Bagels wrote: ↑October 23rd, 2022, 12:06 pm
For sure, but just last year, you could shop exclusively at Albertsons or Smith’s with the same basket and at year-end, there wouldn’t be a material difference, nor would there much of a premium over Walmart. But that changed in one year - you would clearly save money shopping at Smith’s, and even more at Walmart.
I spent several weeks in Las Vegas and was jealous over Albertsons and Smith’s prices. No more! But you’re right, Albertsons maintained many of the ready meals and bakery products that were dumped elsewhere.
Kroger has always been a little slow to do price increases at Smiths. Smiths runs in some price sensitive markets and I think Smiths pricing attitude is handled more like midwest Kroger divisions than the other west coast divisions. Smiths is also a little funny in when they do price increases, they typically follow up with a sale almost immediately with the sale price back to what the old regular price was in center store grocery. They have pretty high prices on a lot of oddball non food and cleaning items now and no effort to make that blow a bit easier on their part. Smiths operates in a lot of price conscious areas and for years its perimeter items were priced significantly below other Kroger divisions. While Smiths still somehow prices the PS Ground Round (85/15) at 4.99/lb everyday any pack size or 4.49/lb everyday 3+lb pack (that is a card price but it has been on sale at a .50/lb discount for about the past 10 years; then some weeks it goes in the ad at a lower price than that) which at this point is probably below cost, they have moved most of the bakery/deli pricing up to typical Kroger levels. Efforts to put the 4 inch cake squares as high as 3.99 did fail and those are back down to 2.50 now (some old Smiths only flavors still price out at 1.99 though). Waiting for the 2.29 French Bread attempt to fail and that go back down to the 1.50 it still isn't worth (terrible quality french bread).
On my Las Vegas trip I was after a bottle of hand soap. I just want the 5.5oz or 7.5 store brand, Dial, Softsoap, whatever. I know max I should pay is 1.00. Well, Albertsons/Vons- was like 1.79 for Signature, 3.29 for Softsoap, and 3.99 for Dial. Something was on sale for 2.50 at Albertsons/Vons but I was so miffed at the prices I don't remember. Smiths had the 7.5oz Kroger at .89 (everyday), 7.5oz Softsoap at 1.25 (everyday), and 7.5oz Dial at 1.50 (may have been a sale price, I forget). Problem is the above example plays out across the store in a lot of categories...
But in the fresh departments, Albertsons/Vons in Las Vegas has pricing right there with Smiths, or better. Their dairy pricing was also good. That includes meat and produce, and I was really surprised and impressed by that. I am so used to NorCal Safeway's terrible pricing in EVERY category which looks even more terrible in Reno next to Smiths, Wal Mart, and WinCo.