Safeway NorCal: 12pk Coke/Pepsi 10.99

[Super S]

I have seen $9.99 here in WA. Even WinCo has been at $7.99 at times.

This has caused me to switch to store brand pop.

Though it seems that at least one store in an area (and often more than one) will have either Coke or Pepsi items on sale on any given week, so someone who pays a little attention can get them at a far lower price than these "regular" prices listed at stores 99.9% of the time

It usually ends up being a "buy 3 get 2 free" or something similar where you don't get the savings unless you buy the whole amount. At least with the store brands you don't have to buy as much to get the special pricing.

[storewanderer]

I have seen $9.99 here in WA. Even WinCo has been at $7.99 at times.

This has caused me to switch to store brand pop.

Though it seems that at least one store in an area (and often more than one) will have either Coke or Pepsi items on sale on any given week, so someone who pays a little attention can get them at a far lower price than these "regular" prices listed at stores 99.9% of the time

It usually ends up being a "buy 3 get 2 free" or something similar where you don't get the savings unless you buy the whole amount. At least with the store brands you don't have to buy as much to get the special pricing.

This type of promotion relies on customers who do not read sale tags and pick up 3 packs and mindlessly pay 10.99+10.99+10.99 and don't think anything of it. Those customers subsidize the customers who take advantage of the deal.

The way these promotions used to work is they'd have a "sale price" for the single unit then a better sale price on the purchase of 5 units. Now you buy 5 units or you pay full retail.

Similar pricing going on with chips now at least out west with Frito Lay products. Tons of "must buy 4" or "must buy 5" type promotions and this is happening at all chains Smiths, Safeway, and Save Mart.

[HCal]

There are people like that in every market, but lack of proper competition is what has enabled Safeway to run such outrageous prices in NorCal.

True, but I think it's a chicken-and-egg situation. Competition will lower prices, but competition will only arrive if there is a market for lower prices. In the bay area, where average household income is over 100k, there may not be enough people who will sacrifice convenience for lower prices to make it worthwhile for cheaper stores to enter the market.

[storewanderer]

There are people like that in every market, but lack of proper competition is what has enabled Safeway to run such outrageous prices in NorCal.

True, but I think it's a chicken-and-egg situation. Competition will lower prices, but competition will only arrive if there is a market for lower prices. In the bay area, where average household income is over 100k, there may not be enough people who will sacrifice convenience for lower prices to make it worthwhile for cheaper stores to enter the market.

The cheaper stores in the bay area have more customers than they know what to do with in a lot of cases. The WinCo, Wal Mart (they do have a few that don't seem very busy- poorly located or something), Food Maxx, and FoodsCo units are ridiculously crowded. Target moves very high volumes of food in the bay area because it is cheaper than the grocers. There is high customer demand in the bay area for cheaper food pricing.

The problem is barriers to entry- it is difficult for these cheaper operators to enter the market. Spaces are not available that are large enough for them, the unions fight them if they are of the WinCo/Wal Mart variety, etc. Take WinCo who I think had potential for significant expansion in the bay area. They just haven't done much. Much cheaper and easier to go build stores in Texas. Easier and a little cheaper to build stores in OR/WA. Kroger could have done further FoodsCo expansion as well- given how well the downscale Food Maxx format does in the bay area, the similarly downscale FoodsCo with a better mix of items/stronger private labels/stronger pricing than Food Maxx could do better; there was supposed to be a second Oakland FoodsCo (fishing for incentives) store but it never materialized; they were in contract for a site in Vallejo (no incentives on that one) some years back but they let that go to Mi Pueblo (now Cardenas).

[BillyGr]

Though it seems that at least one store in an area (and often more than one) will have either Coke or Pepsi items on sale on any given week, so someone who pays a little attention can get them at a far lower price than these "regular" prices listed at stores 99.9% of the time

It usually ends up being a "buy 3 get 2 free" or something similar where you don't get the savings unless you buy the whole amount. At least with the store brands you don't have to buy as much to get the special pricing.

This type of promotion relies on customers who do not read sale tags and pick up 3 packs and mindlessly pay 10.99+10.99+10.99 and don't think anything of it. Those customers subsidize the customers who take advantage of the deal.

The way these promotions used to work is they'd have a "sale price" for the single unit then a better sale price on the purchase of 5 units. Now you buy 5 units or you pay full retail.

Similar pricing going on with chips now at least out west with Frito Lay products. Tons of "must buy 4" or "must buy 5" type promotions and this is happening at all chains Smiths, Safeway, and Save Mart.

Just depends on the stores, I guess. There are occasionally some of those here (like buy 2 get 1 free, not sure I've ever seen as many required as the buy 2 get 3 in the prior example).
More common are the ones where it's 3 for $xx.xx and far more for lesser quantity (like $8.99 each or 3/$12.99, where only the truly dumb would buy one and even dumber to buy 2 and pay more than for 3) - that one is, if I remember correctly, a recent Walgreens promo on A&W brands, but they do Coke & Pepsi similarly, sometimes even mixing 2 or all three of the brands, making it easier with more choices).
Also, some stores that do these with a digital coupon (such as 3 for $18, then a $4/3 coupon making it 3/$14).

True that you do have to buy multiples in all of them to get the specials, unfortunately. Though at least that isn't so bad given that soda will keep for some time - every now and then a store does these B1G1 or 2 for $x with something like produce that is much harder to use before it will go bad (for smaller families, at least).

[Bagels]

At the beginning of the year, Albertsons raised their price in SoCal from 8.49 to 9.49. Ralphs remained at 8.49 through last week. Both stores had a Buy 2, Get 3 free sale this week, so we went to Ralph’s. Turns out Ralph’s up its price to 9.99 right before the sale…

Live and learn. We shopped Albertsons then came over to Ralph’s solely for the soda for our “Big Game” party.

[storewanderer]

At the beginning of the year, Albertsons raised their price in SoCal from 8.49 to 9.49. Ralphs remained at 8.49 through last week. Both stores had a Buy 2, Get 3 free sale this week, so we went to Ralph’s. Turns out Ralph’s up its price to 9.99 right before the sale…

Live and learn. We shopped Albertsons then came over to Ralph’s solely for the soda for our “Big Game” party.

Walgreens had an okay deal- 3 12pk Coke for 14.99 or 3 12pk Pepsi for 13.99.

I heard Pepsi is going to start selling the 12pk as 15pk, maybe that is only in some markets. I think I already saw 15pk somewhere, but I forget where, it wasn't a standard grocer and may have been out of town.

Smiths also escalated the 12 packs to 9.99 for their buy 2 get 3 free 12pk soda sale. Why not just say 5 for $19.98? Having a 9.99 regular price makes them look stupid. Smiths also did "buy 2 get 3 free" on standard size Lays (4.19)/Doritos (5.49)/Fritos (5.49). They also have a coupon for $5 off 5 various PepsiCo (includes some of the chips but not all) products but that coupon does not work correctly. It will cancel out the discount for one of the items discounted by the sale if you have it added to you card.

NorCal Safeway of course on the soda is at 10.99 per 12 pack and had their buy 2 get 3 free sale.
NorCal Safeway did better on the chips with a 1.99 "when you buy 4" (not sure if that means limit 4, limit 8, etc.) on Lays (4.19), Tostitos (5.99), Cheetos (5.69), Popcorners (4.49), Tostitos Salsa (4.79). There was an in app offer for $3 off 3 certain items (it worked on most of the chips or 12pks of Pepsi products- did not work on the salsa). There were also various peel coupons on bags of the chips for buy 2 chips get 1 free Salsa. This all stacked very nicely to obtain 3 chips and 1 salsa for 2.97.

[SamSpade]

Well, 9.99 wasn't enough. So now Safeway NorCal wants 10.99 for a 12pk of Coke or Pepsi. Unreal. I am sure a Buy 2 get 2 Free sale is on.

Save Mart threw the first punch on this- they went to 10.99 on 12pk Coke last week (3.99 2 Liter). They kept Pepsi at 9.99 though.

Wal Mart meanwhile is running 7.28 for 12pk Coke/Pepsi in this region as ceiling price. Price may be lower at some locations and may go down some weeks.

Locally my partner went to Safeway to buy soda (normally a Costco purchase), it was buy 2 get 3 free. So yeah, weird markup and again abusing those with small need for soda pop and/or ability to carry it to their residence.

[storewanderer]

Locally my partner went to Safeway to buy soda (normally a Costco purchase), it was buy 2 get 3 free. So yeah, weird markup and again abusing those with small need for soda pop and/or ability to carry it to their residence.

I think these manufacturers must only be pushing these kinds of promotions now. Seems like the best you can find is a "3 for" promotion.

I still see "normal" promotions on the Seltzer waters sometimes. 8pks at a 2.50 price point for example.

Also notice how there is little to no promotion on store brand soda now?

[BillyGr]

Locally my partner went to Safeway to buy soda (normally a Costco purchase), it was buy 2 get 3 free. So yeah, weird markup and again abusing those with small need for soda pop and/or ability to carry it to their residence.

I think these manufacturers must only be pushing these kinds of promotions now. Seems like the best you can find is a "3 for" promotion.

We did have one a couple weeks back where it was B1G1F (think they were $8.99, so average of $4.50 each, just about the same as that 3 for deal with Walgreens this week). But definitely more large quantities (this week the same supermarket was 4/$15, this was Pepsi vs the B1G1F on Coke) and if I remember correctly, a different chain had it 5 for something last week.