Hacker News Reader

I like Grocery Outlet right now, should I be worried that long term they might change in a negative way because of outside investors?

View on HN

Of course you should! They’re talking about adding something like 500 new stores in the states they’re already in and another 1500 in the bordering states. The really good deals are going to get spread around more and your local store is going to get less good stuff and more crap (assuming they can find enough crap to stock the shelves). Or they’ll have to raise the price on everything.

It seems to me like their reach might be exceeding their grasp with their expansion intentions, but I'm hoping they just see a hidden opportunity that requires this large cash infusion to handle.

What I'd like to see them do is use this scaling up to put dedicated resources towards extensive scouting of regional vendors, leading to further differentiation of Grocery outlets by location. Or maybe even just give them greater variety of sales items in general.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com