Shortages

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. No non-grocery posts.
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Re: Shortages

Post by veteran+ »

mbz321 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:44 pm
buckguy wrote: October 15th, 2021, 5:56 am I was at Costco last week and, again, no shortages. I also have not noticed sizable price increases recently
As a Costco employee, it seems like every day we are either out of TP, paper towels, or both. Whatever does come in is not a huge quantity and is usually sold before the end of the day. There is a noticeable lack of certain items, although Costco has done their best to keep up appearances. At least in my store, the candy/cookies/snacks section seems to be the hardest hit. Many products are spread out over multiple facings. Also, products that we have a lot of stock of are now being stocked in a few different places on the floor to fill space. If you look up in the 'steel', it is still remotely full, but definitely emptier than normal. We still have some furniture and summer merchandise out that arrived very late. Shoppers are definitely buying up Christmas candy/toys/decorations now and it got me wondering if there will be much left to sell come the end of the month/early November. We seem to be in no short supply of clothing though...they even had to expand the department to put it all out, and it's all getting bought up! I'm surprised you haven't noticed any price increases as I surely have. Bacon has to me the most notable, along with other fresh meat items, coffee, nuts, motor oil, and so on.
Here in Los Angeles, I have noticed the same.

Many out of stocks disguised by spreading out on adjacent items and also multiple other locations for the same product. Also disappearing shelf tags because they can't get the product in.

I spoke to the Pavilions store manager and she indicated the OOS were in the thousands.
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Re: Shortages

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:31 am I have heard Turkey might be an issue this year; it will be interesting to see pricing. Will the major chain stores finally not do loss leader turkey?
The one I can say is that ShopRite is still offering their free Turkey (or Ham or Turkey Breast or Kosher Chicken or Stouffer Lasagna or Tofurkey or Gardein Roast or Michael Angelo's Entrée - that list has gotten far longer over the last few years with all the alternative items) for spending $400 (may be less for the Albany area as has happened before) starting Sunday (10/17) thru the day prior to Thanksgiving.

Interestingly, it allows you to pick up the free item anytime (usually wasn't until the last 2 weeks or so).

Most of the other offers (at least in this area) don't start this early as they are either just lower prices or based on a single purchase.
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Re: Shortages

Post by mbz321 »

BillyGr wrote: October 15th, 2021, 4:45 pm

The one I can say is that ShopRite is still offering their free Turkey (or Ham or Turkey Breast or Kosher Chicken or Stouffer Lasagna or Tofurkey or Gardein Roast or Michael Angelo's Entrée - that list has gotten far longer over the last few years with all the alternative items) for spending $400 (may be less for the Albany area as has happened before) starting Sunday (10/17) thru the day prior to Thanksgiving.


Acme (Albertsons) is offering a free one with a $300 spend between now and Thanksgiving, which is kind of surprising given Acme seldom has a worthwhile promotion. I can't recall last year, but I remember in past years, you had to spend x amount of dollars in a single shopping trip. Now, they just seem to track it through the 'for you' program. It does seems they are only offering a frozen turkey or frozen turkey breast...no other options.
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Re: Shortages

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: October 15th, 2021, 5:56 am Was it Whole Foods and Giant yesterday---no shortages of anything. There are some subtle things, like less than a full range of pasta in one brand and half-dozen sized cartons of eggs, but those have been true for months. I was at Costco last week and, again, no shortages. I also have not noticed sizable price increases recently, and the usual items that often are in promotional rotation, like different brands of frozen entrees and Tide are pretty much where they usually are. I was on a road trip last month and was dodging semi-trucks about as often as usual on long haul roads like the Pennsy and Ohio turnpikes and I-95. If there are shortages of trucks/truckers, it's probably a small minority.

The only significant shortages I've heard about have been in relatively remote places like Hawaii, which is totally dependent on ships for things like major appliances or rural areas which are probably at the end of distribution chains---whatever shortages there are of trucks and trucker, it's marginal enough not to seriously affect densely populated areas, which are where most people live. Clothing seems to be an area where there have been shortages besides the offshoring of the manufacture a lot of it has been the unpredictable patterns of supply and demand---there was a huge glut, so companies put out very few new styles last year, then there was a big run on outdoor/sports clothing and more recently demand for business clothes has picked up sooner than expected, It will be awhile before all that is in balance. People must be buying shoes at a more predictable rate, because they don't seem to be in short or glut supply.

My guess is that once you get past the cable news porn, few things of critical importance are in short supply for most people and it seems like many of the past critical shortages (e.g., vaccines) have been shortlived.
There are product shortages but if you are patient you can find things.

As far as the trucks go, I live near and drive a major truck route daily, and yes, there is no shortage of trucks in the road. It seems like there are more trucks than ever on the road to me. But there is still a shortage of trucks/drivers due to the increased demand.

As far as price increases go- all I can say is if you are seeing prices not increased on things you are looking at, I suggest you stock up. Because next time the prices will go up 10-20%. As they already have on numerous items at many grocery/drug chains.
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Re: Shortages

Post by Bradford011 »

SamSpade wrote: October 14th, 2021, 5:05 pm
Off Topic
Bradford! You're not following "Bless the Harts" joke that in NC the two things that fly off the shelves are yes, your number 1 (bread) but what about MILK? :lol:

Hope y'all are having a nice day.
I knew I'd forgotten something!
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Re: Shortages

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

Hadn't been grocery shopping for close to three weeks and decided it was time so off I go yesterday afternoon. I did see more than a few bare spots on the shelves but generally was able to buy what I was after although I had to make some substitutions. Paper goods were maybe one third stocked. About the only area that was generally well stocked overall was meat but don't know if that's because of ample supply or people just not buying because it's just so expensive. If this continues, I can see purchase limits coming to conventional supermarkets.
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Re: Shortages

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

Another trip to the same store in my last post here and if I didn't know better I'd say the place was closing. Way more than a few empty spaces on the shelves and the pasta aisle looks like it hasn't been restocked in who knows when. Also lots of gaps in frozen foods as well. It was so bad I couldn't even buy a 12 pack of Sprite and the last time that happened was never. And these were only areas I had my eyes on. I can only imagine what other aisles looked like. What is going on here? Worst stocked non-closing store I have ever seen.
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Re: Shortages

Post by storewanderer »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: December 7th, 2021, 3:55 pm Another trip to the same store in my last post here and if I didn't know better I'd say the place was closing. Way more than a few empty spaces on the shelves and the pasta aisle looks like it hasn't been restocked in who knows when. Also lots of gaps in frozen foods as well. It was so bad I couldn't even buy a 12 pack of Sprite and the last time that happened was never. And these were only areas I had my eyes on. I can only imagine what other aisles looked like. What is going on here? Worst stocked non-closing store I have ever seen.
I too am noticing more out of stocks lately at certain grocers, and also at Wal Mart on the grocery side and this is specifically a problem in center store categories and more specifically on canned items, but also spilling into box/bag items like pasta as you describe. I am still able to find what I need as well but am often having to pick a different brand, size, or something. Things like produce, dairy, frozen foods, all seem very fully stocked.
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