Near me, the QFC is tiny compared to the Fred Meyer stores. It's much more convenient to get in and get out quickly. Prices are higher than Fred Meyer on most things so we tend to use it for items we ran out of and do our weekly shopping elsewhere.
There's a lot of Kroger-labeled things on the shelves, so it's clear they're owned by the same company.
Another option are the organic-only stores, like Natural Grocers.
>Near me, the QFC is tiny compared to the Fred Meyer stores.
QFCs are essentially just the "Grocery" department from Fred Meyer. Remove Home Goods, Apparel and Electronics from FM and you've got yourself a QFC.
Edit: Someone step in here and correct me if I'm wrong, but that's Kroger's basic MO. Even Ralph's and their Kroger-branded stores just feel like the exact same grocery store as QFC and FM's grocery department.
And (sorry to rant, lol), yeah, a dude named Fred Meyer in Portland really did found the store in the 1920's, but do y'all have to put his picture and a big spiel about him and "local community" up at the front of your store when we all know that the present-day reality of FM is bullshit?
Good point, I've missed quite a few. I guess I was thinking more of "one stop shopping", which even PCC barely qualifies for only a select group of people. But at the end of the day, should the merger go through and Krogerson's tries to go all monopoly, the listed alternatives will serve as mitigating factor.
As far as "one stop shops" go, there are few in the PNW. I'm down in Federal Way, and though we have Fred Meyer and the Walmart Super Center, everything else (Safeway, QFC, Trader Joe's, WinCo, Grocery Outlet, Chefs'tore and possible Amazon Fresh, though I've not been in there yet) are just grocery stores, and Target and Costco (plus what we call "the old WalMart, used primarily as a management training store for WalMart) are big-box stores that also happen to carry food.
With the rise of e-commerce, I don’t really see the allure of one stop shopping.
I live in the PNW and almost never go to Kroger/Safeway stores. I just want groceries, I don’t want to have to wade through endless cruft to get there.
That's true, but there's no Walmart in Redmond itself. The Seattle area is unusually Walmart-light, as I explained in a comment on a similar thread the other day.[1]
But, yes: nobody in our area is under the illusion that Fred Meyer and QFC (or Safeway and Albertsons) compete with each other.