storewanderer wrote: ↑August 11th, 2023, 11:54 pm
Mix varies widely in my area's locations. There are items that flow through some locations that never appear at others. I think part of the mix variance is also just that some items sell better at some locations than others. Sell through isn't the same speed at every location so every location may have gotten 4 boxes of item A, some locations sold it out the first week, another may take 3 weeks to sell it, another couple may have the stuff sitting around for 2 months.
Operators are able to make arrangements to source their own items under certain circumstances but it is discouraged and I think only experienced operators are given the consideration. For instance one operator in my area, the one I mentioned before who gets the short dated sodas, also has gotten some kind of a deal with a pet food distributor in the area to get short dated pet food in big bags and sell it.
Another possibility is that if the company gets small quantities of some items (which may happen, since the seller is only trying to get rid of items that need to move quickly when dealing with things that are close to sell by dates), they may simply only ship those items to certain stores that tend to sell more, rather than trying to send one case to every store.
Not specifically grocery related, but there is a small chain up in Maine that sells similar closeouts, and they will do this on occasion when they get a small lot of something, advertising it only being available in certain stores (even though they have only about 10 total).
Romr123 wrote: ↑August 12th, 2023, 6:28 am
I think that's exactly it----the store in downtown Palm Springs differs from the one in Cathedral City. The one in Palm Springs got a good bit of good press opening as there was a bit of a food desert there in the downtown area (otherwise closest store was Ralphs at Sunrise/Ramon). I find it possible to do more complete shopping there than at the Cat City store, but both are really "discovery" fill-in stores for me.
The 99 cent Store used to be that way when we first started going to Palm Springs, but with inflation they stopped being quite as interesting and converged (more or less) with Dollar Tree in my mind.
99 Only has turned into an odd place. Poorly stocked, just filthy, bad service, completely broken operation in Reno/Sparks, especially Sparks, and nobody seems to care. Pricing on many consumable items isn't good anymore. I'd be scared to buy anything perishable from either store, but room temp produce like oranges or bananas for whatever reason I am okay buying despite the conditions. I don't really understand what they are doing. But they got a 9.999 and a 3.999 sale out of me last week on some non food items... my observation is a lot of customers are buying the higher priced items.
My local Grocery Outlet - which was dead and rumored to be shuttering just a few years ago - has more foot traffic than Ralph’s. I’ve notice that the product assortment is nearly entirely close out and overstock items, with the number of value products that are regularly stocked decreasing.
Grocery Outlet’s ability to raise prices is limited. The majority of what they carry is quickly approaching its sell by date, so if they price it too high they have to clear it out at bargain pricing. That said, they’ve definitely raised prices on non-perishables. The leftover Holiday sets for Axe and Old Spice went from $5.99 to $9.99 - which was full retail at Holiday time.
Don’t forget the Grocery Outlet is being paid by various manufactures and distributors to dispose of inventory. That use to be how DollR Tree and 99 Cent Only made their money — whatever they got at retail was a bonus. In today’s world, there’s so much completion for thrifting that the payments are much smaller than year’s past, making them rely heavily on checkout receipts to turn a profit.
Bagels wrote: ↑August 13th, 2023, 2:25 pm
My local Grocery Outlet - which was dead and rumored to be shuttering just a few years ago - has more foot traffic than Ralph’s. I’ve notice that the product assortment is nearly entirely close out and overstock items, with the number of value products that are regularly stocked decreasing.
Grocery Outlet’s ability to raise prices is limited. The majority of what they carry is quickly approaching its sell by date, so if they price it too high they have to clear it out at bargain pricing. That said, they’ve definitely raised prices on non-perishables. The leftover Holiday sets for Axe and Old Spice went from $5.99 to $9.99 - which was full retail at Holiday time.
Don’t forget the Grocery Outlet is being paid by various manufactures and distributors to dispose of inventory. That use to be how DollR Tree and 99 Cent Only made their money — whatever they got at retail was a bonus. In today’s world, there’s so much completion for thrifting that the payments are much smaller than year’s past, making them rely heavily on checkout receipts to turn a profit.
If they get in the right operator, they can turn a store around quickly.
I don't even walk down the first two aisles at Grocery Outlet (non food) unless I have a specific need to which is very rare... I always start at the third aisle with pet/condiments...
Your point as to why they can't increase prices much is a good one. And it is working out even better for the customers.
