand reopening of a freshly renovated Meijer store. Boy, talk about white glove treatment. Anyway, as beautiful as M@C is, it surely deserves all the pampering its been getting as of late.

[Veloise]

Grand pianos, valet parking, flowers, invitation only party. One would think that this is the grand opening of the JW Marriott more than the grand reopening of a freshly renovated Meijer store. Boy, talk about white glove treatment. Anyway, as beautiful as M@C is, it surely deserves all the pampering its been getting as of late.

I am prognosticating on the valet parking. Today a cashier said there are 2,000 invitations. And a stocker (from another store) said that many personnel were pulled in from other branches, but told that they are not invited to stick around. (Wonder if they'll have the regular shift go sit in the breakroom 6:30-8 pm while all the Central Casting beautiful help works the floor?)

Oh, and they've added Wi-fi. I am not kidding. There are strange circular seating units in the magazine section, with a "blue dot" on the top labeled "Wifi." Why this is not in the carry-out food or **$$ area is unclear. (If I'm staring at a computer screen, what do I want with a magazine??)

[tamias6]

....

Oh, and they've added Wi-fi. I am not kidding. There are strange circular seating units in the magazine section, with a "blue dot" on the top labeled "Wifi." Why this is not in the carry-out food or **$$ area is unclear. (If I'm staring at a computer screen, what do I want with a magazine??)

The Starbucks by the grocery --ur I mean-- the Meijer Fresh entry has its own sit down cafe. Its probably covered by a Wi-Fi network as most Starbuck locations feature Wi-Fi.

...Oh speaking of communications, Meijer is getting into the cell phone biz with its own line of prepaid cell phones similar to Trac Phone. I saw Meijer brand cellies for sale at the Standale Meijer.

[tamias6]

Meijer set to unveil a proposed 157,000 sq. ft store in Solon Twp. just outside of Ceder Springs.

Article

[mejane]

May I ask what the incessant posting and praise singing of Meijer by one or two posters is all about? Employed by the company, perhaps? Or just easily impressed? Not attempting a flame war, here, but, sheesh, nearly everytime I pop in, the top post in the Coffee House is - wait for it, drum-roll, please, "MEIJER".