Grocery Store Gimmicks....I HATE THEM!

The BBQ Pit
101

I cannot say for sure, but the coupon printing “thingie” does support programs that allow retailers to reward its faithful/high-spending customer. The checkout coupon printer was originally devised as a means for manufacturers to target coupons based on what the customer had bought in that transaction. For example, Coke could pay to have a coupon printed for everyone who bought Pepsi. Coupons could also be for complementary goods - buy Coke and get a coupon for Dasani (owned by Coca Cola).

The offers you are seeing are not manufacturer-specific, and therefore must be set up by the retailer and so will almost certainly be based on your shopping history.

The coupon printing thingie is part of a system that sniffs the wire and detects all items being sold. The company that provides it (Catalina Marketing) actually gets most value from the data being captured, rather than the fees it collects for printing coupons.

102

That makes good sense. Thanks.

I do commonly also get coupons for products that are competing directly with the ones that I actually purchased, like if I bought Gerber baby food, I might get a coupon for Beech-nut. But I frequently also get a coupon for more Gerber baby food. I only get those high-value non-specific coupons from the Pathmark where I do most of my shopping.

I don’t get them from the Shop-Rite, where I only go to cherry-pick the sales and get a few things that the Pathmark doesn’t carry.* I have two from the Shop-Rite right in front of me–one is $1 off sushi and the other is for $1 off of a “store made wrap,” so those must be specified by the retailer itself. Also, I misplaced my Shop-Rite club card a few months ago, so I ask for a store card or borrow someone’s, so any coupons that I get from there aren’t targeted toward “me” in any way.

*In case you’re wondering, I did speak to the grocery manager about the fact that they don’t carry my main laundry detergent–Tide HE powder. He explained that the powder segment of the laundry detergent market is shrinking, and so they carry few powdered detergents, and so they don’t have room for a “specialty” powdered detergent. He said that he would have been happy to get it for me, but that no Pathmark store stocks that product so he couldn’t. I told him that the front-loading washers that are supposed to use HE detergents are becoming more common, so there may be increasing demand for that particular product. He seemed glad that I gave him that information. Again, I was pleased with the competence of a worker in that store–he was obviously knowledgable about what the company had and why.

dantheman: No, they don’t play the Muzak version of anything. They play the actual songs. I said that they played “inoffensive” rock and pop because I wanted to make it clear that they weren’t blasting Ted Nugent or NWA or something like that!

103

Ah, but Miss Bean… THAT would make me shop faster, just to get the hell out of there! Why don’t more retailers do that, hm?

:smiley:

104

The Albertson’s gimmick I hate is the way they refuse to let you do anything at all for yourself. Whether you’re buying two weeks’ worth of household groceries for a family of six, or two dollars’ worth of ramen and a roll of Saran wrap, the cashier unloads your cart at a funny-shaped aisle, somebody else packs it for you, and a third person insists upon carrying it out to your car. Even if you only have two dollars’ worth of ramen and a roll of Saran wrap. Try suggesting to the carrying-out person that you can do it yourself! I did, and he got all uppity and indignant about how if I started actually doing things for myself then the next thing you know Albertson’s would just be another Super One and he would be out of a job!

I refuse to shop at Albertson’s anymore.

105

The retailers don’t want you to shop faster. They want you to shop slower! The slower you are, the more stuff you buy. That’s retail gospel.

But when a store tries to hard to make you stay in the store too long, it backfires–at least with me. It’s a classic ploy to put the most purchased (and least profitable) items in widely separated parts of the store so as to make the customers walk past the higher value impulse items. But some stores have taken it way too far.

They put in a brandy-spanking new store near my old house. I shopped there 3 times before I gave up and went back to the grungy old Pathmark down the road. If I wanted a roll, a tomato, and a quart of milk from the new store, it took me 25 minutes to collect all that stuff! I had to go past the cafe, the 3 aisles of baby supplies, the aisle of books and magazines, the 2 aisles of seasonal stuff, the sushi counter, the salad bar, the 14 “gourmet” cases, the deli, the 2 aisles of picture frames and greeting cards…you get the idea. I don’t mind walking–a 10 mile hike is my idea of a good time–but I don’t want to be forced to do it every time I go to the grocery stores. Og forbid I forgot something on the other side of the store! And their selections of “regular” items were no better than the smaller stores. They just had way more other stuff in the middle of the store separating all the stuff I did want to buy.

My regular Pathmark has a great layout. You enter about 1/3 of the way down the length of the store. To the right is the smaller section, where they keep all the non-food and special category items like cleaning supplies, cosmetics, and baby supplies. So, if you just want to get a couple of things for supper, you don’t even have to go over there, you can just shop the regular food sections to the left. Theoretically, this would seem to be bad for business as the store doesn’t force the customer to walk by all that stuff. But realistically, it makes me shop in that store more often, because I don’t feel like they’re wasting their time with transparent marketing ploys. They also have many many registers open during busy times, so there is often no line at all–just a cashier waiting for someone to ring up. That also makes me feel like they’re not wasting my time in order to try to pump up their profits by a fraction of a percent. That makes me want to spend more of my money in that store. I do my banking there and use the pharmacy there. They save me time, so I give them my business.

I wonder why more shoppers don’t “just say no” to asinine and manipulative store layouts.

106

I was just being facetious. They don’t blast hard rock because they want you to stick around.

Incidentally, supermarkets have never been known for their convenience - I believe we have convenience stores for that. So they’ve never been set up for the person who’s going in for only a few items, despite the presence of the “express” lane.

107

I totally dig my local grocery, King Soopers (a division of Kroger.)

Most all the staff is friendly and know me – but for this one woman who does know me but insists upon seeing my driver’s license every time I run into her and I am getting cigs. I know, I know, store policy but that is a minor irritant that once you get to know a customer give up the ID checking. Other than that I actually enjoy shopping in their particular store because the staff goes out of the way for me.

I don’t mind them tracking my purchases either. I can even go on line, enter in my card number and can apply internet coupons to my card and have up to a week to use the e-coupon. I think this is an excellent thing because I can go through their regular sales circular on line, decide what to buy with my Soopers card, run over to the internet coupon and I “assume” those items are somewhat linked to what I would buy. It’s like a little private sale just for me.

As for “idle” chit chat, eh, I think in a true customer oriented store like the one I go to, it’s more than just that. One guy, for example, knows me well enough to get the product I need from the customer service desk without even having to ask. That same guy remembered me by my product when I called them on the phone, late night, for an odd request and he had the items waiting for me and ready to scan – top notch service if you ask me.

In addition, I had a question about a “fee” that comes up on our receipts, he politey explained to me that it was a fee assessed by the developer of the property. He was genuine in his delivery of words and because I wasn’t a snotty customer, I went away thinking about how cool that store is.

Another manager helped me out. I had purchased one of those stupid oil light (similar to a Lava lamp) for a gift exchange thing. I opened the box and to my dismay, the lamp had a slight crack in it (I don’t recall if it was in the base or whatever.) I took it in and the manager refunded my money and even sent me on my way with a free bottle of carpet cleaner (for my steam machine.)

Gimmicks? Not from my perspective. I love to save money and have never been surprised by my purchases with their chain. I read their circulars pretty regularly and know how they work. The clerks I see on a regular basis are very nice to me and can usually read my own mood. Heck, I even accidentally walked out of the store with a loaf of bread (went through the UScan) and walked back in to tell the guy…he shrugged it off and said it was a birthday present. Eh, it was just a loaf of bread but I will never forget that.

BTW, Albertsons here has had the cards for quite a while. I don’t shop there because #1. They hadn’t had a close enough store and #2. I could walk to King Soopers if I wanted to – it’s exactly a mile.