Posted on 10/05/2009 6:02:28 AM PDT by davidlachnicht
Retailers pushing to reduce costs and maximize margins in the face of sales declines are dead serious about optimizing assortments -- and in a growing number of cases, that's translating to significantly reducing SKUs or even cutting whole product lines, according to the Willard Bishop retail consultancy.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediapost.com ...
I have been noticing this. Things I liked have just disappeared from the shelves.
But Obama told us the recession was over!
ROFL
Yep. That is what happens.
Pretty soon your grocery store will have 1 variety of many things.
Even worse is the shrinkage of sizes without announcement and holding price steady. The one that makes me furious is Dial Soap now makes a huge backcut in the soap bar. The top side dimensions are the same they always have been, but there’s this big hollow on the back that makes the bar hard to use. And the amount you throw away at the end is the same, so the useful part is MUCH smaller than before.
0bama and his supporters won’t be happy until we’re all standing in line for a roll of toilet paper - approved, “Green” toilet paper of course.
Apparently retailers are tired of hearing “Do you carry the cheddar-cheese-sour-cream-chive-and-onion chips in ruffles, or do you just have the flat ones?”
This recession has barely started. It might be nearing an end if it weren’t for government intervention.
There will be an LED light bulb store over there and a bread store over here and a bean and rice store on the other side. Long lines, have your ration cards ready and if you have to ask how much, its probably too much.
There will be NO recovery while capital investors see the real risk that any investment they make could be made illegal or worthless tomorrow with the stroke of a pen.
“Capital Strike”
I've have noticed it as well. I thought it was me! The grocery stores and departments stores no longer have the inventory it used to. I guess they can't get the credit lines they need from the banks. The economy is on very shaky ground.
Baskin Robbins will soon start retiring one flavor per week.
And only 1 square per visit Comrade.
The private brand grocery discounter Aldi takes a different tack. The retail outlets receive several varieties in one carton, where every package in that carton bears the same UPC without any differentiation for variety. Of course, they ring up at the same price, and the text description on the sales receipt does not differentiate variety either. In practice this usually seems to work pretty well without a lot of orphan variety items. Occasionally an unpopular left over variety will be marked down for clearance.
Or even increasing the price. Of course they may justify that if they label it, "new and improved".
Stroke of a pen would be an improvement. Whims of a czar is where we’re headed.
Home Economist Ping!
Don’t forget that the producers probably are offering less variety to the retailer, also. This isn’t strictly a bottom-up problem.
and just one scoop
I have been noticing it as well for the last couple of months, in particular.
Doesn’t effect me in the least. I always take a calculator with me, buy store brands or shop with coupons on national brands when they are on sale to begin with at the grocer. It takes a little work, but you can save tons on your grocery bill; one of the few bills you still have control over.
Grocers have been tricking us forever. There’s a total psychology to a grocery store and once you learn the traps and avoid them, life gets much easier. :)
One article among hundreds on a quick web search:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Tricks_the_Grocery_Store_Plays
“Apparently retailers are tired of hearing ‘Do you carry the cheddar-cheese-sour-cream-chive-and-onion chips in ruffles, or do you just have the flat ones?’”
ROFLMAO! I’m in retail. It NEVER fails. No matter the marvelous selection I have on any given item, they want the one I DON’T have...or isn’t produced in the first place!
People are totally weird. And I cannot believe the way some of them behave in public. It’s mind-boggling!
Have never seen a grocery store that didn’t have a weeks supply of soft drinks and Frito-Lay products in just about every flavor.
Those companies pay grocery stores big money for that shelf space in order to keep competitors off the shelves or confined to such a small area, you can hardly find their products.
Speak for yourself, m'dear. LOL!!!!
Except for my occasional forays into WalMart, I do all my grocery shopping in Food Lion. Between shopping the sales, using coupons, and my store MVP card it is nothing for me to strip 50-100 bucks off a cart full.
Not counting coupon or manager special savings, as of yesterday I have saved $950 this year using my MVP card alone.
Speaking of store brands - these are really name brand products with a different label. The plant that processes the food will stop production, replace the name brand cans with the store brand cans and keep on processing, without ever changing anything about the food that went into the cans
That's not always true. I have tried many different kinds of store brand equivalents, and a lot of them do not taste the same and usually taste worse - cereals being a prime example.
While clearly an indication of recession, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Retailers remove low margin items. These are typically less efficient producers. It provides an opportunity for available shelf space for more efficient producers. Its part of the healthy nature of the business cycle.
Retailers are acting prudently in a contracting business cycle. The imprudent thing to do would be for some level of Government intervention to make sure retailers provided adequate consumer options . . .
Kind of like in Banking, Auto Mfg., Health Care, ...
I know that in our home more and more of our food budget is spent on "white label" products. In some cases we spend half as mush per item because we go with generic.
Heh. Last time I looked for a 5-lb bag of sugar I found only 4-lb bags.
You're discriminating against flat cheddar-cheese-sour-cream-chive-and-onion chips. That might be racist...
(Kidding)
Hey, wanna be mad?
While you’re buying “white label”,
the gal behind you with the 5 kids by 9 fathers
is buying steak and shrimp with her EBT card.
Sounds like what happens in communist countries where the market no longer operates. I want to see this turn around.
Danon yogurt has greatly reduced the size of their containers over the years and greatly increased the price at the same time. I only buy one, scoop off the top and make my own yogurt.
I noticed this months ago. Wal Mart and a number of local grocery stores have cut way back on assortment.
I haven’t noticed any cutting back on Product Lines.
The only traditional supermarket I shop at is the local
and newly expanded and remodelled A&P Fresh in my town.
This is a consciously upscale but still traditional supermarket, which STILL carries over 300 different breakfast cereals. Favorite places to shop REALLY are
Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Fairway, and King’s, the last two probably only exist in my NYC area market. But all these four already have their own distinct identities separate from classic old-line mass supermarkets like the A&P. As far as shrinkage, another aspect of it goes back MANY years. I first noticed it long ago when I still bought candy bars:after the price went up to 15 cents, from 10 cents, the bars ALSO got smaller in weight, and size. Coffee followed suit soon afterward, with what was usually expected to be “one pound” downsizing to 13 ounces.
You can still buy coffee beans in literal one pound bags, but don’t assume everything in a bag is one pound either.
Many moons ago, I was the stockboy* at an upscale deli/wine/liquor store. We boasted the best selection of beer in the city (and it was). It never failed: someone would come in and ask for a beer we didn't carry--I would tell them that it's not available in the Midwest, but I'll check anyway. I'd call them back later to confirm, and the first words out of their mouths would always be, "can you start stocking it?"
I'd just grit my teeth and think, "your request for this product is the first I've seen in three years, and you only want a six-pack."
_____
*The fact that the store's beer expert was usually dirty and carrying a utility knife added to place's ambiance.
My wife is diabetic, and we’ve noticed that many sugar-free and low carb items have disappeared....espeically here in South Central PA., where the locals love fat and sugar, and you can see whole families ‘waddling’ around in the stores.
I live in Southern Ohio, I've seen that crap for years.
Years ago when I still lived at home I went with Mom to the local Krogers to help with the shopping. A family ahead of us in the check out line had several carts full of crap food mostly pop and chips and such. They also had a 50lb bag of Dog food. When they checked out they cashier told the lady that her food stamps would not cover dog food. So she told the kids to put it back and go get 10 lbs of hamburger to feed the dogs.
I'll never forget that.
“And the amount you throw away at the end is the same, so the useful part is MUCH smaller than before.”
When the old bar gets too small to use, I break out the new bar and after one or two uses, paste the old bar on top, using the wet soap as paste...
I have a little Scotch blood...
Aldis is becoming our favorite grocery store, although you can’t do all your shopping there. It’s run out of Germany and they contract to get the lowest price for their grocery items. We’re finding that their products tend to be better than name brands. We particularly like their cereal. It tends to cost less than half the US name brand and it’s better. It’s even cheaper than Costco and Sams and you don’t have to buy large quantities. Canned items are very reasonable.
And they run non-grocery specials each week that tend to be excellent deals if you need that item. But when they run out, it’s gone. My husband has bought two fire extinguishers the past week for our new house. The owner is brother to the man who owns Trader Joe’s. We see a lot of similarities between the two chains.
If you have an Aldi’s near you, try their cereal. We find it’s better than name brands. And it’s a lot cheaper.
Yup. My wife was noting this morning how what used to be an 8oz tube of toothpaste that is now a 6oz tube, for the same price. It represents an effective 25% price increase.
I always wondered if I was the only person who threw away the bar when it got too small for me to use comfortably.
I noticed the same thing with Irish Spring lately. Same price, smaller bar.
LOL! I do the same thing.
Making your own yogurt is a great way to save money. Plus, I found that I liked the taste of my own yogurt a lot better. I began to put less sugar in it and never could get used to the sweeter store-bought brands after that.
A lot of the generic stuff is just fine. If you can get 42 oz of oatmeal for cheap and a big box of instant mashed potatoes then go for it. I liked some of the bagged cereal.
I must confess that this strategy has been a core part of our cash flow management (in addition to laying off all staff and going to strickly as-needed help) and is fundamentally helping to keep our small family business profitable.
We have been channeling good customers into alternate choices (they find they are happy with them) and eliminating the many choices we used to have.
In case you need to understand a bit more abut this strategy; fewer SKUs means less inventory, less raw materials to purchase, and less time to manage the many SKUs (i.e. less support materials and staff).
Sorry for the boring business model info so early in the day. Now, back to Zero bashing...
Depends upon how hungry you are, and whether you want to raise picky eaters...or even give them an inkling that they HAVE a say in the matter. ;)
Stuff like cereal doesn’t matter to me. But I gotta have my Coffee Mate creamer or I can’t survive, LOL!
Just yesterday I bought a pack of Swiss candy at Aldi as a (one fingered) salute to a certain filmmaker.
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