WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

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storewanderer
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: December 13th, 2021, 11:32 pm
It's definitely very easy to manipulate these things by choosing items (brand, size, flavor) that you have on sale but the competition doesn't. Also there are club card prices, and some stores like Safeway now have personalized pricing on many items.

In the '90s, there were several lawsuits in California between supermarket chains accusing each other of deceiving customers. I don't know what the outcome was, but I haven't seen receipt total comparisons like this in a long time, so I assume the stores decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Winco does post comparison prices on individual items (in my area, usually with FoodMaxx, Albertsons and Walmart), and Grocery Outlet references "elsewhere" without specifying the name of the other store.
Food Maxx was doing basket comparisons before COVID in Sparks and Carson City- literally a cart with a plastic cover over it showing their receipt and the receipt of some other store; Raleys, Smiths, Wal Mart, etc. What is interesting is the pricing at Food Maxx seems stronger now, than it did back then.

Generally speaking I am noticing stores slowest to increase prices in the current environment: Smiths, Food Maxx/Save Mart, and WinCo. The other chains, especially Safeway, but also including Wal Mart, are very quick to increase prices at the present time. Historically I am extremely unimpressed with Food Maxx/Save Mart but recently the pricing situation at Safeway and Raleys has pushed me to purchase more from Food Maxx/Save Mart and I have no complaints about their mix or quality. The low volume Save Marts still have lousy perimeters and are understaffed, but center store is pretty good, due to the low volume and being rather over-SKUed in my opinion (better than how under SKUed they were 10 years ago), they seem to keep in stock well.

WinCo has individual item level price comparisons posted and I've even seen them post for Sprouts on some items; it seems to depend who the nearby competitor is.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: December 13th, 2021, 11:36 pm The low volume Save Marts still have lousy perimeters and are understaffed, but center store is pretty good, due to the low volume and being rather over-SKUed in my opinion (better than how under SKUed they were 10 years ago), they seem to keep in stock well.
If I remember correctly, Save Mart joined Topco around 10 years ago, so maybe that resulted in a better mix in center store. Before, it may have been hard for a small chain to get sufficient SKUs directly from manufacturers.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by Super S »

HCal wrote: December 13th, 2021, 11:32 pm
storewanderer wrote: December 12th, 2021, 11:46 pm
I find these comparisons to be somewhat odd. They will use strange sizes often family sizes of certain items on things like laundry detergent, cookies, etc. They may have a sale price yet that exact same SKU is full price at the competitor. However the competitor may have a different size of the same item on sale in one of those situations where if you bought multiple of the smaller sale priced units at the competitor, the price will be lower than paying full price for the large family size at the competitor.

I don't think there is any argument that WinCo has low pricing but there are a lot of factors to consider.
It's definitely very easy to manipulate these things by choosing items (brand, size, flavor) that you have on sale but the competition doesn't. Also there are club card prices, and some stores like Safeway now have personalized pricing on many items.

In the '90s, there were several lawsuits in California between supermarket chains accusing each other of deceiving customers. I don't know what the outcome was, but I haven't seen receipt total comparisons like this in a long time, so I assume the stores decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Winco does post comparison prices on individual items (in my area, usually with FoodMaxx, Albertsons and Walmart), and Grocery Outlet references "elsewhere" without specifying the name of the other store.
That sounds a lot like those Boise comparisons I can recall from the 1980s.

They do these comparisons locally for Longview, WA from time to time. They list local competition, which is Fred Meyer, Walmart, and Safeway. For some reason, I want to say that Safeway's comparison clearly showed a club card used and was still the highest of the bunch. I have never seen Grocery Outlet listed.

In some cases WinCo's price is not the lowest in the comparisons and they don't hide that, in some cases they are within only a few cents.

I still maintain though that these comparisons should be on regular prices...no coupons, cards, etc. But it might raise red flags in some stores if somebody doesn't use a card and pays full price on everything. I am not sure if the people doing the shopping are undercover local WinCo employees or if they are people hired specifically for this purpose.

WinCo does have competitor's pricing posted on signs on various individual items throughout the store.

Regarding price increases, I am noticing several items I buy regularly at WinCo creeping up in price, including some of their private label items which have been in short supply lately.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by SamSpade »

WinCo yet again bought full page ads, though this time in a place I wouldn't think they need this kind of reach or marketing (and are Sunday newspapers really the place for this in '22?)...
anyway, they shopped across a Pocatello, Idaho Fred Meyer (near their WinCo store) and Walmart in Chubbuck. They then placed this comparison breakdown in both the Pocatello Idaho State Journal and the co-owned Idaho Falls Post Register.

In Pocatello this comparison makes sense, but it's interesting in Idaho Falls to not use Albertsons instead or alongside.

Here when shopping in a WinCo they generally list all of "the big 3" on their price comparison signs in store.
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