GrandPa's expands beyond St. Louis; regional discounter weaves 'nostalgia' into prototype - GrandPa's Ste. Genevieve, Missouri prototype store

Discount Store News, Dec 7, 1992 by Mary Ellen Kelly

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- GrandPa's plans for the future, as reflected in the new prototype store opened here, can be summed up with one comment from company president, Rob Voss: "In whatever we offer, you'll see dominance."

The new store also takes GrandPa's one step further in making the most of its name, history, in addition to the consumer's yearning for the good ole days.

The store is GrandPa's 10th and its first outside the Greater St. Louis market. The town of Ste. Genevieve, Mo., 50 miles south of St. Louis, signals the chain's new pursuit of small markets, outside the St. Louis competitive hotbed. Another two to three stores are projected to open somewhere within a 100 mile radius of St. Louis in 1993, each modeled after the Ste. Genevieve store.

Quaint streetlamps--first tested in its store in Ballwin earlier this year--replaced typical cashier aisle markers as part of a "nostalgia look," said Voss. Poster-sized vintage pictures of the first "Grandpa Pidgeon's Roost" opened in 1953 line the front and back walls of the store. Among the black & white photos are pictures of the chain's founders--grandparents of current chief executive officer, Tom Holley.

A restaurant is planned for the store, the elements of which were still being finalized. Voss alluded that there could be yet another opportunity for nostalgia in the restaurant's ambiance, stressing that it would not be anything like what one finds in other discount stores, and that higher quality foods would be available without the hightech glitz.

The store did have similarities to the Wal-Mart Supercenter about 40 miles west of the new GrandPa's. White warehouse styled ceilings, virtually identical textured glass ceiling lamps, park benches for resting and use of warehouse racks in selected departments created a very similar visual impact when first entering the store. But, unlike Wal-Mart, which assaulted the shopper with overhead signage, GrandPa's signage was cleanly limited to uniform, visible department signs and large special value endcap signs.

Voss said most merchandise in the new store has shelf-edge rather than unit pricing and he hopes to be on total price look-up by the start of 1993. Scanning has been in all stores since June.

At 72,000 sq. ft., the GrandPa's store was able to widen the racetrack to 16 feet and still stock the same variety of merchandise as its 96,000 sq. ft. store in Ballwin by downsizing the fixturing. A gondola with a 22-inch base, for instance, had a base of about 16 inches in the Ste. Genevieve unit.

Earlier this year, Voss had said that the predominantly hard lines retailer was going to try to build its soft lines business and the new store reflects this emphasis. Previously, apparel had been relegated to a small area to the right of the entrance; now women's apparel greets the shopper on the left of the racetrack and men's on the right, with children's and shoes further down the aisle. The increased space for apparel has already resulted in significantly more apparel sales at the Ste. Genevieve store than at stores without the expanded apparel mix: 30% of total store sales vs. 20% of sales at other locations.

Other merchandise changes include the addition of a crafts department, with roughly 100 linear feet taken from what would have been housewares merchandise. One other store, in Arnold, Mo., also added crafts and both locations are "extremely successful" said Voss, and a crafts department will be added to all other stores.

Among the departments with greater presence are furniture, food and beverage, sight & sound, Everything Rubbermaid, pet supplies, and cleaning & chemicals. Other new directions in the store include the inclusion of infant furnishings, a department previously not offered.

A dominant image is created in household chemicals not only by the large size of the department but also through the use of warehouse fixturing. Voss estimated sales of household chemicals were up 60% during the past six months.

Warehouse fixturing is used in other departments where the chain is establishing a category dominance position, as in pet supplies and toys. A vendor mini-shop also forms the backbone of the toy department. The entire Little Tikes product line is offered adjacent to a large Fisher-Price section. The newest addition to the toy department is "Toy Depot" from distributor, Ingram, which includes a train-shaped melamine display rack for books.

But as the chain beefs up its core departments, it must also address the future of categories in which dominance is difficult. CE, for instance, might be phased out altogether, with the exception of prerecorded video and audiotapes. "Let the people at Circuit City battle that out," he said of computer and CE hardware.