Ralphs Discontinuing Traditional Printed Ads

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storewanderer
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Re: Ralphs Discontinuing Traditional Printed Ads

Post by storewanderer »

Where I live, I do not receive an ad for Scolari's (nearest store about 10 miles away) or Safeway (nearest store about 15 miles away). I receive an ad for Save Mart despite its nearest store being about 8 miles away. Ads for Wal Mart, Raley's, and Smiths, which are all closer, come as well.

I believe Smiths circulates ads all over town even though most of central, southwest, and northwest Reno is easily 10 miles from a Smiths.
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Re: Ralphs Discontinuing Traditional Printed Ads

Post by CalItalian »

Ads came one day early this week on Monday. Still no Ralphs ad. The Ralphs where I live are all or about to be all Fresh Fare's (the last regular Ralphs - a former Hughes at National & Sepulveda - in West Los Angeles is slated to become one, too). I am about a mile from their top and largest location across from UCLA. I am closer to two Vons than a Pavilions but I only get the Pavilions ad and for a while have not been receiving the Vons ad. Sprouts is just a few blocks away. Always get their ad as well as Smart & Final. Bristol Farms coupons every few weeks but no ad from them other than around the holidays. Always get the Gelson's monthlyish full color ad and monthly Trader Joes ad. NEVER get anything from Whole Foods despite being one mile from one.
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Re: Ralphs Discontinuing Traditional Printed Ads

Post by storewanderer »

To be fair, a lot of retailers have really cut down on their ad sizes especially the past few years.

The grocery business, for one reason or another, can't seem to do this.

I think it is a factor of competition.

Wal Mart has started to run ad-looking things with the other grocery ads, but not every week. I can't tell when/why they run ads, but they seem to always show up around holidays.

Add to this that the various Safeway/Albertsons divisions seem to make their print ads larger and larger with many pages, pages falling out as you open the ad, etc., and it appears the weekly grocery ad is not going anywhere.

Stopping print ads at even a couple Ralphs locations was a bad move by Kroger and the thinking behind this type of move, or downsizing non food in a few Fred Meyer Stores, or requiring a loyalty card for sale prices in a few Fred Meyer Stores, are the types of moves that have sent Kroger's stock price and performance spiraling down as of late.

I have never seen a print ad for Whole Foods (the old Wild Oats used to do one). I haven't seen a print ad for WinCo in probably 10 years, either.

All you have to do is go to the post office and see what percentage of people take those weekly grocery print ads with them, to see that this is not especially effective. But there are still enough people who look at the ads that you can't eliminate them completely unless you want to lose enough sales that you'll notice it...

I do think a better ad strategy for grocery is smaller ads, with fewer hot price point items in the ad. Also the ad needs to be easy to read with big enough print and pictures that you can see it clearly and easily, vs. looking like a jumbled up mess of little photos and tiny text descriptions (it seems like the age 50+ age group uses these print ads more heavily than other age groups) - something the Safeway/Albertsons ad department really needs to take to heart.
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Re: Ralphs Discontinuing Traditional Printed Ads

Post by BillyGr »

One thing that a store here (not grocery, more similar to a Big Lots chain) has done quite often as of late is to publish a printed ad that is small (sometimes just a single double sided page) and then note that more offers can be found at their website (where they post what looks like a more normal 12-20 page ad flier).

Perhaps some of the supermarkets could try a similar option - printing only the bigger "special" deals on a small (few pages at most) ad, then having additional pages online (with, perhaps, some copies of those additional pages available at the stores themselves for those without easy online access)?
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Re: Ralphs Discontinuing Traditional Printed Ads

Post by storewanderer »

I have seen some other stores do this too where a smaller ad is issued in print form, then if you go online, there seem to be more pages. The additional pages do not seem to have specials that I'd call overly hot, though. I believe I have seen this tactic with Staples and/or Office Depot and with Walgreens.
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