Correcting some of your incorrect assumptions.Bagels wrote: ↑October 4th, 2021, 12:18 pmI've acknowledged in several postings that significant inflation is unavoidable. But I am singling out Albertsons because they've increased their everyday prices -- as both a percentage and in dollar value -- higher and more aggressively than any other retailer... and they already had the highest prices to begin with. Ralphs has raised many of its prices, and I I generally agree with storewanderer that more hikes will follow, but I doubt it will be on the level that Albertsons is imposing. Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons have been raising prices for the past several years, as the cost of doing business in CA continued to increase (and so has the gap vs. discount grocers). This certainly isn't like NV or FL, where retailers paying $8/hour are now having to pay $15. CA retailers are paying similar wages, but have had the benefit of gradually preparing for such increase over the past few years. And let's be realistic: industry average for product margins are around 50%... in SoCal, that number is much, much higher. The more volume a store sells, the more money it will make (overhead is a killer, which is why most major grocers continue to reduce their store fleet within a geographic area). Retailers in SoCal are still benefiting from higher-than-average sales volumes, as people continue to eat at home vs. dining out in larger quantities than pre-pandemic.CalItalian wrote: ↑October 4th, 2021, 9:48 am Prices are rising, package sizes are shrinking across a broad spectrum of products because of stagflation. To single out Albertsons Companies stores is ridiculous. Even Dollar Tree, the last holdout of true dollar stores, is throwing in the towel because of Bidenflation and activist shareholder demands. Read investor blogs to learn what is going to occur. We knew this months ago and it's not even the bottom of the first inning yet. If you don't know the causes of this stagflation, which include supply side issues which are not going to go away anytime soon (years) and labor problems which government caused, then you need to seek out the truth of what is going on. This is a redux of the late 1970's on steroids.
That said, in no way are price rises at Albertsons Company stores in any way rising more than what is going on at other food retailers. My best deals are still found at Albertsons & Vons which the coupon groups I am in would back up. Learn how to shop & stock up, buy on sale and use your Just (Vons, Albertsons or Pavilions) For U personalized prices. Using digital coupons is even easier today than cutting out coupons. Albertsons & Vons provide some of the best loss leader specials around. More so than Ralphs which use to go toe to toe with them. And definitely more than Stater Bros. which rarely ever has anything on special that beats Ralphs, Albertsons or Vons.
The coupon groups I am in bemoan the prices increases but everyone can learn how to shop more smartly. There's a reason why Wall Street is betting on dollar store growth. And it isn't because people are going to trade up as inflation worsens over the next few years.
BTW, I will agree that Albertsons/Vons has had some great deals -- loss leaders are a necessity in the business to attract people into the stores; even the high-priced local as well as ethnic grocers have them. But what I will point out is that most of your "deals" are a derivative of exploiting the loopholes in the J4U program -- for starters, you've discussed acquiring multiple freebies via multiple accounts, even though the T&C are explicit that multiple accounts in each household should be linked (so that you would receive only one free offer). You know how to exploit the glitches within the system. You know that loading special coupons intended for other geographic regions, will often carry over to SoCal. And you know that some cashiers will accept paper coupons for items in which you've used an equivalent digital coupon on. Now, I've done many of these things myself, so I'm not criticizing you. But I will point out that Albertsons would argue that most of these activities constitutes coupon fraud -- definitely not deals available to the general public.
Anyone can get any deal I get. There are no secrets just savvy shoppers.
None are coupon fraud. My accounts are all registered at different properties I own. I have multiple households.
I never intentionally use a paper manufacturer coupon on an item with a digital manufacturer coupon. That requires a cashier override and it may knock out the digital coupon if not input manually.
I never use a coupon on an item or size that a coupon of any kind is not intended for. I mostly use digital coupons these days, anyway, there aren't many insert food coupons around.
Most Albertsons Company digital manufacturer coupons and many of its digital store coupons are available across all divisions or many of them (and will even show they are loaded to your account across divisions if you load it from another division. Works the same way with Kroger). Load a Saturday Sampler free item digital store coupon from one division and it is available coast to coast in every division. Each division offers $1 off store digital coupons every week for any produce & any O Organics. And rotating every other week for any yogurt & any bakery then any cereal & any frozen. If they didn't want them to work in other divisions, they'd stop it (and did partially). That has nothing to do with me.
I'll add one in that I haven't previously. If you get a personalized deal in another division, it will work across all divisions. Example. Las Vegas division recently gave me a personalized digital coupon for Large Lucerne Dozen Eggs for $1.17. Unlimited. Worked in SoCal, too. Personalized is the key word.
