Supermarkets next to be Wal-Marted to death?

[No2W2004]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=533&e=4&u=/ap/20040502/ap_on_bi_ge/cheaper_shoppers

Study: Shoppers Deserting Supermarkets

CHICAGO - For financially pressed consumers, it's coming down to a choice between spending on gasoline or groceries, and gasoline is winning, a food industry analysis finds.


"Given the economic environment, it is not surprising that more shoppers are buying food today in discount stores and other low-price venues than ever before," said the report by the Food Marketing Institute, released at the organization's annual trade show in Chicago.

(Snip)

As a result, supermarkets are losing their hold on their customers, who can go to other retailers such as discount stores, the survey said.

The proportion of respondents who said a supermarket was their primary food store fell by 5 percentage points since a year earlier, to 72 percent. The share of shoppers who considered a discount store their first choice rose by 4 percentage points, to 21 percent.

[freetobegay]

1. It's Publix for me or nothing!

eom

[RebelOne]

15. Guess you don't have to worry about money.

Publix is a lot more expensive than other supermarkets in my neck of the woods.

[TheFarseer]

2. I'm not sure they can pull that

with large supermarket chains. Lot's of supermarkets have cheep gas also. And Walmart is not any cheeper than alot of supermarket chains on food. I'm sure they are taking some of their business, but my point is that at least large supermarket chains can fight back pertty on level playing ground.

[gmoney]

3. strange feeling

that when I shop at Kroger or Target, that has become "supporting the little guy"


Ugh... America. The race to the bottom is nearly won.

[Burma Jones]

4. And NOW, here come the Super Targets

Still, It's Trader Joe's, Fresh Fields and Giant for us.

[OKNancy]

8. Where I live

Target is a lot higher than my neighborhood Albertsons.
Even if it were cheaper, I think I save on gasoline and headaches (caused by fighting the traffic) by going somewhere close.

[kath]

12. I live in OK too, and SuperTarget's food prices are a LOT lower

than Albertson's (except perhaps for Albertson's 2-for-1 specials). On some items Target is even lower than our local small-chain discount supermarket (Crest). Albertson's regular prices are *ridiculous*.
(I do NOT shop at WalMart. they suck in so many ways...)

(when it comes to grocery shopping, you really CAN save money by keeping a little "price notebook" of the things you buy regularly -- go to a few stores and write down the regular prices, also record the "weekly special" prices. If you do this for even a month or two, you'll know a good price when you see it. Stock up as much as possible when things hit the lowest sale price you see. Albertson's is 25-40% more expensive than Crest here, pretty much across the board.)

[Deja Q]

5. Yipes. I remember the days of mom'n'pop stores getting wiped out

by Rainbow, Cub, Super-valu, et al. Which are all corporate giants like wal-mart, except they kept within the domain of groceries.

walmart wants it all... :scared:

How far can walmart go?

and what will happen when they close stores thanks to the concept of "economical viability" (meaning a store note seen as sufficiently profitable will be closed down...)?

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

6. Aldi and Meijers.

Aldi, a German chain, is pitching to the low end of the foodbuying public as their prices really cant be beat..although the selection is limited. They are actually somewhat sucessfull, too...

Meijers, in this area (Dayton) and in Kentucky, are sort of the hypermarket concept where you can buy K-Mart or WalMart stuff, and have a full service supermarket in the same store.

Cubs, which is also a supermarket, but a real big one, with very low prices and a "bag it yourself" concept is also popular here in the Dayton area.

on edit..
heres the Aldi website
http://www.aldifoods.com/

[shanti]

7. it's the dollar stores that they are worried about

the 99 cent stores, grocery warehouse, etc., and they ARE taking a big chunk out of traditional grocery store profits.

[T Roosevelt]

9. Publix and occassionally Albertsons

though I've noticed that Albertsons is usually more expensive (particularly on cereals).

[Piperay]

10. Serves em right after

their greedy misconceived hold-out on the striking employees here in California. I go to independent markets, Costco, Big Lots and the 99 Cent store for my groceries. :-)

[jmowreader]

11. Wal-Mart's grocery business

At the Home Depot "how to fight Wal-Mart" seminar, they told us about the threat Wal-Mart poses in the grocery sector: five years ago Wal-Mart did not sell food items. Now they are the biggest player in that sector.

Wal-Mart doesn't fuck around when they decide to enter a business. Which is why they're so dangerous--they have enough $$$ to lose money for years on a particular item if they have to.

On edit: There is a Hispanic market in St. Pauls that has figured out how to work Wal-Mart. The people who run it found out that, because of Wal-Mart's immense buying power, they could buy the stuff they sell from Wal-Mart a lot cheaper than they could buy it from their distributor--so they started buying it at Wal-Mart, marking it up 20 percent and reselling it. His customers love it because their prices went down, and they're not going to Wal-Mart anyway...if you speak no English you don't want to shop at a store where most of the clerks speak no Spanish. I don't think Wal-Mart really minds that they have to load this guy's car with a forklift. And this dude's getting fat & happy.

[Zinfandel]

13. And Wal-Mart doesn't have to, How many companies do you know of who

offers decent wages and benefits to it's employees.

In and Out Burger (West coast based, does) Why not McDonalds or Burger King, etc...

Costco (West coast based, does) Why not Wal-Mart

WinCo foods (West coast based, does, employee owned)
Safeway foods (West coast based, does, union employees)

And there are other companies I know of here on the "left coast" who offer their employees a fair and decent living.

Wal-Mart and most corporations are motivated by pure greed and could care less about it's employees.

[spinbaby]

14. Cheaper convenience foods

From the article:

Working against the desire to save money was the desire to save time, something else that modern America has all too little of. The survey showed an increase in purchases of precooked foods, which cost more than the ingredients for from-scratch meals.

"The trend toward timesaving convenience foods from precooked pasta to cereal bars continues," the report said.
----
Here we have Americans who can't really afford groceries and who also don't have time to cook (two minimum-wage jobs will do that to you). So what they're looking for is really cheap convenience food and they wind up buying starchy, fat-laden, nutrient-poor, cheap junk. No wonder Americans are fat.