Hy-Vee's weirdest business decision yet?

RustShack

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I still don’t understand why they went away from the fulfillment center method for the shopping. Keep all of the lazy people’s groceries away from people that are actually doing their own shopping.

When I worked there you couldn’t have a pallet or anything out during the day so that shoppers weren’t inconvenienced.
They went away from that about a month or so before Covid. Probably would have kept it longer in hindsight if they knew the shutdown was coming and aisles online was going to explode because of it.
 

Cyched

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Want to say I saw this on Reddit, maybe it made its way here?

Anyway here’s your blast from the past. Not sure which store; maybe someone recognizes the outside at the end of the video?

 
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CYdTracked

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Randy Edeker will be remember as one of the worst CEO's in the history of Des Moines and Iowa companies..

Ron Pearson handed him one of the best companies, maybe the best company in the state and ruined it for marketing opportunities with celebrities and experimenting with non-essential business lines trying to chase margin..

Randy is no longer the CEO, Jeremy Gosch is. It's kind of a mess, they had co-CEO's for awhile after Randy stepped down too.


Randy actually stepped down as the board of directors chairman this past summer too and retired. I completely agree that the company went down some bad paths with Randy at the top of leadership. Ron and Rick great leaders and the company did dabble in some of the stupid ventures of adding non-grocery stuff to the stores but it was pretty short lived when it failed in their pilot stores. The crazy thing is I think Hy-Vee is still expanding their market and opening new stores in markets they have not had stores in before so they are still profitable enough to grow despite their flaws.
 

cycloneworld

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So Hy-Vee tried the following:

-Selling shoes
-Selling designer clothing
-Attaching a Hy-Vee fitness Center
-Branding their own restaurants
-partnering with a celebrity when their branded restaurants failed
-Paid Patrick Mahomes a ton of money
-Tried to film a Bachelor-style reality show in their stores (seriously, who green lit this…)

Before realizing that people only want reasonably priced groceries with helpful, cheerful employees like they had been doing for the previous 50 years??

EVERYONE knew this yet some moron CEO somehow got away with trying all of that BS. And now they have to beg for people to come back. LOL.
 

Tailg8er

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I still don’t understand why they went away from the fulfillment center method for the shopping. Keep all of the lazy people’s groceries away from people that are actually doing their own shopping.

When I worked there you couldn’t have a pallet or anything out during the day so that shoppers weren’t inconvenienced.

I'll call people lazy for a lot of things, but this isn't one of them. I rarely use it myself, but it's a LOT more efficient than going & shopping yourself, and costs nothing extra when you pick it up. Something like $5 or $10 (plus tip) to deliver, but they also regularly have 10-20% off codes that can offset part/most of that. Plus you likely save by shopping online vs in-store as you don't grab as many impulse items.

Employees shopping online orders is probably about 278th on my list of inconveniences in a given month.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

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Was at Fareway recently and even they are starting to go away from Tones. They had a few Tones stuff on the shelf but it's mostly McCormick spices now. From what I've heard sounds like Tones is more concerned about making sure the big box retailers are stocked such as Wal-Mart which is why chains like Hy-Vee are dropping them because they can't get enough stock from Tones.

Wal-Mart can't keep them in stock either.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

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About 2 months ago.

‘Because they wanted to provide more customer service’ per an employee when I asked. But it was 100% because of theft or theft suspicions.

Here's the thing with the HyVee's near me and the self checkout and I don't want to sound bad but both stores near me have employees with special needs working those areas. I've always appreciated HyVee and how they employee people with special needs but a known area for theft maybe isn't the best spot. When it's busy, the Mills Civic self check is busy AF so I can see how stuff would be easily missed.
 

CoachHines3

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About 2 months ago.

‘Because they wanted to provide more customer service’ per an employee when I asked. But it was 100% because of theft or theft suspicions.
i thought i read where they said people want to interact with the checkers or some sh*t.

b*tch i dont want to talk to anyone, let me get in and out (giggity) without talking to a soul.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

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Definitely is. Back in the day when I use to work Loss Prevention we use to catch a lot of people not scanning hundreds of dollars at a time through self checkouts. I can’t even imagine how much shrinkage they have from them.

Think of a place like Home Depot. High dollar small package items have to be walking out the door all day.
 

ackatch

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Think of a place like Home Depot. High dollar small package items have to be walking out the door all day.
Have you been in Home Depot lately? They have pretty much anything worth anything behind cages now. All the power tools, batteries, electrical stuff... locked behind cages. Just another reason to shop online and get it delivered.