It seems like everywhere has black friday sales, all except grocery stores or other places with food markets. Why is it that Wal-Mart and Target have sales in every single section of their stores except their supermarket sections?
I understand they’re less motivated to discount food since that can basically sell itself but then again you also have a lot of sales on very low-margin items like video games going on as well. Why don’t you see people selling those large frozen pizzas for $1 each?
target actually did so earlier in the week … their private brand pizza was buy one get one free among other things
Shoppers will buy food at the going rate no matter what; big screen TV sets, laptops and video game systems, not so much.
Perishable goods that are manufactured/created at a fixed production rate don’t really lend themselves to a situation where they are deep discounted to the point where they may be sold out.
Selling lots of groceries at a sale price is only selling things that you would have had to have sold anyway (and one assumes would only be stocking enough to sell before it ceases to be saleable) - so you have not generated new cash flow.
One could imagine putting luxury food items up on sale. A Black Friday chocolate sale item would probably do well. But you would be looking to make money that you would not otherwise make. And that is probably the key.
T%his is, in some way, the reason for the “Black Friday” meme or myth, depending on your part of view. Clothing, electronics, and other tradition “gift” sources are “in the red” – their books are negative, paying overhead and wages, while everyone is buying food for the Thanksgiving holiday and saving up, working overtime, for their holiday travel.
Well you’re done. You’re home. Your belly is full. Start spending, right now, on clothes and gifts. And send their books, magically, overnight “into the black.”
That that doesn’t really happen, isn’t really the point. Yes, I know, Snopes told us, the biggest shopping days are the final two weekends before Christmas. This is a meme and a myth, you can’t disprove it with statistics.
Lots of grocery stores have loss-leader sales on Holiday food overstocks. Both my local chains were almost giving away turkeys and hams on Fri morning. Even compared to the loss-leader prices they had all week during the lead-up.
OTOH, by the time I was up and out of the house at 10am, the large freezers where the excess turkeys had been had been picked 100% clean.
Ultimately, the purpose of black Friday giveaway sales at conventional stores is to generate traffic to buy other stuff at conventional markups. And to prime the whole seasonal buying for the hell of it frenzy that so many people fall victim to.
Food is not like that. I am only going to eat so much over the next 2 months. If I stock up on cheap whatever this week that just means I won’t buy much of the same stuff next week.
Demand can be shifted from week to week over a short range of time. And it can be shaped a bit, like putting pork more on sale vs. chicken less on sale or vice versa. But these are small effects around the edges. Which effects are carefully exploited all 52 weeks of the year by the universally used grocery store weekly flyers.
Grocery stores are mobbed the day before a big eating holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, July 4th). Holiday-related foods are often on sale, but the stores don’t need to deeply discount because people will pay whatever they have to to get the traditional food items. In my experience, people usually do their holiday food shopping at the grocery store they normally use, just because they’re comfortable there.
The day after a holiday, especially Thanksgiving, people have lots of leftovers and little room in the fridge for food bought in quantity. And for at least a couple of days, people are a little tired of focusing on eating (and they’re thinking about starting diets).
The day after a holiday is simply not a big food shopping day.
What do you think all those “we sell turkeys for 49 cents a pound! We’ll match any other store’s price!” ads are about?
True Black Friday supersales are as limited as loss-leader turkey. There may be a dozen specially-marked down televisions in a large store. The rest of the sales are plain old ordinary sales, just like the ones the stores run every week. Supermarkets also run sales every week. They have less incentive to bring people into the stores for particular merchandise, as you note, and less of a sales margin to do it in. But putting out huge Thanksgiving and Christmas displays aren’t conceptually different. They’re merely adapted to the specific needs of a specific industry.
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I dunno, but it looks like you found a deal on apostrophes.
mmm
Good OP.
FWIW, I’m cooking a turkey today! Our first one of the ex-holiday, for one reason or another.
But I bought a fancy one four days ago, who’s DNA goes back to the Pilgrims, so no sale for me. But I’ll clean up on cranberries, I guess.
A couple of years ago, Whole Foods had a sale with deeply discounted craft beers. It was only for a few hours and may have only applied to brews from Illinois, but I remember the prices were excellent, much better than the typical sale price of $1 off that they offer during other times of the year.
Some food goes on sale every single week. Just check your local supermarket flyer.
I just bought a name brand 20# whole turkey for $0.99/lb. Not a crazy low price, but about 60% off the price away from holiday times.
ShopRite has some very deep specials for Friday and Saturday only. I’m heading out in a few minutes to get some more Green Mountain coffee k-cups for $4.99 per box of 12. I forgot what else is on sale, but that’s the only coffee my wife will drink, and they sell it for that price only 2 or 3 times per year.
Also keep in mind that grocery stories generally operate on very slim margins.