WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

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WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by SamSpade »

Standard "basket comparison" like one sometimes sees in their (or other) stores. 11/29/2021 basket shop

WinCo: $99.92
Kroger: $134.61
Walmart: $123.01
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by jamcool »

WinCo runs no major advertising in Phoenix (unlike Fry’s and Walmart)
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by Super S »

WinCo, going all the way back to the original Waremart days, has historically not advertised much, except for grand openings (which sometimes include TV ads) and occasional sales around the holidays. They do occasionally run the price comparison ads also.

When I lived in Boise in the 1980s, there were pretty strong price wars going on where Smith's, Buttrey, Albertsons, Fred Meyer, and I think even M&W would do price comparisons of carefully selected items (which at times were odd mixes of items and conveniently varied from one chain to the next) where each chain claimed they were the lowest priced, in some cases actual receipts were posted in the stores or in the ads. I do remember one chain, I think Smith's, got in trouble for inaccurately doing one of these comparisons where Waremart actually had lower prices and Waremart took action against Smith's. I think Smith's made the claim that they were lower but forgot to mention coupons/sales or based it on store brands instead of national brands or something. Smith's had to make a public apology to Waremart.

The true comparison would be with non-sale prices, no coupons/apps, no club cards, etc.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by storewanderer »

WinCo has run these ads in Reno from time to time over the years; they used to accompany them with coupons for free items too.

Part of WinCo's model is that they do not routinely or consistently advertise. I often wonder when they advertise, why are they doing it? Is it in response to a new competitor? Or in response to some marketing by some existing competitor? Or is business just slowing down in a market? I could never figure out a trend or reason why they did it when they did in Reno.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by HCal »

In California, I can't recall ever seeing a Winco ad. There definitely hasn't been a mailer or insert in my area, at least in many years. I don't watch TV, however, so I don't know about that.

I suppose that if the brand is not well known in a new area, then some sort of advertising is essential in the beginning. They don't want to make Haggen's mistake of being new to town and people having no idea who they are or what they offer.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by Super S »

HCal wrote: December 7th, 2021, 9:12 am In California, I can't recall ever seeing a Winco ad. There definitely hasn't been a mailer or insert in my area, at least in many years. I don't watch TV, however, so I don't know about that.

I suppose that if the brand is not well known in a new area, then some sort of advertising is essential in the beginning. They don't want to make Haggen's mistake of being new to town and people having no idea who they are or what they offer.
I think that the ONLY time WinCo runs TV ads is when they announce grand openings of new locations, but I think that this happens less often when opening new locations in established markets.

In the Cub Foods days (in the Portland market anyway) they did air more TV ads. But these seemed to end when the Cub name went away, they might have been a requirement under the Cub franchise. A few TV ads aired about the name change though.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by SoleOwnerOfMyName »

A few possibilities occur to me:

Perhaps sales at the D/FW stores are not at a level the company had hoped they would be. They opened a huge distribution center in Denton just north of D/FW in 2017 at the same time they announced an expansion of three locations in the Oklahoma City area that would also be served by the distribution center. Since then, the only expansion beyond the three OKC stores that I am aware of is one store in Carrollton, TX in 2018 and another in Tulsa OK in early 2020. It appears that their expansion in the area has slowed. Maybe that is due to COVID. Or perhaps it is due to questions over whether an investment in new stores might be more profitable in other markets.

Another possibility that occurs to me is the fact that the population of North Texas is growing very rapidly. Perhaps Winco figures that, since the D/FW stores originally opened, there might be a large number of people new to the region who might not even be aware that Winco exists or is in the area.

Finally, it is possible that the Dallas Morning News became aggressive in an attempt to win their business and gave them an introductory ad deal that they could not turn down.

A few years ago I was at the H-E-B in Burleson, TX just south of Fort Worth and noticed that they had a shopping cart comparison of receipts of items from their store versus its competitors. I recall one of those competitors was a nearby Wal-mart. But another was the Winco in far south Fort Worth which is not especially close to that H-E-B according to Google Maps it is over 8 miles and a 16-minute drive without traffic. I guess it is close enough to have been on H-E-B's radar as competitor they take seriously.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by SoleOwnerOfMyName »

SamSpade wrote: December 5th, 2021, 3:30 pm Standard "basket comparison" like one sometimes sees in their (or other) stores. 11/29/2021 basket shop

WinCo: $99.92
Kroger: $134.61
Walmart: $123.01
Observe that Albertsons/Tom Thumb are not on the comparison list. Perhaps they assume it is a given in most people's minds that the notion they would even be remotely competitive is just absurd.

Or perhaps they did go out and do an Albertsons/Tom Thumb basket and figured it would be perceived as being too cruel for them to publish something along the lines of the following:

WinCo: $99.92
Kroger: $134.61
Walmart: $123.01
Albertsons/Tom Thumb $189.46
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by storewanderer »

SoleOwnerOfMyName wrote: December 11th, 2021, 10:44 pm

Observe that Albertsons/Tom Thumb are not on the comparison list. Perhaps they assume it is a given in most people's minds that the notion they would even be remotely competitive is just absurd.

Or perhaps they did go out and do an Albertsons/Tom Thumb basket and figured it would be perceived as being too cruel for them to publish something along the lines of the following:

WinCo: $99.92
Kroger: $134.61
Walmart: $123.01
Albertsons/Tom Thumb $189.46
I find these comparisons to be somewhat odd. They will use strange sizes often family sizes of certain items on things like laundry detergent, cookies, etc. They may have a sale price yet that exact same SKU is full price at the competitor. However the competitor may have a different size of the same item on sale in one of those situations where if you bought multiple of the smaller sale priced units at the competitor, the price will be lower than paying full price for the large family size at the competitor.

I don't think there is any argument that WinCo has low pricing but there are a lot of factors to consider.
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Re: WinCo Foods full page ad in Sunday Dallas Morning News

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: December 12th, 2021, 11:46 pm
I find these comparisons to be somewhat odd. They will use strange sizes often family sizes of certain items on things like laundry detergent, cookies, etc. They may have a sale price yet that exact same SKU is full price at the competitor. However the competitor may have a different size of the same item on sale in one of those situations where if you bought multiple of the smaller sale priced units at the competitor, the price will be lower than paying full price for the large family size at the competitor.

I don't think there is any argument that WinCo has low pricing but there are a lot of factors to consider.
It's definitely very easy to manipulate these things by choosing items (brand, size, flavor) that you have on sale but the competition doesn't. Also there are club card prices, and some stores like Safeway now have personalized pricing on many items.

In the '90s, there were several lawsuits in California between supermarket chains accusing each other of deceiving customers. I don't know what the outcome was, but I haven't seen receipt total comparisons like this in a long time, so I assume the stores decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Winco does post comparison prices on individual items (in my area, usually with FoodMaxx, Albertsons and Walmart), and Grocery Outlet references "elsewhere" without specifying the name of the other store.
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