I regularly shopped at Vons only when I first moved to CA, shortly after graduating high school in 2000. I recall the prices being very reasonable, although it's possible I was too ignorant to know better! I still have my credit card-like club card (issued by "The Vons Companies") and I recall that varieties of Sara Lee lunch meats rotated on sale for $3.99/lb. So, it's quite possible that the store hadn't been Safewaytized yet. I quickly moved to an area in which Vons was not convenient, so I rarely went into the stores after that. I do recall visiting them for their custom sandwich deal, which was a very good value, but that's it.storewanderer wrote: ↑January 19th, 2021, 5:31 pmVons has been disgustingly expensive (so has Ralphs) since the early 00's. This is part of why Vons has done so poorly in the remote markets like Fresno and Las Vegas: they had the wrong pricing. If anything both of them have come down on price a little bit, Vons coming down on price since the Albertsons merger (and running much stronger ads).
Ralphs has done price cut programs on and off for the past 15 years but somehow their prices are a lot higher than other surrounding Kroger divisions across the board.
I have no idea how a survey got them as being within 10% of Wal Mart at any point, I have never seen that. I've seen that with some (most, actually) Kroger divisions, in the past.
Around the time Walmart announced its intentions to build up to 300 Neighborhood Markets in SoCal, Ralph's launched a major price cutting campaign. I bet Vons followed suit, hence the 10% difference of the time. Shortly before Aldi's opened its first location, Ralphs AND Walmart both lowered their prices... but it didn't last.
That's interesting. In my experiences, non-perishables have long been priced the same throughout the Walmart footprint. Pricing was the same in Hawaii as it was in California, Texas or Florida. A few years ago, they did say they were moving toward price localization, so I guess they abandoned that approach.Not on topic here but Wal Mart- basically has one set of prices used across the US for center store items that come out of a Wal Mart warehouse. Their prices used to really vary by store but that stopped recently. A can of Del Monte Corn is $1.14 nationwide at any Wal Mart. A Marchan Ramen is 18cents at any Wal Mart. A can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce is 50cents nationwide at any Wal Mart. A 32oz 70% Rubbing Alcohol is 1.76 at any Wal Mart (most grocers charge more than that for a 16ounce). Where Wal Mart varies its pricing is on DSD items- things like bread, etc. are priced by state- for instance a Thomas English Muffins package is $1.98 in Nevada, 2.78 in California- same price at any Wal Mart. Then on items like milk and eggs Wal Mart varies its pricing by store based on price surveys the individual store does of surrounding competition so there are a lot of wide swings there on those items between locations. In short, while others selling grocers run with higher prices in California across the board than in surrounding states, California consumers are getting excellent pricing at Wal Mart on center store items. The price difference on grocery center store between Wal Mart and its competition, is much greater in California, than outside California. Still, sale prices at major grocers often will beat Wal Mart's pricing.
Still, it amazes me how much less Walmart is than Ralphs and Vons. The produce at Walmart is inferior, but you'll pay 50% less, on average, for the same stuff!