Dear Shaw’s Supermarket
I went to Roche Brothers again last night. You know; your competition? Yeah, them. The fantastic new one in Easton, close enough to at least four of your stores to be competition with those in particular.
I went there last time I shopped, too. Heh. That trip, not only did they charge me the correct prices on everything, they even made a 22 cent mistake in my favor. And I didn’t even need a card to shop and get the sale prices! How cool is that.
Oh Shaw’s, once upon a time, you were the best. You were the “not Stop & Shop” store. You were the pioneer of computerization and scanning registers tied to inventory. You gave my college money for the management science department to buy computers, after their marketing students did a big study for you as part of their course work. You were always the low prices, not the frills, just plain good.
Now? After a long stretch of time in which I’ve observed you trying to be Stop & Shop, raising your prices, getting obsessive about store brands, adopting that assinine card program that most customers hate, there’s nothing special about you anymore. Unless you are trying to be special by overcharging me.
See, I didn’t take seriously the word out there that each register tape needs to be examined for errors, and much of the time one can be found. But recently there was a cash flow crunch, so I knew exactly what the price of each item had been labeled at the shelf, and what the total ought to be. Two visits in a row you let me down, overcharging. It’s downright vile to buy something you would never buy but for the labeled sale price, only to get home and find it was charged at full price. Hey Shaw’s, tear down those sale signs! If you don’t mean them, take them down, stop misleading people.
Roche Brothers is a ritzy store. They don’t pretend otherwise. Their employees routinely help customers load groceries in their cars and retrieve the carts before they can litter the parking lot. One end of the store is practically a restaurant, the way they specialize in prepared food that I can’t afford and seldom buy, but which is excellent. They are well staffed, well stocked, well price labeled, friendly, helpful, clean… and they are in it to compete with you by having excellent sales. But you knew that; I can tell by comparing the sale fliers.
Guess what! They actually charge the sale prices when things are on sale. Always. It’s not a game of pricing roulette.
Your store is walking distance. Their store is a few miles away. After the last couple visits, your store doesn’t even get proximity preference anymore. That’s pretty sad, for a store that has been my primary grocer for as long as I have been buying groceries. When I lived nowhere near a Shaw’s and Stop & Shop was amazingly the best of three competitors, I used to drive my friends crazy: Shaw’s this, Shaw’s that; it’s a dollar less at Shaw’s, yada yada. They had to insist I stop the wistful price comparisons.
I can only hope that Albertson’s will straighten you out as they take over. Save you from yourselves, as it were.
I love Roche Bros.! The closest one to us is in Bridgewater...but it is so worth the drive not to have to shop at Shaw’s or Stop & Shop. Victory is good too...there is one in Middleboro but the better one is in Kingston. Their Market Square(produce section then some) rocks.
Posted by Sharon on 01/28 at 10:34 AMThat is hilarious. I hated Shaw’s when I was in New Hampshire. I always went to Victory market or Shop & Save.
Posted by jen on 01/28 at 12:03 PMWith strategic use of highways, you might be able toget to the Easton store as fast as Bridgewater.
I boycotted Shaw’s for a long time after they started using cards, until Wayne gave me his when he moved. During that time, and also because it was close, I went to Victory in Quincy. A guy I used to work with had worked at various supermarkets in the meat and deli areas, and always praised Victory as the only one he’d buy meat from, because they are the only ones who handle it safely.
Go figure. I stopped going to Victory after repeated problems with meat the whole time I went there. Pork would be bad any time from the time you bought it to the next day, the majority of the time. Hamburger would be bad as soon as the next day, as much as half the time. Sliced meat wasn’t as bad, except the roast beef they prepacked for people who came in after the deli closed, which would be bad anywhere from on the spot to a couple days later, no matter what the sell by date said.
Otherwise, I feel like Victory is what Shaw’s once was, and I suspect the problem was more with that Victory than with the chain.
I also like Demoulas Market Basket, which at one point was the primary place I shopped, driving from the office to Raynham, then all the way to Quincy. I haven’t brought Deb there yet, but I sometimes get their fliers at the office and have been tempted.
And of course Super Wal-Mart rocks for a lot of things, but we didn’t have them back when, and they’re a drive the way Market Basket is. We usually only buy hamburger there, as it’s both fresh and a buck or so a pound cheaper. Roche Brother is expensive for hamburger, but it’s very fresh. You can keep it in the fridge a couple days and have it smell and feel fresher than Victory’s did the day of purchase.
Posted by Jay on 01/28 at 12:20 PMyou think Albertsons is going to help? Please. Deb, set him straight on what Albertsons is like. Especially as they now have the card program too.
At least your grocery stores have reasonable names. Ours are Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Winn-Dixie, and yes, Piggly Wiggly (although thank heaven there is NO Piggly Wiggly in CH)
-sigh- I miss Trader Joe’s.
Posted by caltechgirl on 01/28 at 01:01 PMI shopped at Market Basket a lot too. Anybody but Shaws. And our Victory (in Derry) was brand new, so no problems.
Posted by jen on 01/28 at 08:03 PMWhat’s it say that when the company decided to open a new mega-giant-super-hypermarket on Rte. 1 in Dedham, they named it Star Market instead of Shaw’s? As an aside: It’s worth a trip just to see how gigantic it is - I think you can see the curvature of the earth when you look down an aisle.
I wonder how the Shaw’s in West Roxbury stays open. Ever since Roche Bros. moved to its new location a couple years back, the place has been a graveyard.
Posted by adamg on 01/29 at 08:19 PMOh Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I abhor(!) Shaw’s and lament the removal of Star. The removal of anything remotely ethnic, the watering down of the selection, the crappy meat, the rotting vegetables, the catering (where I live) to the local college kids who eat only pizza and salad bars. I will drive miles or pay Whole Foods prices in order to miss the evil Shaw’s. At least hte mega giant one that Adam mentiones above stil maintains a bit of Star about it, they still suck.
Not to mention that the same items in Victory 1 mile away in Waltham are often anywhere from 40 cents to almost a dollar cheaper.
Boycott I say.Posted by jo on 01/29 at 10:59 PM
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