Is it just me or is up down in branding when it comes to retail these days? Laundromats in apparel stores, apparel in grocery stores, sounds like desperation or a complete break on what a brand stands for. Kroger = food. Would you say Ralph Lauren = grocery? This is wrongheaded on many levels. Do a better job with offering and delivering food. Period.

Quite frankly, I can’t imagine what they’re thinking. One of the things we keep saying retailers need to do is think of their franchise as a brand — not just the end of a distribution chain. And one of the first rules of branding (albeit one of the hardest to obey) is to know the limits of your brand. To understand what consumers will accept as being a legitimate extension of your brand image. While Meijer has some room here as a mass merchant, or even Walmart whose brand is still mass before food in consumer’s minds, it is almost inconceivable that this could really work for Kroger or any other “food-first” retailer.

The reasons behind Kroger’s move to revamp and reinvent the existing fashion offer are clear: profits are under pressure, sales are slowing and apparel is higher margin and a relatively untapped growth opportunity.

As much as this sounds like a sensible move, it should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. There is already oversupply in apparel, discounting in the sector is rife and any player has to stand out both to protect margins and drive sales.

Does Kroger have what it takes to deliver? Maybe, but I ultimately think it will be held back by its mass merchant mentality and approach to retailing. So a small sales uplift, perhaps; becoming a major player in fashion, no.

Whatever happened to the “stick to the knitting” principle we learned about in “In Search of Excellence?” I know that was way back in 1982 so is that passé now?

I was horrified when Cadillac decided to make a compact and I refuse to accept the idea of Ferrari making a SUV. Is there nothing sacred any more? Now it’s “look at my new outfit from Kroger and I got this purse at Safeway.” Perhaps Monsanto should launch a meal replacement product or a multi-vitamin. Burger King doing sushi?

Come on people … pick a lane!

Desperation comes to mind. I’m sure the decision making process went something like, “We need a higher margin category,” or, “One-stop shopping works so well, why don’t we add fashion to our inventory?”

I really can’t imagine what they are thinking. Of all the categories to add, fashion wouldn’t be at the top — or middle — of my list. That said, stranger things have happened. There are two approaches that could work, at least in theory: be so fashion-forward that the beautiful people would have to come to Kroger to show how au courant they are; or be so low priced on basic items like t-shirts or children’s clothing that you attract the Walmart shopper. In other words, I don’t hold out much hope for the idea. I’d love to be wrong, but I have to believe there are more productive uses for the space.

Kroger, much like all retailers, is looking to increase basket size and adding these products may help them. As long as they add the right items and the customer sees them as impulse buys they should do well. I do not see them adding full aisles of fashion to their traditional grocery stores. It would be confusing to those shoppers who consider fashion and food two different shopping trips. Again, as an impulse item for a few items would be the appropriate approach. Increased transaction size is the measurement of success.

Call me stuffy, but some brands don’t work with unrelated concepts. Clorox shouldn’t roll out a beauty line. Saks shouldn’t offer automotive equipment. Out-of-the-box thinking is important these days, but some ideas don’t deserve to be implemented.

This seems pretty far-fetched to me, except in Fred Meyer stores. Kroger likely doesn’t have skilled staff to organize all the nuances of the apparel business, and that will quickly become obvious to shoppers. Why can’t Kroger stick to grocery and make a concerted effort to be serious about improving that at all levels? Just asking …

I love to see retailers trying something new however, this does not perk my ears up at all. I’m in Bob’s camp on this one. Let’s focus on food and new exciting things they can do there. For my 2 cents.

The challenge for any retailer that has an extensive portfolio of physical store locations is making their square footage relevant in an Amazon world. In the quest for relevance, retailers are trying to present and provide products to the shoppers that are already in the store. Perhaps apparel could become products of convenience for existing grocery customers. In short, retailers are presenting any product that they can sell within their square footage. Amazon is selling Echo devices like apples inside of Whole Foods.

It’s a great aspiration, but it’s a ridiculous short-term goal for Kroger. They should start with “baby steps,” focusing on more utilitarian products/services, i.e., more aligned with grocery shopping.

it’s not unreasonable for them to eventually get there — look at how Amazon has evolved since its days as a low-price bookstore — but it will take many years to broaden their brand to enable it. And talking about it now seems to diminish their credibility and strategic thought processes.

That’s a bad idea. I think some of the above comments are correct (I just needed to say something positive!). Every brand has something called “permission scope,” and this is way out of Kroger’s scope. I wonder how that c-store they just opened is doing? Perhaps some good results from that would be a better press release than this, eh?

If you look at the list of the top seven global retailers, all over $100 billion in sales, Walmart (#1), Amazon (#3) and Kroger (#6) are in the pack driving for the pole position. For Walmart, never forget Disraeli’s comment upon ascending to the Prime Ministership of Britain, “I have reached the top of the greasy pole.” And I do believe that Kroger is the only one of the seven that is a US-only company. It has been many years since Kroger was a grocery-only business. They acquired Fred Meyer quite a few years ago, a 100-year old regional chain that had evolved into their own “shopping mall” format at least 50 years ago, under the leadership of their founder. The significance of Kroger’s Fred Meyer acquisition was that they moved Fred Meyer’s leadership (shopping center) into the highest levels of Kroger management. So much for misguided “grocery only” thinking about Kroger, which may own more different regional brands than any other business — all in the U.S. Notice that Walmart did not begin as… Read more »

Kroger will succeed or fail depending on how it prices and positions its clothing as part of the “Our Brands” lineup. This is about price and position for clothing, since the majority of their customers are not going to these Kroger stores to shop for clothing, but instead for more traditional grocery products. Because of this, Kroger needs to more heavily influence their shoppers with pricing and placement of these clothing lines. It will not be easy, and Kroger will need razor sharp focus to become successful.

The last thing the US market needs is another apparel brand. There is way too much retail square footage devoted to apparel already. Our Brands is also a terrible naming choice. Fred Meyer can be a good place to pick up mass brand apparel and footwear without the hassle of driving to an outlet mall, but this initiative won’t move the needle at all.

Regionally, Kroger has offered a full range of apparel for the entire family via Fred Meyer superstores for many years. Because Kroger already sells apparel, the context is different than Safeway selling apparel. When a customer walks in the store, most entrances drive traffic to apparel, home furnishings, hardware, garden, etc. en route to the grocery isles. Kroger has a specific apparel customer “taste profile.” The “taste profile” is just beyond being a basic, well made in a classic “American style of manufacturing” and not cheap relative to brands in this space.
Seems to come down to how many regions are needed to ignite enough new growth in Kroger apparel to making Kroger relevant in apparel to the bottom line.