Sure, you like your local grocery store, but have you “liked” them? A roundup of the most and least popular grocery retailers on social media sites (see the full list below) can yield some interesting insights, though it also shows that “likes” aren’t necessarily everything. Florida-based Publix was recently criticized (in “Frozen & Refrigerated Buyer” magazine) for being “technology-challenged”: “Yes,[Read More…]
Some stores are loyal to their loyalty cards, others hope introducing cards will make their customers loyal to them. But still others refuse to go the loyalty card route – and they may be onto something. If you haven’t read the latest exciting issue of “Frozen & Refrigerated Buyer” magazine – and, really, what’s keeping you? – the trade publication[Read More…]
As more supermarkets expand their selection to include more wine, beer and specialty foods along with the usual staple grocery items, Harris Teeter is taking a different tack. The southeastern grocery chain is planning a brand new store concept that ditches many of the usual staple grocery items altogether, in favor of high-end items that you might need to entertain[Read More…]
As Walmart expands its ad campaign that invites shoppers to “see for yourself” how much lower their prices are, more competitors mentioned by name in those ads are starting to fight back. First it was Milwaukee-based Pick ‘n Save, now it’s Florida-based Publix. But first, some background. Since early this year, the “Walmart Challenge” ads have been rolling out across[Read More…]
Back in the Dark Ages of self-scanning at the supermarket – way back in 2011 – customers thought it was cool if they could use a store-provided “wand” to scan their items as they shopped. Yawn, that’s so last year. Now, at least one major supermarket chain is letting customers scan items with their own phone – and soon, you[Read More…]
It’s not just Walmart that’s taking out full-page newspaper ads to compare its receipts with its competitors’. The same kind of ad war is also happening in a mid-sized Southern city that’s suddenly becoming a whole lot more competitive. Kroger and the new-in-town Publix are battling it out in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a series of newspaper ads that illustrate the[Read More…]
Last month, we brought you news about how some savvy shoppers were finding fault with the “Walmart Challenge” series of advertisements (read: “Always Low Prices. Always. (Sometimes.)” They’re still finding fault, but now a recent survey is offering some insights about the shoppers most likely to be influenced by those ads. The Walmart ad campaign has been running in cities[Read More…]
As Walmart continues to grab a greater share of the grocery market, it’s also casting a laserlike focus on a growing number of individual competitors, in carefully-selected cities across the country. But increasingly, devotees of those competitors are saying that all is not as it seems. Walmart introduced its first “Walmart Challenge” ad campaign in Charlotte, North Carolina back in[Read More…]
Remember Webvan? Having groceries delivered to your door was going to be the next big thing, during the dot-com boom a decade ago. It didn’t quite work out that way. Southeastern supermarket chain Publix made its own effort to get into the home-delivery game in 2001, with PublixDirect. That effort went bust two years later. Publix tried e-commerce again in[Read More…]
