Quote:
Originally posted by tw
Supermarkets: why does Redners make a profit and yet sell groceries at such lower prices. Example - 1 gallon of Tropicana Orange Juice sells at Acme for almost $5 whereas Redners sells only for $4. Cereals sell at Acme for almost $1 more per box. Where are all these Acme, Giant, Genardis, and Clemens higher prices going? And why do I get surcharges at the latter if I don't have their ID card? Why do I have to carry all their ID cards to get advertised special prices when Redners does not require this silly card?
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I used to work for Clemens IT department. Hell, I used to BE Clemens' IT department.
Differences in price at supermarkets can generally be traced back to a few things. One, how they operate wrt warehousing. Two, what corners they cut wrt labor.
I am shocked and appalled every time I visit a Redners. Their merchandizing, layout, produce, bakery, all is crap crap crap. The floors are dirty. The cereal aisle has cereal on the floor. The registers are the ancient NCR that were aging really fast in 1994.
The things that you can see will echo things that you can't see. That's what's frightening. How long did a pallet of milk sit on the dock on that summer day? How long ago was that ground beef ground, and how long did it sit before being packaged and labeled? Did the price change make it into the system, or are 5% of the prices different between the shelf and the register? Did someone spray insecticide onto the bakery shelves accidentally and not care? If the freezer stops freezing, how long until someone notices, and what happens to the goods that were temporarily thawed?
Clemens took over a Shop n Bag in Lansdale. They redid it before re-opening as a Clemens. Everything was replaced. They found wooden racking in the butcher department - racking that had been illegal for five years. Where were the inspectors? Nobody could say.
Surely, Redners also does the sort of mass buying and merchandising that makes these kinds of deals possible. I *suppose* I would trust the cereal boxes, although not in August and September when it's bug season. I don't know that I would trust the OJ.