Smart & Final - How is it doing?

[storewanderer]

Smart & Final has had THE BEST loss leader specials anywhere since August.

In recent weeks,
.99 General Mills cereals
.99 Simply Orange o.j.
.99 Eggo Waffles (twice)
.77 2 ltr. 7-Up brand sodas
.49 Barilla Pasta

to name a few.

Also, they have instituted everyday low prices on a number of produce items such as .88 iceberg lettuce, .49 lb. bananas, .69 lb. white onions, .79 lb. roma tomatoes to name a few. Nobody beats those prices week to week. Aldi is the only one who comes close and occasionally beats them (such as White Onions at Aldi for .39 lb. this week).

I am not seeing any of those promotions in Reno/Northern California. Are those requiring digital coupons? Did the cereal one require a 5 box purchase or something?

I saw a billboard for them advertising some not great brand 1.99 bacon last month and thought that was a surprisingly low price.

Maybe we are reading too much into the press release about trying to become a "primary" grocer and their intent is to just leave the format as-is but keep running big loss leaders like these to get people in the doors? Hoping that they fill a basket on the way? That would be cheaper than past attempts by S&F to blow up the concept, which usually resulted in catastrophic failure.

That could work in some areas but I wonder if they are going to be hurt in areas with WinCo. Every time I go there I see noticeably lower prices on random items, yes they use their green tag which is a mystery as you don't know when the deal started or when it will end, but it is the only store where it "feels" like prices are falling. Here the opportunity to gain share is the ever increasing prices of Stater Bros where center store and produce seemingly overnight has skyrocketed. Their prices are the fastest growing of any chain. Their only decent deals are the occasional meat loss leader and I've explained before sometimes those are big buys of lower quality meat than normal. I do not understand what is going on but I see noticeable drops in customer traffic and basket size.

Stater is being run by Albertsons people right? There is your answer on why the pricing is having issues. I've never been very pleased with prices at Stater personally... but over time they definitely haven't gotten better.

The mystery with Smart & Final is we don't know how much they directly buy from manufacturers and how much they order in pallets from UNFI then break down at their warehouse to send to the stores.

I think everyday pricing at Ralphs and Smart & Final is pretty similar..

I'm not sure the loss leader strategy will work for Smart & Final but it might. As others pointed out they have some fair to decent prices on dairy and produce. Those are the types of extra items the loss leader shopper may pick up. Those categories have a lot of expiration based shrink so any extra movement is helpful.

[ClownLoach]

I am not seeing any of those promotions in Reno/Northern California. Are those requiring digital coupons? Did the cereal one require a 5 box purchase or something?

I saw a billboard for them advertising some not great brand 1.99 bacon last month and thought that was a surprisingly low price.

Maybe we are reading too much into the press release about trying to become a "primary" grocer and their intent is to just leave the format as-is but keep running big loss leaders like these to get people in the doors? Hoping that they fill a basket on the way? That would be cheaper than past attempts by S&F to blow up the concept, which usually resulted in catastrophic failure.

That could work in some areas but I wonder if they are going to be hurt in areas with WinCo. Every time I go there I see noticeably lower prices on random items, yes they use their green tag which is a mystery as you don't know when the deal started or when it will end, but it is the only store where it "feels" like prices are falling. Here the opportunity to gain share is the ever increasing prices of Stater Bros where center store and produce seemingly overnight has skyrocketed. Their prices are the fastest growing of any chain. Their only decent deals are the occasional meat loss leader and I've explained before sometimes those are big buys of lower quality meat than normal. I do not understand what is going on but I see noticeable drops in customer traffic and basket size.

Stater is being run by Albertsons people right? There is your answer on why the pricing is having issues. I've never been very pleased with prices at Stater personally... but over time they definitely haven't gotten better.

The mystery with Smart & Final is we don't know how much they directly buy from manufacturers and how much they order in pallets from UNFI then break down at their warehouse to send to the stores.

I think everyday pricing at Ralphs and Smart & Final is pretty similar..

I'm not sure the loss leader strategy will work for Smart & Final but it might. As others pointed out they have some fair to decent prices on dairy and produce. Those are the types of extra items the loss leader shopper may pick up. Those categories have a lot of expiration based shrink so any extra movement is helpful.

The Albertsons people have been around quite a while. This pricing problem is new, like 2H 2024. A lot of private label going away and converting to Food Club as well.

[storewanderer]

The Albertsons people have been around quite a while. This pricing problem is new, like 2H 2024. A lot of private label going away and converting to Food Club as well.

All of these smaller chains should convert to Food Club label (Save Mart, Raleys, etc.). It gives them access to a larger mix and should lower their costs. They already use various Topco labels like Simply Done, Crav'n, Top Care, etc.

I am not sure what to say about the pricing issue other than that in my opinion pricing has spiraled out of control and much higher at Raleys and Save Mart this year too. Safeway NorCal was always very high priced but those other two were usually "a month or so behind" Safeway on price increases. Raleys kept some everyday low prices (.98 price endings) on various private label items and those prices are still a little below Safeway but not like they once were. These 3 chains in NorCal seem to operate lock-step with one another on price now and are very efficient at doing so.

Maybe Stater is going to join up with Raleys or Save Mart. That would be unfortunate. Stater under Pattison Group may be okay; as long as they kept Stater completely separate from Save Mart. Jury is still out on how Save Mart will do supplied by C&S. So far, it is fine. Far better on in-stock than Raleys under UNFI/Supervalu has been (lot of issues there over Thanksgiving on in-stock).

[CalItalian]

Smart & Final has had THE BEST loss leader specials anywhere since August.

In recent weeks,
.99 General Mills cereals
.99 Simply Orange o.j.
.99 Eggo Waffles (twice)
.77 2 ltr. 7-Up brand sodas
.49 Barilla Pasta

to name a few.

Also, they have instituted everyday low prices on a number of produce items such as .88 iceberg lettuce, .49 lb. bananas, .69 lb. white onions, .79 lb. roma tomatoes to name a few. Nobody beats those prices week to week. Aldi is the only one who comes close and occasionally beats them (such as White Onions at Aldi for .39 lb. this week).

I am not seeing any of those promotions in Reno/Northern California. Are those requiring digital coupons? Did the cereal one require a 5 box purchase or something?

I saw a billboard for them advertising some not great brand 1.99 bacon last month and thought that was a surprisingly low price.

Digital store coupons required, yes. For all of these specials.
Minimum purchase of product, no. All have maximum purchases of 2 to 5 items, though.
On the cereal, a $1/2 GM Cereal digital manufacturer coupon also stacked with the .99 GM cereal store coupon making them 2/.98.

These are chain wide specials not limited to California with exception of adult beverages.
I used them in Las Vegas in September and November.

They have altered these specials a bit since they started in August. They were active Thursday to Tuesday now Friday to Tuesday.

They had additional football weekend special digital store coupons for a few months from Friday to Sunday but that has disappeared since Thanksgiving.

First Street water 24 packs. .99 and Bar S Bacon 12 oz. for .99 were probably my two favorite specials so far.

One of my relatives is a Smart & Final cashier in Modesto. I know the same specials are valid everywhere. We chat about them. Also, checked the Reno ad and coupons (5 Day Steals). Same as California.

[storewanderer]

Smart & Final has had THE BEST loss leader specials anywhere since August.

In recent weeks,
.99 General Mills cereals
.99 Simply Orange o.j.
.99 Eggo Waffles (twice)
.77 2 ltr. 7-Up brand sodas
.49 Barilla Pasta

to name a few.

Also, they have instituted everyday low prices on a number of produce items such as .88 iceberg lettuce, .49 lb. bananas, .69 lb. white onions, .79 lb. roma tomatoes to name a few. Nobody beats those prices week to week. Aldi is the only one who comes close and occasionally beats them (such as White Onions at Aldi for .39 lb. this week).

I am not seeing any of those promotions in Reno/Northern California. Are those requiring digital coupons? Did the cereal one require a 5 box purchase or something?

I saw a billboard for them advertising some not great brand 1.99 bacon last month and thought that was a surprisingly low price.

Digital store coupons required, yes. For all of these specials.
Minimum purchase of product, no. All have maximum purchases of 2 to 5 items, though.
On the cereal, a $1/2 GM Cereal digital manufacturer coupon also stacked with the .99 GM cereal store coupon making them 2/.98.

These are chain wide specials not limited to California with exception of adult beverages.
I used them in Las Vegas in September and November.

They have altered these specials a bit since they started in August. They were active Thursday to Tuesday now Friday to Tuesday.

They had additional football weekend special digital store coupons for a few months from Friday to Sunday but that has disappeared since Thanksgiving.

First Street water 24 packs. .99 and Bar S Bacon 12 oz. for .99 were probably my two favorite specials so far.

One of my relatives is a Smart & Final cashier in Modesto. I know the same specials are valid everywhere. We chat about them. Also, checked the Reno ad and coupons (5 Day Steals). Same as California.

Interesting, I will need to look into that. I am surprised their POS can even support the app. I don't recall a phone entry on their pinpad but maybe I missed it. Also have not seen other customers giving a phone number to employees. But that may be a good thing- it will mean the items will be in stock if few people are using the promotions.

It will be interesting to see if these loss leader promotions work for them to get people to pick up some regular price items. It may work for them since they do have some okay prices.

[CalItalian]

I am not seeing any of those promotions in Reno/Northern California. Are those requiring digital coupons? Did the cereal one require a 5 box purchase or something?

I saw a billboard for them advertising some not great brand 1.99 bacon last month and thought that was a surprisingly low price.

Digital store coupons required, yes. For all of these specials.
Minimum purchase of product, no. All have maximum purchases of 2 to 5 items, though.
On the cereal, a $1/2 GM Cereal digital manufacturer coupon also stacked with the .99 GM cereal store coupon making them 2/.98.

These are chain wide specials not limited to California with exception of adult beverages.
I used them in Las Vegas in September and November.

They have altered these specials a bit since they started in August. They were active Thursday to Tuesday now Friday to Tuesday.

They had additional football weekend special digital store coupons for a few months from Friday to Sunday but that has disappeared since Thanksgiving.

First Street water 24 packs. .99 and Bar S Bacon 12 oz. for .99 were probably my two favorite specials so far.

One of my relatives is a Smart & Final cashier in Modesto. I know the same specials are valid everywhere. We chat about them. Also, checked the Reno ad and coupons (5 Day Steals). Same as California.

Interesting, I will need to look into that. I am surprised their POS can even support the app. I don't recall a phone entry on their pinpad but maybe I missed it. Also have not seen other customers giving a phone number to employees. But that may be a good thing- it will mean the items will be in stock if few people are using the promotions.

It will be interesting to see if these loss leader promotions work for them to get people to pick up some regular price items. It may work for them since they do have some okay prices.

There is a barcode in the app for the cashier to scan your Smart Advantage card number. You don't use a phone number.

I have run into two issues in their antiquated system. The maximum amount of digital store + digital manufacturer coupons that the system can deduct is the amount of items in your order. This is hilarious to me because I often use enough store + manufacturer coupons that are twice or close to twice the amount of items in my orders at other chains. I had to be refunded in cash when their system did not deduct a store coupon on one of four like items because of this and when I discovered and discussed it with a manager.

Trying to get a raincheck redeemed was comical. It took three employees including a manager on duty - and over 8 minutes of my time - to come up with a code that their system would accept since I had no other items but the two raincheck for .99 Eggo waffles in the order.

[storewanderer]

Digital store coupons required, yes. For all of these specials.
Minimum purchase of product, no. All have maximum purchases of 2 to 5 items, though.
On the cereal, a $1/2 GM Cereal digital manufacturer coupon also stacked with the .99 GM cereal store coupon making them 2/.98.

These are chain wide specials not limited to California with exception of adult beverages.
I used them in Las Vegas in September and November.

They have altered these specials a bit since they started in August. They were active Thursday to Tuesday now Friday to Tuesday.

They had additional football weekend special digital store coupons for a few months from Friday to Sunday but that has disappeared since Thanksgiving.

First Street water 24 packs. .99 and Bar S Bacon 12 oz. for .99 were probably my two favorite specials so far.

One of my relatives is a Smart & Final cashier in Modesto. I know the same specials are valid everywhere. We chat about them. Also, checked the Reno ad and coupons (5 Day Steals). Same as California.

Interesting, I will need to look into that. I am surprised their POS can even support the app. I don't recall a phone entry on their pinpad but maybe I missed it. Also have not seen other customers giving a phone number to employees. But that may be a good thing- it will mean the items will be in stock if few people are using the promotions.

It will be interesting to see if these loss leader promotions work for them to get people to pick up some regular price items. It may work for them since they do have some okay prices.

There is a barcode in the app for the cashier to scan your Smart Advantage card number. You don't use a phone number.

I have run into two issues in their antiquated system. The maximum amount of digital store + digital manufacturer coupons that the system can deduct is the amount of items in your order. This is hilarious to me because I often use enough store + manufacturer coupons that are twice or close to twice the amount of items in my orders at other chains. I had to be refunded in cash when their system did not deduct a store coupon on one of four like items because of this and when I discovered and discussed it with a manager.

Trying to get a raincheck redeemed was comical. It took three employees including a manager on duty - and over 8 minutes of my time - to come up with a code that their system would accept since I had no other items but the two raincheck for .99 Eggo waffles in the order.

That POS system they use, for some reason Natural Grocers and Hy Vee both switched to it recently. Hy Vee previously used the system El Super/Sprouts currently use (that system seems to barely function) so this system is an improvement for Hy Vee and Natural Grocers used the system that Seafood City uses... so these are all appearing to be chains going for the "lowest cost" systems they can find.

US Foods Chef Store briefly used the current Smart & Final system (they since moved to a proprietary US Foods POS which is an extension of the system their trucks have) and when I had price overcharges there they had a lot of trouble fixing them on that system but were able to fix them eventually. On the older NCR Smart & Final system they just keyed in a code and entered a coupon for the dollar amount of the overcharge and that was that.

Walgreens previously had this thing where you could only have 2 coupons per item (1 store coupon and 1 manufacturer coupon). That created issues when you were redeeming those "off your next shopping order" Catalinas. It doesn't work like that anymore at Walgreens.

[storewanderer]

I learned their POS system literally CANNOT process a price override in the sense of this item scanned at 1.99 but the sign said 1.49 so we need to press price override and press 149 and make the price change.

The POS can process a "percent discount" attached to a certain item, but it cannot process a price override. So in the above scenario, pretty easy, just do a 25% discount and you get there.. but not always so easy.