Earlier this month, IBM released some interesting findings about grocery shoppers from its new study “Why Advocacy Matters to Grocers,” including:
- 73% of shoppers “feel either antagonistic towards or have no loyalty to their local supermarket”
- 46% feel antagonistic
- Among regular supermarkets, 27% of customers act as advocates, meaning they are “loyal customers who recommend their grocer to others, buy more from their grocer and stay with their grocer instead of going to the competition.” Among specialty supermarkets, however—where more emphasis is placed on delivering a quality shopping experience and an appropriate selection of products—advocacy goes up to 46%.
So what’s a poor grocery store to do when faced with so many indifferent or hostile shoppers? IBM (which has a vested interest in pushing its own customer data program) says,
Clearly the customer loyalty card efforts across the grocery industry have fallen short of their goals as grocers sacrifice customer experience to focus on lower prices.
Whether friend or foe, all shoppers identified the following attributes as important factors in how they feel about their grocer:
- quality
- selection
- employees
- product availability
- social responsibility
We would just appreciate it if the cashiers didn’t always treat us with theatrical displays of contempt when we check out. We’re also surprised there’s no mention of crowding or store layout—in NYC at least, the markets are almost always 1/5th the size of “normal” stores, and god help you if you go on a Saturday afternoon.
“IBM Survey Finds Grocery Industry Falls Short in Building Loyalty With Customers” [IBM via USA Today]
(Photo: Getty)
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@gibbersome: tru dat!
@Jon Parker: right on!
@figz: amen!
Wegmans is the BEST grocery store i’ve ever shopped at. they have always had very good customer service and more often than not EVERY REGISTER LANE WOULD BE OPEN for use (what a novel idea, i’m looking at you Acme!). also their cafeteria had great food and would be very conveninent. i used to shop there all the time when i lived in the lehigh valley. and now that i’ve moved back home there isn’t a store for like 45 minutes. although i do like to make the trip every now and then to get a meatball sub… thats right, i make a special trip for a GROCERY STORE! its that good.
I lurrrv Trader Joe’s! totally worth the walk across Manhattan there, and the 14th Street bus ride + 8 block walk home loaded down with shopping bags.
@xianzomby: I hate that too. So I signed up for a card with a fake name and info. What are they going to do, deactivate my card? I’ve had it for 7 years. HAH! I still don’t like that you have to use it to get the special prices.
But now there’s a Whole Foods right next door to me, and they don’t use cards at all. Granted its more expensive, but I like buying organic and not having to waste gas money driving out to the old (conventional store)
I hit Costco for what I can, Walmart for what’s left.
Why Walmart? Because in terms of service (poor), quality (low) and selection (minimal) I might at well as get the slightly lower prices of Walmart.
I guess it’s a function of where my house is and how far I’m willing to drive to buy groceries, but I’m not overwhelmed with the level of choice in DFW megaloplex supermarkets. I miss HEB! The only HEB in the area is a Central Market, which is VERY nice but not quite the choice for regular grocery runs. Happily it’s on my way to a very nice Tom Thumb, but of course you need the track-me card at Tom Thumb and must watch the sales to get your regular grocery purchases at a similar overall price to what I was paying in San Antonio just by walking into regular HEB stores and buying what I need.
To anyone thinking that the tracking card has anything to do with the store’s inventory and ordering management, catch a clue! They have every bit of data they need to track every internal aspect of their business, the “loyalty card” is tracking YOU. I don’t think it’s an NSA plot to know which brand of soft drink to put the mind-control drugs in (Safeway Ginger Ale would get me.) I just realize that they created the loyalty cards to get more information about specific shoppers, and I play their little game to keep from getting completely raped on the prices.
Wegmans is awesome. I worked there in high school, and they really do treat employees, even the high school kids at the registers, like real, valued humans. And it shows in the customer service you get from the staff there.
Plus, they’re cheaper than everyone else, and their store brand stuff tends to be as good as the brand name, or better.
@johnva:
Yeah, I’ve seen horrible price increases on almost every type of product, at most grocery stores, just over the past few years.
Take Breyer’s ice cream, for example. From 1999-2006, a typical regular price was $4.99. When they went on sale, it was usually either “Buy one get one free” (so total price for 2 was $4.99), or “2 for $5″. Recently, at Safeway, I was dumbfounded when I saw that a sale price for Breyer’s ice cream is now $4.99–for ONE. Their regular price is now up to something ungodly like $6.59. For one [roughly] half-gallon tub of ice cream.
Another glaringly obvious price increase is soft drinks. From 1992-2000, a 2-liter bottle typically cost about $1.09, and might go on sale for as low as $0.49. Usually, sale prices were somewhere in between like $0.79-0.99. Now, I’m seeing regular prices for 2-liters of brand-name soda in the $1.49-1.89 range. Sale prices now are often like “4 for $5″ ($1.25 each).
The “regular” prices (i.e. not using a loyalty card, and/or on a week when that brand isn’t on sale) are just PAINFUL. But the SALE signs and displays are just as pretty and bold as ever before.
@smitty1123:
Yeah, my wife thinks the Lucerne milk tastes nasty, and so does her best friend. Safeway’s milk refrigerators are always filthy (spilled milk EVERYWHERE) and reek of sour milk. Safeway’s Primo Taglio deli cheeses are disgusting, too.
I gave up Wal-Mart for Giant Eagle a while back. The service and quality won me over. Walmart is cheaper, but for a reason. You are expected to buy a lot at once to stock up, but I would either end up snacking on my storage food or letting some of it go bad or not used. So I stopped buying in bulk and purchase only what I need for a day or two except for staples like Milk, etc. I drove by my Giant Eagle everyday anyway and I think I spend about the same amount weekly as when I bought in bulk at Walmart. I also have less food in the house and am less inclined to snack, eat better fruits and meat, and cook better meals as I purchase the ingredients before I cook. I know Giant Eagle is also a big chain, but they do it a lot better than the others.
@spugbrap: Dairy in particular has gotten EXTREMELY expensive in the last couple years, partly because of rising costs of feed due to corn ethanol. If you’re seeing dairy ANYWHERE for what it cost two years ago, please share with the class, I’m sure we could all use cheaper calcium.
@spugbrap: When I just want some cheaper ice cream, I’ve started buying the Whole Foods generic. It’s quite good (much better than most other store brands), and it’s about $3.99 for a half gallon. Actually I buy the WF generic for a lot of stuff, especially packaged/canned goods…it’s almost always better quality than the conventional brands at other grocery stores (it’s sometimes organic, sometimes not) and it’s usually cheaper, too. This probably explains why I don’t find Whole Foods all that expensive. Store brands are a great way to save money, but you often take a hit on quality at conventional groceries. Not so much at Whole Foods, since their store brand stuff is really good.
@Eyebrows McGee: Part of it is ethanol and part of it is just the weak dollar. Commodity prices are rising almost across the board right now, partly since it’s more economical now for producers in this country to export thanks to the weak dollar. Combine that with the diminished buying power of each dollar and it adds up to rapidly rising food prices.
Here in CA, the aisles barely fit people, who are careless to others around them while they carry on with their cell phone conversations oblivious that people are trying to get their stuff and leave. My girlfriend and I now shop at a slightly more expensive place, to save from hearing the whines of 20 kids from a careless parent who thinks it is their right to ruin any kind of experience for anyone else. I dread going into Walmart when I have to, it’s a stressful unhappy experience.
Phoenix Ranch Market is the best chain in Phoenix, although it’s usually in ghetto areas (16th St and Roosevelt…ghetto). But I’m super excited about the new Tesco chains opening up in December. They’re supposed to fabulous!
I live in a small town outside San Diego, and I would *kill* for an east-coast ShopRite! My chain-store choices here are Albertson’s, Von’s, and Ralph’s. We had an ugly grocery workers’ union strike here a few years ago, and the stores have never recovered, on both the employee and management sides. Because of that, I avoid them whenever possible. If I wanted to check and bag my own groceries, I’d be working for them. I don’t and I’m not. But they all insist on having a bunch of self-check lanes open and empty with a checker at each one, while the real checkout has six people in line. If you want my loyalty, that’s not the way to get it.
Fortunately I have a Henry’s (Wild Oats) and a great Trader Joe’s nearby. And a corner market that looks like a dump but has a full-service butcher shop hidden in the back.
Yea, most people on here sadly have no idea what Wegman’s is.. it’s unfortunate because they really are that much better.
The fact that they have been inside the Fortune Top 100 Companies to work for for the past 10 years doesn’t hurt. In fact, since 2003 they’ve been inside the Top 10 all while expanding heavily.
Any complaint I have ever raised has resulted in a response within 1 business day and usually more than satisfactory resolution. The last comment I had was that the consistency in their sandwich shop was lacking. Within 2 days I had a phone call from the manager and a $10 gift card. Also notable is the quality improved dramatically right after that and has stayed high, this was 2 years ago.
I’m pretty loyal, although I do agree with an earlier comment that they’ve recently altered the aisle layouts and I find it annoying. I haven’t said anything yet.
Also, you should see their “flagship” stores. 2 floors.. that’s variety. http://www.wegmans.com
No, I don’t work for them, I have family and friends who do…for MANY years.
Ever since the strike a couple of years back, I’ve noticed a marked decline at Vons (Safeway). Dairy products and bread or almost always at or past their expiration date and the customer service is awful. What really gets me, though, is the utter inability of Vons and Ralphs (Kroger) to sell ground beef or chicken in anything less than 1.5 pound increments. That’s why I shop at Whole Foods, where I can actually get .5 pounds of beef and a couple of chicken breasts for about the same price as what I’d pay to throw away half the stuff from the chains. (It’s not like I’m going to freeze and thaw.)
Lower prices and/or better selection + friendlier cashiers. That’s all I’m asking.
I hate going up to cashiers who’re all grumpy and glaring at you as though you’re the cause of their miserable day.
Companies need to give more breaks and a raise to all employees every 3-5 months. If that doesn’t bring a smile, take away those raises and see if there’s any change.
@SaraAB87 and @falc:
I grew up in Rochester – Wegmans and Tops are both SO much better than what is available in most of Massachusetts. There are more grocery chains than you can shake a stick at (Stop N Shop, Price Chopper, Shaws, Big Y.. there are more that I don’t remember the name of because I’ve never shopped at them) – but the only one that approaches the quality that I am used to is Big Y. And I’m not willing to go 10 miles out of my way to get to one (thankfully, I no longer have to – I just started a job that is across the street from a Big Y).
I’m not a demanding customer. I rarely use the deli or butcher. I just miss having quality produce and staff that can at least pretend that they care about the customer.
@nobodygrrl: God I hear you! There are 2 Vons, a Ralphs, a Albertsons and a Food for less around my house. I usually go to Vons cause they are closer. We probably buy 80% of our groceries from the card related sales. But buying food here in Cali. I never see a bill less than $80 minimum.
I hate the union! When they went on strike I would go to thru the picketlines on purpose to piss them off. I think they need to STFU, starting baggers and cashiers make only a $1.50 less than what I make with a degree!!! Stop crying and go find a higher paying job if you don’t like it.
HEB and Whole Foods have pretty much sewed up the grocery market in Austin, unless I want to drive 40+ miles. I won’t do business with HEB because they systematically destroyed so many nice smaller groceries, leaving many towns with no alternative source of food, and then jacking prices sky-high. I won’t do business with Whole Foods because of corporate ethical issues, CO-ed meats that spoil immediately, and the very strong suspicion that their organics are frequently far from it.
I used to shop at Target until I found out that they operate a forensics lab that does DNA testing (yeah, WTF? and totally creepy for a place that sells food)…
I won’t shop at places that require you to register with them in order avoid being price-gouged, and will cease doing business with a company that appears to be tracking my purchases via my credit card number.
In short, it is getting almost impossible to buy food these days without selling out to somebody’s beast. And that’s not even considering that about 90% of what’s on the shelves is not what I would consider to be food (adulterated with artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, corn syrup, modified food starch, MSG, etc.).
Publix, I love Publix…and shopping there really IS a pleasure
Sweetbay, great store, nearly Publix quality but a bit cheaper
those are the only grocery stores we go to….won’t even think about going to walmart…yuck.
Between a Wal-Mart & Super Target near me, I like Super Target more. They have a few odd foods that I like, although if they open a Trader Joe’s near me, I’ll be first in line.
My biggest bugbear is the changing prices. Sure, it sounds nice that an item is “on sale”, but that’s only done to get people into the store to buy overpriced items.
Worse yet, shopping for food is not like shopping for a DVD player. If you want a cheap DVD player, you’ll wait until you find a price you like. However, you can’t do that with food and essentials; it’s not on sale, you pay full price, and then next week you find out it’s cheaper and you’ve lost money. Anyone who has worked in any retail knows that “sale prices” are not immediate knee jerk reactions to the market, they are planned price reductions of selected items designed to increase foot traffic and sales.
The way I see it, stores have inflated prices and have occasional sales of them to increase items sold; any “loss” on the sale is averaged out over time. I would rather see a continuous price all year slightly lower than the “regular” overpriced price.
But stores won’t do that. Why? Because if it’s one price all the time, the customer doesn’t have to keep coming back in to look for sales. If customers aren’t in the stores, then they aren’t making impulse purchases which are highly profitable for the store.
I love Bloom in my area. It’s got a really great section of health foods and organic items, and for the vegetables I usually eat there are organic versions. I think it’s getting harder to have loyalty to a grocery store nowadays because there’s less of a human component. It’s harder to form personal relationships with people, as many of them are moving onto other jobs or are high school students or college students who leave at the end of summer. I think if customer satisfaction with staff was higher at a more expensive grocer, more people would go there just to get the good experience, rather than go to a cheaper grocer where people aren’t as nice.
Ooh, also wanted to add that at Bloom’s, you don’t need a discount card to get their discounts. If it’s on sale, everyone can get it on sale.
@Keter: That actually seems to be pretty cool. It’s not like behind the breads and bagels, there’s a DNA lab. They’re headquartered in buildings that aren’t stores.
The name on my Safeway Club card is Stanley President. So when I buy something, the clerk says “Thank you Mister President”.
It used to amuse me, but now I kind of feel sorry for the poor sots who work there and risk getting fired if they don’t say the customer’s name.
(btw, it only works for cash payments, because otherwise it pulls the name from the credit/debit card.)
I live in a small town in western Washington, near Olympia. The grocer here are 3 grocers: “Fred Meyer”, a part of the Kroger chain: super Walmart; Safeway. All have reasonable prices, Safeway being the most expensive of the lot. All of them have truly dismal selections. I need to qualify my declaration of “poor selection” on these grocers. My community is a rural, less than affluent, blue collar kind of place. So, I really don’t have a big expectation of any of them having specials on black truffles in the fall.
My big beef with all of them is the absense of any help at all if I want to special order something. Walmart simply laughs at me. Safeway takes my order, then does nothing until I have to engage the store manager. Fred Meyer says OK, but you have to order a whole case of it, whatever it is. Right, I need a case of Kun Chun Hoi Sin sauce. Like I can use a whole case before its shelf life is gone. For some items, Fred Meyer simply says that they have zero control because they sub contract that “section” to a contractor who puts what it wants to put on the shelf. Can I have the number of the contractor? No.
OK, I’m spoiled rotten. I lived in Sunnyvale California for 25 years. For years there was the sheer joy of going to Cosentinos market. That they put one at Homestead and Lawrence Expressway was a joy: walking distance. If they didn’t have it, they could get it. In the last 10 years I was there the Safeway market at Maria and El Camino was good. The staff and management were always helpful.
It gets worse. Olympia, the state capitol, is the closest “big town”. Alas, there does not seem to be a single “upscale market” in the entire city. The Thriftway market on 4th avenue in downtown pretends to be upscale, but does not seem to have anything interesting, short of outragous prices.
If I want anything special, I’m stuck. I’ve occasionally made a whole day trip to Seattle to a Metropolitan market. Metropolitan is the best of the lot, but is still a far cry from the Cosentinos markets in Silicon Valley. … Yup. I’m spoiled.
I recently moved to San Francisco from teh New York City area and I don’t like the grocery stores as much here. I don’t feel that there is as much of a selection. I mean, I didn’t move to another country. I also hate that I have to go to 3 different stores to get what I need. I like Whole Foods but I’m not going to buy my toilet paper there. Safeway has a limited selection and I only go to Trader Joes for certain things. Grocery shopping is just a non stop adventure.
@Eyebrows McGee:
You’re right dairy is expensive. At the store where I work, at least one type of milk is marked down every other week to around $2.50 per gallon. I believe Meijer’s at least in Michigan, milk doesn’t cost more than $3.50.
Let’s start with hiring enough cashiers that its takes less time to pay and bag my groceries than actually shopping for them.
If Costco counts, as that is where I do my grocery shopping,then I do care. More often then not Costco has done the proper thing. Only fault is that their inventory does shift.
@WindowSeat: I work as a quasi-manager part-time at Wegmans and last summer they rearranged our store to the same layout. The idea was to make it so that you didn’t have to walk the whole way down the isle if what you wanted was only half-way down. Also, it added valuable end-cap space, which you clearly don’t like and I don’t really blame you. But honestly? Anything they put there sells like hotcakes. And if they put hotcakes there? Fuhgetaboudit!
I’d be curious to know which store you shop at; all Wegmans are excellent, but some are definitely better than others. It could be that the trainer (usually a more experienced member of the cashiers) was recently changed to someone new and they’re not doing a very good job of telling people what to do. That’s the case at our store currently. Let the people at the service desk or one of the runners know when someone bags your groceries like crap and trust me, they’ll do something about it. If they don’t, write a customer comment at the service desk (or mail one in) and the store manager will see it.
Portland, OR has lots of grocery choices:
Fred Meyer – Oh, Freddy’s. Founded here but now part of Kroger. You can get a turkey for Thursday, plates for it, and table cloth! They don’t have a discount card (they have a “rewards” card). They’re a decent store, but when I was there they other day they didn’t have much fresh chicken.
Safeway – Jacked-up prices and pre-packaged meat! It’s the closest supermarket from me so of course I go there like a dummy. I also notice the Freddy’s down the street from it has a lot more people in it. I have a savings card for Safeway but I never actually signed up for it. Yet it works- take that!
New Seasons – I really should start going there since it’s local and has better food. It’s like a Whole Foods except Portland-based. Too bad I can’t afford a lot of it.
There’s other stores in the outskirts of the city but I don’t go to those.
The only real “supermarket” I go to anymore is Whole Foods. Once in a while I’ll also buy bread or milk at the Publix next to my house when it is late.
But mostly I do my shopping at the International Farmers Market. Its way cheaper for all the fresh stuff like veggies and meats, and it’s all locally grown, fresh, and mostly organic.
I will say that the supermarket experience is definitely a store-by-store kind of thing. In extreme contrast with the Kroger-lover above, I think the Kroger closer to my house is one of the nastiest places I have ever bought food in. Forget about vegetables, and don’t even dare look at their meat section — I feel like I could get salmonella or e coli poisoning just from being close to it.
I used to hate my supermarket (ShopRite) but shop there because it was cheap and family-owned. Then, one day, I bought some chicken breasts and when I unpacked them at home, the bag smelled like puke, let alone the meat! When I went to return it, the poor teenager at customer service asked if I wanted some replacement meat — after five pounds were already funky!
As I was driving home, I happened to notice the new Wegmans that opened up … I went there, just to see if they had some good meat, and a year later, I’ve never shopped at another store! I love my grocer!
I’m in eastern MA, and I have a Market Basket in town, which has been lightly renovated even though it’s less than 8 years old. Good prices but crazy busy. (During a snowstorm I once waited 45 minutes to check out!)
Stop & Shop used to have good-priced store brands until they decided to make them a profit center; I can’t see buying store-brand items at name-brand prices but this is apparently fashionable.
Shaws is OK. They decided to be famous for plasma TVs at the salad bar and the checkouts.
Both stores have shopper cards and I have them but oddly, I have never seen any more junk mail associated with them; Shaw’s does send out occassional coupon cards I can’t use because I don’t buy $50 worth of food a week.
There is a TJ’s and a Whole Foods near where I live, accessible by bus, but I miss the old chains like Purity Supreme and (older, egads!) Finast.
In my part of San Francisco (North Beach) I’ve got an intersection with Trader Joe’s on the southwest corner and Safeway on the northeast corner, which makes things convenient. For produce, I’ve got blocks and blocks of markets in Chinatown. You can’t beat those prices anywhere.