Albertsons cutting back on printed ad circulars

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Brian Lutz
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Albertsons cutting back on printed ad circulars

Post by Brian Lutz »

This week's usual bundle of dead tree spam in which grocery ad circulars are usually sent came today, and I noticed that Albertsons was including a card that indicated you would need to send it back to them if you wished to continue receiving weekly ad circulars in the mail. Although it doesn't make sense for them to be sending out as many circulars as they do (I was getting their weekly ads at my old apartment even though the closest Albertsons store was well out of range of where I would drive to buy groceries) I suspect it's probably another sign of their ongoing troubles.
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Re: Albertsons cutting back on printed ad circulars

Post by Alpha8472 »

The supermarkets in my area all still advertise by mailing a weekly ad. The drug stores are a different story. Rite Aid and CVS still mail ads, but Walgreens does not mail ads at all. Walgreens hasn't mailed an ad for many years. It is also the reason why I never shopped much at Walgreens.
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Re: Albertsons cutting back on printed ad circulars

Post by Brian Lutz »

Here, Bartell Drugs mails out weekly ads (at least in some areas, I don't think my current residence gets the ad packet it ususally comes in) and Rite Aid mails out ads at least occasionally (I don't think weekly though.) I've never seen a mailed Walgreens ad, but they also have a relatively small presence in this area compared to Rite Aid and Bartell.
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Re: Albertsons cutting back on printed ad circulars

Post by storewanderer »

It is possible Albertsons is including those post cards in neighborhoods that are a certain distance from their existing stores, as sending blanket ads to every resident in those areas isn't very cost effective.

I know there is a entire section of Reno that Smiths skips when sending their ad out because they have none of their 3 stores are within a good 10 miles of that part of town. Conversely, Safeway blankets the entire area with their ads for just two stores.

Walgreens has always advertised here, in the newspaper.

As companies close stores in a market and continue to advertise just as much as when they had a larger store count, it pushes the costs up for the existing stores. Additional fixed costs of being in a given market like advertising are what make it so hard for people who have just a few stores in a market to base it worthwhile to even continue operations. Still if you have just a scattered base of stores left that are solid performers it may be best to cut the advertising.
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Re: Albertsons cutting back on printed ad circulars

Post by Brian Lutz »

Unlike my previous address, my current address is actually within semi-reaonable distance of the nearest Albertsons store (5.1 miles by freeway, less than a 10 minute drive assuming traffic is light.) Granted, there are 5 QFCs, 4 Safeways, a Fred Meyer and a Whole Foods which are all geographically closer than that, but it's close enough that I might actually consider shopping there if I had a reason to do so, whereas getting to an Albertsons from the old apartment would have required a much greater distance and wading through at least 20 minutes of traffic to get there. The ad mailings I get actually include ads for a store in the next town (Metropolitan Market, a local upscale chain in the Seattle area) which is quite a bit further, but that store is still relatively new and still trying to establish itself.
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