As any competitor will gladly tell you, Walmart’s lower prices come at a cost. Yes, you can get low prices on the things you need, but can you find an employee when you need help? Can you pay for your purchase without having to stand in a long line? And can you even find any of what you came to[Read More…]
Why doesn’t Walmart have a loyalty program? It’s a question many have asked – either because they wish Walmart did, or they’re glad it doesn’t. Walmart’s official answer is that “we want to offer everyday low prices to all of our customers.” But the real truth may be a little more complicated. The question was most recently asked and answered[Read More…]
Couponers have long complained that it’s easy to save money on packaged products, but it’s hard to save on fresh food. There are just not very many coupons, or rock-bottom sale prices, for meat and produce. But retailers may need to take a hard look at lower prices – because shoppers are demanding it. A new report says Americans want[Read More…]
If your favorite grocery store hasn’t been targeted by Walmart’s price comparison ads yet, just wait. The retail giant is seeking out a slew of new contenders, to take its “Walmart Challenge.” The “Market Basket Challenge” ads, introduced around this time last year, expanded into 25 cities by year’s end. Now Walmart is doubling that number. CEO Bill Simon says[Read More…]
We’ve all experienced it – employees who don’t understand their own store’s coupon policy and won’t accept your coupon. You may get upset, you may let it slide – but would you attack the employee, and then pull a gun on her? If you’re Walmart shopper Mary Alday of Crawfordville, Florida, you just might. In a reversal of a recent[Read More…]
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. A grocery chain that launched one of the most vigorous public responses to Walmart’s series of price-comparison ads is now waving the white flag and quietly making plans to lower its own prices. Roundy’s, the parent company of Milwaukee-based Pick ‘n Save, says the chain is testing a more everyday low pricing approach[Read More…]
Nearly a year into Walmart’s advertising campaign that puts its grocery competitors’ prices in the crosshairs, one grocery chain is fighting back. St. Louis-based Schnucks is demanding that Walmart “cease, desist and refrain” from what it calls “deceptive and misleading” advertising. Schnucks’ allegations, and Walmart’s responses, also pull back the curtain a bit on how Walmart’s ads are produced, and[Read More…]
If you’re going shopping this weekend, and paying with a credit card – watch out. Beginning Sunday, stores can charge you extra for it. Under the terms of a settlement reached last year, stores will have the option of adding a surcharge for credit card payments – passing the cost that they already pay to the credit card companies, on[Read More…]
If you thought Walmart would back down after several competitors challenged its price-comparison ads – think again. Walmart is defending its commercials, and its methods. As reported last week, Best Buy, Toys “R” Us and a number of unnamed supermarket chains have filed formal complaints with several state attorneys general (read: “Legal Challenges to the ‘Walmart Challenge’”). Documents obtained by[Read More…]
January 7 update: read “Walmart Responds to Competitors’ Challenge”. It started with supermarkets, then drug stores, then toy and electronics stores, too. Now a number of retailers are crying foul, and asking authorities to investigate the “Walmart Challenge”. The nearly year-old TV, radio, print and online campaign is officially known within Walmart as the “Market Basket Challenge”. The ads are[Read More…]
