Friday, January 28, 2005
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.
