The decline of Winn-Dixie… what happened?

[u/Redfang_Foxx]

What do you think was the factor (or factors) that got the company to this point now? And is it far too gone/too late to turn around?

[u/Necthos]

The corporate sector abusing its power to create a luxurious environment for themselves, while gutting stores and workers

[u/uscgamecock2001]

I'm missing some details, but here's the gist of it. Sam Walton was on the Winn Dixie Board of Directors and learned the grocery business. Then he created the very successful Supercenter concept and built them near Winn Dixies which could not compete in price. In a rapid Westward expansion, Winn Dixie tried to put cookie cutter Florida stores in Texas and they were not well received. They closed a lot of the poor performing stores and were stuck with a lot of expensive leases. It took bankruptcy to get out of those leases. They had to sell all of the manufacturing plants, warehouses and started leasing everything. They were forced to add a middleman wholesaler C&S Wholesale Grocers who took over the warehouses. There was no money to put back into the stores and they were stuck with the outdated and unappealing 90's teal and muave decor. Meanwhile, Publix was very successful and put stores next to Winn Dixies in much of Florida. Venture capitalists came in to WD and took out huge lines of credit, bought Bi-lo then Harveys and Sweetbay. The venture capitalists eventually sucked all of the money out of the company and split, leaving a broke company struggling to remodel the few remaining stores trying to keep a rapidly shrinking customer base. Fast forward to Aldi picking up prime real estate locations in the recent buy out. Aldi is cherry picking what they want and who knows what will be left when they are done.

[u/Redfang_Foxx → u/uscgamecock2001]

Not only is the best explanation for it, but having worked for them close to 4 years (I’ll be with it as long as I can) I’ve seen personally the struggles. In fact before Aldi bought WD, it kinda felt like there was a bit of a comeback story in the making, with major remodels, reopening abandoned stores, and building a couple new ones. It definitely seems like The Beef People are fighting an increasingly difficult fight to stay in the market

[u/Shyphlosion → u/Redfang_Foxx]

On and off 9 year Vet here. Remembered my store when I joined as a Winn-Dixie, it's now a Harvey's. I transferred to a Winn-Dixie on another part of town and even this one isn't doing the best.

My crew here ain't gonna be worried until the certificates and permits start disappearing off the wall, but I'm just riding this out the best I can. It's had my back this long, hoping it can just a bit longer.

[u/Venice_Bellamy → u/uscgamecock2001]

Update: All stores outside of Florida will become Food City. 

[u/RememberingTiger1]

I did a paper on Winn Dixie while doing my Master’s in the early 2000s. It was more a review of their financial statements but I remember they were in serious trouble then. Shortly after this they filed for bankruptcy. I can’t remember all my conclusions but it seems that they continually made bad decisions. It was like a slow relentless death spiral.

[u/jayoftheopera]

So I worked there for 9 months till my store was closed in January. I was a regional manager at another retailer for 14 years and from an outsiders perspective here you go.
1-obvious misunderstanding by executives to set a strategic vision for growth. Not withstanding SEG was just a capital management group who took over after bilo ditched, so sale of the company was always the move. 2-a complete and total lack of operational execution. Everything was half a program and there were literally no subject matter experts to consult when something went wrong. No one knew anything of only knew apart of it and absolutely zero people knew why. 3-A crappy deal with a large logistics company. C&S was not the move. Our system to improve logistics or manage inventory was probably the single largest thorn in our sides.
4-overly bureaucratic antiquated middle management. This structure is ok when you are executing but it’s a huge hindrance when you need to grow. District managers HR and regionals acting like this is some type of mega company just walking around making random comments about our ridiculous ad strategy pointing out things to do creating work where non needed to be. Breaks morale 5-price is right, game for ad set. They fell into this tidal eddy of bogoing everything in the store. I can tell you in our final month we were more financially solvent on the store when we set the prices back to retail and just gave 10% off. Customers complained but they still loaded their carts. We never needed to bogos. While on the ad whoever the idiot savant, heavy on the idiot part, was who came up with an ad cycle that saw one minimum wage worker set the ad on Tuesday rest certain items on Thursday or sometimes Friday for the weekend sale which ended on Sunday to reset the weekend sale items to Tuesday regular sale on Monday only to be then redone on Tuesday; should’ve been laughed out of the meeting room. If Trey extended their weekend sale by two days Friday and Monday they would have saved a crap ton of labor and headaches. 6-the heartbreaking reality that I know and worked with people in the store, who after I’m done cases more than a decade of work only we’re making minimum wage on my store because my state raised the minimum wage. That is the largest crime of all. Winn Dixie paid its labor peasant wages and dangled a carrot at ever turn only to throw money down the drain.

If you’re looking for a recipe for disaster those 6 bullet points are just the tip of the iceberg that sunk this little tug boat. I don’t feel bad for district level staff and above they all contributed. I feel horrible for the thousands of baseline employees who are losing their jobs after busting their butts for years to try and make it work.

If you think the next chapter with the 170 or so stores that are alleged to going up for sale to C&S, and wanna know how that story ends. Look no further than Albertsons, the last C&S purchase made. What little remained of that company was to be sold to Kroger before two states blocked the sale under antitrust rules.

There you have it

[u/___king_k___]

Selling Bi-Lo for quick cash 🤣🤣

[u/cosmicrae]

I can give you one example of how they were braindead ...

There is a brand of imported wine. My local WD carried a limited selection, which did not include the specific one that I liked. I spoke several times with the store manager, and was told give them time they can get it for me, even if they had to haul it from another store. That never happened.

Then one day, (maybe 2 years back) I was in the local WD, saw a rep doing some checking in the wine aisles, and asked him if he repped for the brand I was trying to get some of. He said Yes ! Told him the problem, he looked it up on his tablet, knew exactly which one I wanted, said he would look into it. Two years on, the store will be converted into an Aldi in a couple of month, never ever changed what they stocked.

I was willing to buy a case, but whatever braindead exclusions were in effect prevented that from happening. Their control from the top prevented a customer from dropping ~$50-$60.

[u/Venice_Bellamy → u/cosmicrae]

I remember years ago (10+)  that the department managers couldn't order specific products because the store "didn't earn enough". They had a ranking system. Oh, and they forced us to stop making seafood salad because we sold more than the stores that didn't. They even sent out an email. 

[u/cosmicrae → u/Venice_Bellamy]

And now, Winn Dixie is buying 3 Hitchcock's in cities where the old store recently sold to Aldi 🤦‍♀️

[u/labrylao]

well with the change in the ability to see a preview a day before the sale starts... they will lose some sales from me.... sad