Grocery Wisdom Tip – Shift From High-End To Low End Grocers!

A recent survey on 1 million mint.com users, which is quite a valid representation of the American population shows that high-end grocery stores like Whole Foods and Bristol Farms are losing their customers to low-end grocery stores like Food4Less and Food Lion. It’s the effect of recession of course! It seems people are dumping organic for the general or less expensive organic stuff. Well, do you say it’s going to be a compromise on health? Let’s see what people are saying about these stores. Maybe then we can get an idea as to why they prefer to shop at cheaper grocery shops than these much-hyped grocery stores.

Bristol Farms

Bristol Farms is an impressive elitist chain of grocery stores for the gourmet appetite. Many customers agree on the superior quality of the products out there. The variety of mouthwatering ready-to-eat food stuffs are a hard-to-resist temptation. You really must try out their amazing range of sushi! The customer service also seems to be more satisfactory than Bristol Farms. But God! You’ve got to be Rockefeller or a top Hollywood movie star to really buy at this store. The prices are far higher than even those of Whole Foods. People are really not complaining. Many people are, rather, feeling that the prices are justified for the special kind of food stuff that you don’t seem to get anywhere else. But even if customers aren’t complaining, can they really afford to buy at this store? I think not! Especially, when its recession. Hey Bristol Farms, unless you really think of opening another section for the budget-oriented American, you might have to be satisfied with only a small percentage of customers.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods is one of the premier organic grocery and natural products supermarket chain. There are a number of reasons why people seem to opting for them over ordinary organic shopping chains. Some find the quality of the organic groceries above par while others are complaining about the quality not being as good as it appears to be. You really need to have a personal opinion on this. But all the customers are unanimous on one point, i.e. the products are very very expensive. Both the groceries, as well as, the ready-to-eat items are quite beyond the reach of the average American pocket. This is a major disadvantage for the stores chain. I understand that Whole Foods is promoting farmers. But it cannot afford to burn a hole in the pockets of its customers.

Another thing that people are not very happy about is the customer service of the stores. There are a lot of complaints from junior staff of underpayment and management insensitivity to their problems. Naturally, when the staff is not happy, how can it serve the customers happily?

Thirdly the place seems to be always over-packed with people. Many people are leaving the place without a free space to even breathe. Is the Whole Foods management listening?

Vons

Vons is not as pricy as Whole Foods, but the prices are definitely a bit above the average American expectation. Maybe, the rich and the higher end of the upper middle class can still afford to shop here. The shop layout is impressive and many people like the selection of this supermarket, but some have been complaining of the store not being well stocked as many products seem to be unavailable on request. Also some shoppers do not like the idea of taking a club membership to get a discount. Of course there are some complaints about customer services. Vons, in order to retain its customer base, should try to rectify the snags. As the items are not very pricy the customers who are drifting away will want to stay back. Whole Foods does not have this opportunity as the items are much pricier than at Vons and they cannot be made available at lower rates. I’ll vouch for Vons as an ideal shopping choice because it balances price and sophistication very well.

Cub Foods

Cub Foods seems to be a very nice option, rather, one of the few alternatives one has while battling recession. The quality of material is not bad and the most important thing is, the prices are dead low. The product line is quite extensive and interesting. The customer service will make you happy. Why not make the best of this lean period with some Asian and Ethnic Food Stuff from here? For a budget store, it’s clean, airy and well-maintained. Even big stores like Vons and Whole Foods are cramped most of the time. Resuming the 24 hour service would be a plus factor, but hey…will there be a crowd 24 hours in this economic downturn?

Krogers

Krogers seems to be having more reasonably priced products than many of the expensive grocery stores, but everybody is complaining about the poor quality customer service. Some say the medical section is hopeless and that they may be selling inferior variety medicines.

Trader Joe

A typical next door supermarket for household articles, Trader Joe is liked by the American middle class. The products are cheap and of good quality. They give you online shopping facility as well. With organic and natural gourmet food on its shelves, in the present recession Trader Joe is posing a serious competition for Whole Foods by offering the products at a much lesser price. Unique products and brands, 20-30 percent less sale price, fresh and novel stock on the shelves are the strengths of this supermarket. Though they say you don’t get everything that you’d find at Whole Foods, such as, an olive bar or a meager meat selection, I feel these factors are not strong enough for Whole Foods to have an edge over Trader Joe. Well, I’m not actually trying to compare the high end Whole Foods with a comparably modest supermarket as Trader Joe, but it seems any person with commonsense will prefer Trader Joe to Whole Foods to save that extra buck.

Check over these stores for yourself or go through some online reviews to find out about the stores yourself. Food4Less, Publix, Giant Food and Food Lion are some of the low end stores that you might want to check. If you want to know the statistics of each of these stores on factors like the amount of money spent per shopper, number of transactions done per shopper, amount of money spent over a transaction by a shopper; for the last one year, or more of such information, you’ll find it at grocery store shopping and food trends report.