Tt post jan 20, 2017 - b2

From the Blade op-ed :

Greater Toledo needs to rise up and save The Andersons stores.

Those of us who have been huge fans of The Andersons stores have been rising up for decades. It wasn't enough.

... the retail division lost more than $20 million the last eight years. It has not made an annual profit since 2008.

And the amount of competition from chain stores has increased since 2008. The loses could be increasing with each passing year.

It's not like The Andersons didn't try. Regular shoppers at The Andersons are fully aware of the constant changes and expansions that occurred at the stores over the past 10 to 15 years.

For the Talmadge Rd store, the pet, grocery, bakery, beer and wine, and garden sections were expanded, including a build-out. They eliminated or greatly reduced the selling of some products, such as toys, fishing gear, and lumber, and they added new products.

I shopped at The Andersons at least twice a month, and for a while some years ago, it seemed like the store rearranged everything about every month.

Despite the frustration of having to relocate items on practically every visit, I assumed that The Andersons were pouring over shopper data and listening to a lot of consultants about what products to sell and how to organize the store.

I assumed that The Andersons were trying to survive against stiff competition. Therefore I accepted the constant changes. I figured that if this was needed to survive, then fine.

The Andersons stores today are not the same stores that existed 10 years ago or 20 years ago. If The Andersons had never changed, then I could understand the idea of "trying something new."

One store, on a more modest scale, one that specialized and did not try to sell so many products — nuts and bolts to bedding — might be viable as a separate entity.

As mentioned multiple times in comments above, the Sylvania store was a specialized store at least for food and beverage, and it failed in an area with allegedly higher household incomes than if the store had been located near Upton and Berdan.

Of course, investors would need to do their due diligence and figure out scale, price points, and the products that are no-brainers. But all that is doable. And it is eminently worth trying to save The Andersons using a new and different model and a different corporate platform.

Again, regular shoppers at The Andersons since 2000 or 2005 would have observed the type activity that would make one think that the retail managers were doing their due diligence to figure out scale, price points, and the products.

The Talmadge Rd Andersons store was not stagnate.

And a scaled-down, specialized store of some unknown format is no longer The Andersons store, regardless of the name. This new format may be useless to many of us shoppers.

Here are a few simple examples of why The Andersons was unique to my needs. I could buy Chuck-A-Nut pumpkin seeds that I feed to the birds because House Sparrows don't eat them, and I could buy Orval beer. I'd like to know of another store that sells those two items.

At The Andersons, I could buy a black-and-white cookie for me and dog food for my mutt. I could buy white whole wheat flour for bread baking and green bean seeds to plant in my garden. I could buy light bulbs for the track lightning in my computer room and Cheerwine soda.

I could buy the usual things, such as toothpaste, deodorant, trash bags, paper goods, cleaning supplies, snacks, wine, and if necessary, house paint, work gloves, nails, a new lawn or garden tool, or maybe some tomato plants and Espoma organic fertilizers.

That quirky variety is what attracted me. But the variety might also be the reason why the store failed because shoppers like me probably represent a minority.

Generally, discrete, boutique independent businesses have a better shot than businesses that compete with big boxes and multinationals across many product lines.

That's why I patronize other locally-owned favorites, such as Phoenix Earth Food Co-op, Zavotski's, Titgemeier's, Black Diamond, Al Habib, Clip-N-Dales, Macino shoe repair, Auto Connection, Maumee Tackle, Twin Oaks dry cleaners, Art Supply Depo, the locally-owned coffee shops, such as Kathy's Confections, the local coffee roasters, such as Bea's Blend, the local independent yarn stores, such as Yarn Cravin, the vendors at the Toledo farmers market, etc.

The only big box retail store that I visited regularly was The Andersons.

If we're speaking hypothetically, then it's possible that a store such as the one imagined by the Blade op-ed writer could fail faster and worse than The Anderons big box format.

The reality is, The Andersons stores have a devout following in Greater Toledo. Not everyone wants to go to a big box. Some people will pay a little more for something special.

And that's why I patronize "my" businesses listed above. A new re-imagined Andersons store would probably lose out to my other favorites.

To me, The Andersons big box store format was unique. I like things that are unique to this area.

That's how my wife and I shop for holiday gifts by buying from local or regional artists and craftspeople at events like Handmade Toledo's Makers Mart and from guild members at the Toledo Botanical Garden.

A lot of people buy gifts at the mall, but my preference is different.

When it comes to buying art supplies for my nieces and myself, I prefer to shop downtown at The Art Supply Depo. I could probably save money by shopping online or at Michael's or some other chain, but my preference is different.

In other words, some of us already have a long list of small, locally-owned, boutique, specialized stores that we patronize. I don't see how a new, smaller, specialized format of The Andersons could compete.

And forget about trying to retain its "devout following." How could the new format compete with the growing competition from chains?

The Maumee store probably faces competition from the sprawl that exists along routes 25 and 20.

What is special about The Andersons is the quality of the product and the staff and, second, the sense of community it represents and embodies.

But I find those same qualities in many of the small, locally-owned stores too. It's what attracts me to locally-owned businesses. The op-ed writer needs to venture around Toledo more.

Now it is up to the community. What if 30,000 people signed a commitment to shop in The Andersons store once a week? What if people really would pay more to keep it?

Shop at the store for what? And many of us have already paid more for a very long time. It didn't work. It will be sad when the stores finally close, but hey, move on.

Suppose that a revitalized downtown, which is going to desperately need a grocery store, had a right-sized market called The Andersons?

It seems to me that if the downtown Toledo market could support an Andersons store like the one that existed in Sylvania, then some chain would have opened such a store already in downtown Toledo.

Such a downtown store would have to be extremely unique to the area in order to make it a destination store in order for the store to survive. If it was a store like the one in Sylvania, then that's not unique enough to attract West Toledo residents with all the shopping available at that end of town.

This need not be the end of The Andersons stores.

I feel a Seneca County courthouse thing going on.

When The Andersons store in Sylvania closed last fall, that's when it became painfully obvious that the two big box stores were doomed. A specialized store failed in Sylvania. I thought that would be the one store that would survive if the big box versions eventually closed.