A large mid-west grocery chain (Marsh) has fallen on hard times. They unloaded all the stores they could in a bankruptcy auction, but there are 18 left that will close, including one very near me. They will start liquidating everything in the store starting tomorrow (Thursday).
I’m off tomorrow so can get there early (it was just announced this evening). So, what should I stock up on. They closed some other stores earlier and everything was 40% off.
I’m thinking non-perishables mainly, and beer and wine. Any suggestions on what would be good to stock up on. My freezer is pretty full unfortunately.
You’ll save the most money by buying the most expensive things you use. Liquor, coffee, meat, razor blades. Buying something at 40% off that only costs a dollar or two, won’t net you much savings.
I’ve heard that some of the highest-margin goods in a supermarket are the non-food items, so you might want to stock up on cleaning supplies, health & beauty products and similar goods. But be careful or at least be aware of what the things you’re looking at normally cost. I’ve gone to close-out sales at places like Circuit City or Borders bookstore and I got the impression that they brought in crappy merchandise, figuring that people will snap it up on the assumption they’re getting a bargain.
I’ve been to a few of these and seen pricing is on a sliding scale. Basically at first the good stuff is only discounted a little, then it gets discounted more and more as the closing date gets closer. The stuff no one wants is at the ‘40% off’.
Kmart does that too, and then boosts the price so that the “discount” price is often higher than the usual price.
When Kmart had their first round of closings in the early 00s, they had whole walls of karaoke machines, more than anyone could possibly have wanted.
Around the same time, an independent grocery closed (IIRC, the family that owned it were running out of interested heirs) and they marked things down to 50% off on their last day. I stopped by, and found numerous pints of Ben & Jerry’s shoved to the back of the freezer. That’s one advantage of being tall, that’s for sure! I pushed them forward and took a few for myself.
They also had a large bin full of cans of sardines that nobody obviously wanted.
Yeah, unless there’s huge time pressure to complete the sale, or insufficient display space for all the stock to be sold, it’s a bit likely to play out like that - big discounts on the hard-to-shift stuff and smaller ones on the more desirable items, adjusted along the way so as to sell everything at the same rate of flow.
I mean, if everything is a flat 40% off, for every $60 you spend, you save $40 regardless of what you buy. Just do a normal shop except buy 10x of everything non-perishable and easy to store.
I remember a local grocery store chain that closed down some years ago:
I stocked up on LED light bulbs (they were really expensive back then). plastic bags, soap, and shampoo.
The LED bulbs were a real deal. Back then a chandelier-style bulb cost about $12 and they never went on sale. I got enough to replace all the bulbs in my mother’s house (she loved chandeliers).
People grabbed up the food products before I could. But just as well. I got stuff that would last a long time without going bad.
I would also look into toilet paper and other paper products.
Thing is about LED’s is, until very recently it was cheaper to buy incandescents and or halogens and wait for the price to drop, the dropping price was greater than the energy saved. It now seemed to reach the level where buying LED’s make sense.
I came in here to say this as well. Who cares what product has the greatest margin? That has nothing to do with savings to you. If you’re getting 40% off of anything, then buy ANYTHING and get… wait for it… 40% off!
Stock up on what you will use and have space to store before it goes bad. What I might buy and what you need may be completely different. No point in me suggesting you buy the 20 lb sack of flour because it’s a great deal if you never bake. It takes up space and will go rancid or be full of bugs before you ever get your money’s worth from it.
I’d just push my cart around the store and grab what looks good. Pick up a few extra staples, and then indulge in a few things I normally avoid because they are too expensive for my budget.
I understand this logic, but the savings is for a very limited time. If I buy one laundry detergent that will last me 2 months, I get 40% off times 1. If I buy 4 I get 8 months worth at 40% off.
This was not unexpected and people were lined up at 5:30 am. Apparently it is not a flat rate across the board.
They closed out the hard liquor a few months ago (all at 40% off) and it was a mad house. All inventory at all stores sold out in under 24 hours.
Sad though since this has been my go to store for 23 years.
Same thought here but --------- I would have a list in mind of things with a long shelf life that I like and use even if they are cheaper. Canned soups, paper products, even household supplies like plastic bags/ziplocks. Once the primo stuff is covered (or sold out before I got there) I would go to the other end of the food chain and nibble my way up as well until the available cash is gone.
Assuming you have a fixed budget, it makes no difference - you spend $60 to get $100 worth of whatever - those savings are real and are either concentrated in the short term, or spread more thinly across a longer time, but it’s the same saving either way.
If you load up on laundry detergent, you have less money left to spend on other equally-discounted things that you will consume more quickly now.
I don’t really have a fixed budget, but if I buy lettuce at x% discount now I have to pay full price next month (If I stock up on it I throw most away next week). If I buy 4 detergents at x% off I save that x% for 8 months and have the extra to spend on other things later.
Anyway, I just ran over. They don’t have signs with the discounts up yet (still waiting on them to be delivered). Some things were cleared out (domestic beer, some wines, etc.). I only bought a few things to see what I would save (I’m three minutes away so can go back). Bud Lite was 20% off, wine was 20% off, batteries were 30% off (will likely stock up on these) and canned diced tomatoes were 0% off.
I suggest comparing the battery price against Walmart or Amazon’s price. That’s something that’s often highly discounted. I’m trying to think of products that are never discounted.
