Albertsons’ Soaring Prices

[surfingdude]

There is a noticeable decline in customer traffic when I shop my local Vons. I cannot determine how much volume is now from pickup and or Instacart. Recent price increases make me wonder if we are being set up for a "1000's of Reduced Prices" campaign in the very near future.
It will be interesting to see the current quarter gross margin v. prior quarters when results are announced.

[arizonaguy]

There is a noticeable decline in customer traffic when I shop my local Vons. I cannot determine how much volume is now from pickup and or Instacart. Recent price increases make me wonder if we are being set up for a "1000's of Reduced Prices" campaign in the very near future.
It will be interesting to see the current quarter gross margin v. prior quarters when results are announced.

The pricing seems to be something that is being observed across Albertsons divisions.

I understand that there is some inflation in pricing across the board due to overall inflation but I haven't seen the same upward pricing trend at other retailers.

[storewanderer]

Question - are they actually only having the ad items as sales, or do you see other things marked on sale in the stores?

Seemed a few places cut back on the size of ads last year when this first started due to not always knowing what would be available, but then often advertised other items in the store. It made sense to some degree, since it's easy enough not to put up a tag on the shelf if an item is out of stock and that way no one knows what they are missing, but if it's in the flier everyone will complain if you don't have it (even if, like today, it was one shape of pasta out of the 15-20 that were part of the sale).

They have thousands of unadvertised "sale" prices primarily in the center store/drug departments. Often times those prices are higher than the everyday price on the same item at Kroger, Wal Mart, etc. but usually closer than the regular price.

[storewanderer]

Ultimately, unless people are idiots, I ponder how Albertsons expects to stay in business.

Reading these posts, I fear they could start to collapse to death like Kmart... I fear we could have a breakup like the old ABS...
That, or maybe Publix should buy their Texas and Mid-Atlantic stores.

If only Loblaws could buy Albertsons for a good price.

Albertsons has a large lock in various markets especially on the West Coast. There is little other competition, you have to drive to get to it, that competition may be in many ways substandard, and in general customers are basically forced to pay these prices or go to a major inconvenience to obtain groceries elsewhere. This is the mentality Safeway operated under for years and for years ran with the best margins in the business due to this mentality.

One thing I would like to comment on is they have changed some bakery items in the past few months and these items are now in my "inedible" category. Their carrot cake slice has turned into a very dark carrot cake (color) and it has few carrot pieces, few raisins, and such an overpowering cinnamon/ginger it slightly burns the throat going down and is just awful- basically garbage. Their commodity quality bakery 20ct cookies just flat out taste bad (it took a few purchases of me actually throwing them away to finally come to terms with this).

It is possible Albertsons is forecasting out a few months on these price increases and just wants to do one round of increases now.

[SamSpade]

While this is in the California section, it's probably as good a place as any to share a recent spreadsheet I compiled.
A channel my partner watches on YouTube introduced 'young folks' to the potential savings in shopping and cooking from home instead of ordering from restaurants and delivery services.

I was shocked how much New Seasons Market was over the other entrants, even Whole Foods.
But, as you can see, I looked online at a Texas market and Arizona market store for some comparison and there wasn't as much difference as I expected. The list was a pretty good mix of things - proteins, alternative milks, a few snack items, and basics like flour and sugar. The latter of which now vary widely in price.

I hope to compare Trader Joe's and Market of Choice, hopefully I can find these items and share.
September 2021 price comparison

[CalItalian]

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.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Even Dollar Tree, the last holdout of true dollar stores, is throwing in the towel because of Bidenflation and activist shareholder demands.

This inflation has been caused by the reopening of the economy, not to mention supply constraints caused by the pandemic. Why do we have to get political?
Looking at SamSpade's price comparison, Safeway's prices look to be 17% higher than Walmart. Usually they are like this on pricing anyway, 15 to 20% higher than Walmart.
I still do most of my shopping between Albertsons and Sprouts (sometimes Target and Costco).

[reymann]

i haven't seen the same types of price increases at save mart or smart & final. safeway may find themselves having to retreat on this after the holidays.

[Bagels]

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.

I'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.

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 .

[bryceleinan]

No doubt that strong inflation will be noticeable, but Albertsons seems to be taking advantage. Walmart, Ralphs and Albertsons each charged $1.79 for a four count private label apple sauce. Walmart went to $1.84, Albertsons to $2.09. A 24ct bulk package from from $8.49 to $8.99 at Walmart, and from $11.99 to $13.99 at Albertsons (Ralphs remains $9.99).

A generic loaf of Value Corner bread climbed dr 88c to $1.39. The Signature Select (SS) branding likely the same bread) went from $1.39 to $1.99. A Great Value (GV) loaf went from 88c to 94c. SS pasta sauce went from $1.99 to $2.49 (and shrunk a couple ounces). GV remains 88c (and higher once’s). Lucerne Yogurt cups went from 50c to 60c, GV from 28c to 32c. Lucerne Shredded Cheese remains at $3.99 (usually goes on sale for 1.99), but lost two ounces. GV went from 1.99 to 2.22. SS peanut butter is now 60 cents higher, while GV rose only 5 cents, making SS 1.25 more.

Ultimately, unless people are idiots, I ponder how Albertsons expects to stay in business.

I was shopping a lot at Safeway the past five months. A big part of this was due to Raleys ONE fiasco but also with the new store and some strong ads I had been pretty happy. The past few weeks, I am buying less and less. And I seem to be buying more at Smiths (if I can get things in stock... I can tolerate the dirty store and poor service there for pre-packaged items). The dirty atmosphere and service attitude at Smiths reminds me of a below average Wal Mart. Back to Safeway, the weekly ad has only been 4 pages lately and not very good. Every time I go into the store, I encounter more products with price increases, big price increases that I am simply unwilling to pay.

We do still have a quasi-EDLP program at Safeway in Nevada but it seems to be losing items. Have watched various produce items, deli hot food, store brand soda move off the program in recent weeks. I guess when the NorCal price feed pushes a price increase, the Nevada stores get that price increase too, then on the EDLP items they are supposed to reverse the price change but it isn't always happening and causes even more increases. For instance deli chicken strips now 9.99/lb (was 7.99/lb), deli wings now 10.99/lb (was 8.99/lb). They have managed to hold some good everyday retails- the gallon milk is 2.79, dozen eggs is 1.27, 4lb C&H Sugar is 2.29, bananas .55/lb.

It is like whatever awful computer system made up Safeway's pricing back around 2005-2009 and whatever awful computer system was doing the pricing for Albertsons under Supervalu has been re-ignited and it is running at full speed. They need to ditch all those systems and go to whatever pricing system the old Albertsons LLC was using when it had under 200 stores- that was when they finally got the pricing straightened out.

My mom was commenting at how high meat prices are at Safeway compared to Smith's or other chains in the area... I came out $100 lighter on Saturday though because Safeway had a lot of center aisle stuff (especially water) that other chains in the region are out of stock of. Whoever does the stocking and ordering at Safeway gets automatic kudos.