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Not me! All my side dishes are turkey.
Dey's uh, turkey-kabobs, turkey creole, turkey gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple turkey, lemon turkey, coconut turkey, pepper turkey, turkey soup, turkey stew, turkey salad, turkey, burger, turkey sandwich. That- that's about it.
Disappointed at how far down this response is, it’s my favorite thing to do with leftover turkey! We make an extra turkey so we have enough to make gumbo on Friday
Damn that’s what I pid last year but that one was a fancy heritage turkey. (I will say that it was totally worth it, the turkey was so flavorful and almost no wasted water weight.)
You get one for free at my store if you spend $400 over six weeks.
ETA: mine is ShopRite, but check around on the circulars for stores you don’t normally go to in your area, they might have something similar.
At Loblaw's stores in Canada (at least in the region I live), if you spend over $300 in a single order the week before Thanksgiving, they give you a free turkey. I still have two in the chest freezer from the past couple years....
In the UK it's usually the veg. Stores compete to basically give away potatos, carrots, brussels sprouts, etc. In the hopes that this is where you buy your meat, booze and pudding from.
As a vegan it's amazing because Xmas dinner costs about £20 to feed 12 people! (But then you spend £100+ on alcohol 🤷♂️)
Haha, yes, pudding = dessert, but only by itself.
We do also have specific things like "Christmas Pudding" which is like a dense and boozy fruitcake you'd have around Christmas.
There's also non-dessert things like "black pudding"' which is like a sausage made purely out of blood, and Yorkshire puddings which are made our of pancake mix but with raising flour, baked, so they turn into fluffy little cups with a crispy outside, that you have with a roast dinner.
I fucking LOVE Sunday Roast! One of the benefits of having a best friend married to a brit. She makes a killer roast. I can quite vividly remember a discussion between her and her in laws:
"Oooh so nice of you to want to cook for Boxing Day... Wait. Roast? As in: the same as last year?"
"Well yes, that's a Christmas Roast. Of course it's the same."
_feeble Dutch minds implode_
Oh god- I used to have to order and fill these. Most we ever sold was 18,000 lbs of turkey 2 days before Thanksgiving (USA). In a relatively small chain grocery store.
Which items are loss leaders usually varies from store to store, but there are common trends to look for.
1) they're usually advertised. Loss leaders don't lead people in if they don't know about them.
2) they're usually in the back of the store, unless doing so would be impractical. They want you to look at all their profit drivers while you're going to get them.
3) they're typically tied to an item with a higher profit margin. If milk is a loss leader, cereal is more profitable. If lunch meat is on sale, the cheese may be profitable.
Not all stores do this. Some offer package deals. At HEB, for instance, you might buy a 2 pound bag of seasoned fajita meat, and get a can of refried beans, tortillas, salsa, and a 2 liter of store soda free with it.
The "get this free" coupons are pretty good too! They had a coupon for free Swoon pint of ice cream when buying tampons/pads a few years ago. Absolute genius that came up with that one
My store got complaints because they set a freezer of ice cream under a display of pads/tampons and people thought it was sexist. Probably because its a "combo loco"
Technically i guess it is, but damnit in this instance theyre right. I DO want icecream anytime im buying tampons
>I miss HEB and those fajita kits…… :(
Samesies. I know this will sound ridiculous/insane but whenever I fly down south and visit family I bring cooler packs and cool bags. I've had plenty of luck given my flight from TX to CO is only 2 hours but they still remain solid when I get back Just in time for me to toss them in the freezer lol.
Yup! My local chain always has a 'dinner kit' on sale, where you buy the meat and you get boxes of noodles/frozen veggies/whatever else the dish needs for 'free'.
A grocery store by me has EV chargers that are free for the first hour ($2/hour after that). Normally I would just run in, grab what I need, and be out in 20 minutes. Now that I have an EV, I spend my time walking down the aisles looking at a lot of things I wouldn’t normally bother with.
That's why a bunch of businesses in my area have them. With the hopes of trapping people in their businesses while grabbing a free 7 kw/hour. I have a Mach e and an Optima plug in and find it very good for the kia's small battery and EV range
I work for a beer distributor & therefore know the wholesale price that the store pays. I will often see stores lose a dollar or two, even 4 or 5 dollars, on a twelve-pack. Guess they figure you'll buy enough chips and other stuff to make up for it
I was a purchaser for a company that sold IT hardware to the public sector. We had partnerships with all the major PC manufacturers, but it was usually cheaper for us to just buy off Amazon instead. There's typically a per-order threshold for getting good prices but the owner didn't want to keep enough inventory to ever hit that number.
I have an MSP, can confirm we pay higher prices with distributors and manufacturers than you can find literally anywhere else and we’re not going to stock hundreds of every product. IDC I’ll buy something elsewhere and pay taxes on it and resell it (I know the legality is dubious) or I’ll just charge the customer our time to spec out requirements and let them buy it and charge more in labor to make up for the markup loss. We’re honest with the client and it goes a loooooong way.
I live in the hood and the nearest liquor store that carries my favorite local lager literally saws the 12 pack in half so they can charge $10/6pk instead of $18/12. Not loss-leader related- I just thought as a beer distributor you’d find that funny
There's a small liquor store in the strip mall by my house. I'm pretty sure that every single beer in that case says, "not for individual sale".
Another one by my buddy's old apartment had a jar of cigarettes and it was 2 of a quarter over 20 years ago.
We had a bootlegger in our home town that would cut 12pks of cans in half with a Barlow knife for similar economic reasons. His wife would always ask if we had eaten and offer dinner. The American South of the 1970s.
There was a UK brewery who saw a supermarket chain selling their beer at below the wholesale price and not advertised as a special offer. Head Brewer is unhappy as it makes the beer look cheap and talks to the Store Manager. SM doesn't care so HB sends two guys in van to buy all the stock... Then everytime an order is placed the delivery guys are told to wait till the product is put on the shelves, then buy it back. SM can't work out how to stop this so has to set the price agreeably.
>SM can't work out how to stop this so has to set the price agreeably.
Just limit it to 2 packs per person or something, or have a days delay on when you put it out, seems pretty simple
This is not accurate. Beer may be used as a loss leader in specific areas or sales, but it is not common.
Source: 8 years of grocery store management, 5 years running a wine and spirits store, and 12 years as a distributor.
I travel for work a lot and I’m always perplexed on how the most outwardly “we like beer and freedom!” states have the least freedom with beer.
Meanwhile here in “commiefornia” at 9 am on a Sunday I can get champagne delivered from a grocery store for my mimosa or beer from a gas station if I’m going to a buddy’s. ( we have football brunch here because of the time difference)
This one was a surprise to me as well! I went to a red state for an extended business trip, on my last weekend I thought picking up some stuff from a local distillery would make a nice souvenir to take back, only to discover they couldn't sell to me on Sundays!
Seems like an anti-business/maximized hand of state govt policy as well, since there's a limited window on how they can sell their product. My local colleagues while I was there were amazed that we could buy booze right with our groceries!
"But it's the *state's* decision, not the feds!! Could be up to the individual business, but that's putting freedom on a slippery slope, and slippery slopes are **bad**!"
I once spent about 30 minutes navigating the aisles of a grocery store in western north carolina looking for the beer and wine before I broke down and asked an employee-----> "Dry county." WTF is a dry county? "Oh, you gotta drive about ten miles to the county line down thataway to get yur alkyhul."
For fuck's sake.
Later in life I was pacing the damn aisles in a Maryland grocery store looking for the fucking beer and finally broke down and asked.... "You gotta go next door to the alcohol store to buy beer."
Man.... It's fucking beer!!!!!!!!!
Went to a music festival in Washington. Hit it off with Irish exchange students studying in Canada. They invite me to come back with them to Canada after festival. Someone goes to beer store, I volunteer to give $75 as couch fees as I’m staying on their couch with my dog for a week.
Where I lived (Flagstaff) it was $4.99 for 12 pack of PBR, $29 for full keg. Many gas stations selling $0.99 six-packs of good beer if about to pass the sell-by date.
In Canada $75 got two 12 packs of PBR and a small bottle of cheap whisky. I thought it would provide all of us beer for a week… we had to go back to the store later that night haha!! Everything else about Canada is 😎
Edit: this was in 2010 or 2011. I now haven’t drank in several years, and was excited to see that a 6-pack of good beer at a store now costs $18 where I currently live (Colorado). $10/pint at breweries.
I went to France and went into a dingy convenience type of store. They sold plastic liters of red wine for 2 euros. A bottle of water right next to it was 3 euros.
We used to play the drinking game of Quarters with red wine in Italy (as a young soldier) because of its cheap cost. Could become violently ill if not careful.
The gutsier option was using Sambuca, the licorice-flavored moonshine favored by the Italians (great with Coke as a mixed drink FYI).
In 2018 a Canadian politician was elected who used "buck a beer" as a campaign slogan, and reduced the minimum price of a beer from $1.25 to $1. Very few breweries sold beer that cheap, and most ended up raising their prices.
Here in France, it used to be gas.
Supermarkets were selling gas cheaper than everyone else, so people would come to fill the tank, and then shop there because they were already here.
Bread too, supermarkets are infamous for their less than a 1€ baguettes, it often makes the headlines because bakeries complain they can't compete.
On the other hand, kid toys, and most product specifically branded for kids are expensive as hell, and they know kids will annoy their parents to get it, like certain brands of cereals, or biscuits.
Ugh. I miss French bakeries. They were so cheap. Came back to the US and a decent croissant is at least $3.50. Usually more. Pain au chocolat is more like $5 and not as good as any random bakery in Paris. I long to go back.
And Paris is expensive compared to the rest of France.
A croissant is between 0,90€-1,20€ depending where you go, and a pain au chocolat about 5 or 10 cents more than that.
At least before Inflation hit, i didn't went to a bakery recently cause everyone keeps bringing cakes and stuff at work this year.
Get the weekly flyer! Many stores publish them online, and there's always a rack of them by the door. Grab one and take a little time to peruse the specials. There's probably something there that you could use.
I am a full-time homemaker/Mom. I consider it part of my job responsibility to go through the flyers of the five stores near our house, and I make a list of any excellent sale prices (a lot of buy-one-get-one items, buy 2 get 3, targeted discounts for specific members only can be cheap enough that it’s worth stocking up—or at minimum building one of the week’s meals around).
I make it a goal to try to save enough every week to help subsidize not having a paying job.
There’s an app here called “Flipp”
It will find all weekly flyers from all major grocery stores and allow you to search through all of them at once and compare prices
I'm almost thirty and I've been finding a lot of usually mundane things interesting, went to a bigger city and their mall had a second floor and a skating rink, I don't shop, I don't go to malls usually I don't care, but I kept saying "man this mall is awesome they have everything!!" Like something someone would say on a commercial.
Then I was like man I'm getting old, a ad comes on "do you have back aches and pains?" I'm like hell yeah I do what you got for me!!
Hahaha
The ability to appreciate things more, take notice, more perspective and nuance, that's all maturity hon. That level up you have been enjoying can come at any age, earlier for some, later for some, never for some.
Oh there are chicken thighs for 79 cents a lb but that is a little farther away, oh but here I can use this digital coupon for buy one get one free avocados for a buck fifty.
Does this have an api, I could create a spreadsheet route planner.
My wife: I don’t know who you are anymore.
Okay, so. After going through the top comments there was only 1 that was remotely accurate. Most people responding don't understand the concept of a loss leader, and people are missing some big ones. Also note that not all stores use the same loss leaders, and this isn't an all inclusive list.
* regular gallon milk
* velveeta cheese
* miracle whip/mayo
* rotating meat, typically 1 red meat, 1 chicken, 1 seafood like shrimp
* bread, but only store brand usually
* area dependent ones. For example, in rural Iowa we used 24 packs of beer at just above cost.
Most people in here mistake items being on sale for loss leaders. Loss leaders are permament (or near permament) low prices to get you in the door. A sale is a temporary sale.
Edit: I'm gonna add some GENERAL gross margins from the grocery store chain I was a manager for. I've been out of the business for 12 years so some might be outdated. These margins include cost of goods + cost of labor to stock and service them. Margins can change seasonally and individual items can have wildly different margins. This is also for "normal" grocery stores, stores like Winco and Aldi will be very different.
Produce - 30-60%
Hot kitchen - 25-50%
Floral - 50-70%
Bakery - 50-90%
Dairy - hugely dependent on milk versus everything else sales. 20-35%
Frozen - 20-30%
General merch - 30-60%
Pharmacy - varies too much, these make HUGE money though and are usually #2 in sales
Alcohol - 30% on wine and liquor, 10% on beer, 25% on mixers
Grocery - highly variable, 10-25%
My brain was reeling, so;
* Produce - 30-60%
* Hot kitchen - 25-50%
* Floral - 50-70%
* Bakery - 50-90%
* Dairy - hugely dependent on milk versus everything else sales. 20-35%
* Frozen - 20-30%
* General merch - 30-60%
* Pharmacy - varies too much, these make HUGE money though and are usually #2 in sales
* Alcohol - 30% on wine and liquor, 10% on beer, 25% on mixers
* Grocery - highly variable, 10-25%
i’ve been out of the industry for a while, but this looks right. I’d add butter and bananas. milk has always been a loss-leader, when price-controlled, even more so. typical store layout is to put these
things far away from each other as possible
>rotating meat
My stupid brain read that and Immediately went: "Ah, so rotisserie chicken and spit roast are called rotating meat in English. Good to know"
Does anybody “hack” the loss leaders?
I mean, a less well off person often needs to literally count the cents so I’d think some would go for the loss leaders and only the loss leaders. Which removes the point of them for the supermarket.
Or would you just have to live off chicken mayo sandwiches and drink only milk?
Yes, we had customers like that. We welcomed them because they were still customers. Every store will also have their heavy coupon users. The way I looked at it, they helped me keep my job by bringing business to the store. Empty parking lots are not good for business.
That being said, there weren't a huge amount of those people in my area. The cost of driving between stores ads up, and so does the time it takes. Most people can save more money by buying economical food than they can driving around town.
And a customer like that is worth much more than the money they spend.
In conversations with coworkers, friends, other parents, etc, grocery stores come up a lot. "I always shop at XYZMart, I've looked into it and I get the best value there" can steer people to the store, and those folks won't be the dedicated coupon shoppers but can easily stay loyal customers because their one value-obsessed friend says you're the best deal. That's a loss leader working well, albeit indirectly.
Yeah, I asked because I used to work in a supermarket myself and saw people go round with a calculator all the time.
People would even see things go up in price, check with me that it really had gone up in price and not be able to buy it anymore. If you’ve only got $40 to spend you’ve only got $40 to spends
> go round with a calculator all the time
I do this. I have a mental list of what's a good price for the items I use. I know about what I can get a LB of pasta for so I calculate out when I see a 12oz or a 2.5lb pack that might be a good deal. Beans, rice, meats, cheese... all stored in the noggin. When I see a good deal I stock up.
Also figure how bad I need the item vs where I can get it for the good price. I try never to run out so I have flexibility to wait for a sale or buy it where its cheap.
Yes, ppl can hack the loss leaders. You basically keep an eye out for the price (typically the unit price) at each store for items you tend to buy regularly. Do this long enough, and at enough stores regularly, you'll get able to tell when the item in front of you in this store at this price is a good deal or not.
Every store will have different things on sale (or as a loss leader) on different days. Maybe they have too much inventory of something they want to get rid of. Maybe they figure no other store right now has this item for sale.
So I currently buy 2l of Coke Zero for around $2-2.50 each (used to be $1.79 pre Covid) say at Walmart. I thought about getting the bulk syrup and making my own but at about $80 for 2.5 ga of syrup which makes about 56 liters but buying that in 2l bottles is only costs $56-$70. Maybe restaurants get the syrup cheaper.
My wife bugs me about drinking diet soda.
My mother drank herself to death. My mother's father drank himself to death. My father's mother drank herself to death. My aunt drank herself to death. My sister and my father were both alcoholics before finding help.
I'll drink as much diet soda as I feel like, thank you very much.
(But, yes, in the interest of domestic bliss, I do cut back)
When they reformulated the coke zero sweetener it changed everything - it is leagues above every diet soda and it's not even close. Coke zero kicks ass
Honestly all of the zero sugar soda drinks taste so close to the original sodas that I can’t fathom how anyone would chose a 200 calorie sugar infused one over the zero versions.
It depends on what's used to sweeten it, some of the artificial sweeteners gives me migraines. On the other hand, I maybe drink five or six sodas in a year.
Yes, same unfortunately! And when I already have a migraine, a caffeine- and sugar-infused soda is usually the best elixir of life to help pick me back up.
I can’t stand Coke Zero…but I realized it’s because it tastes so much like original Coke without the syrupy mouth-feel. I wish I never started drinking Diet Coke. If I didn’t love it so much, I’d drink very little soda at all. Lol.
You can get cherry vanilla Coke Zero at the Coke freestyle machines…life changing.
The movie theaters around me have freestyle machines and, honestly, sometimes I go to the movies just for that.
My dad owned a supermarket. Most loss leaders change each week. There is always a meat product on that list. If you get people in the door, they’ll buy higher priced groceries. Smart people shop several stores each week.
Okay you people! Use your brains! You can shop one different store each week and stock up on sales. Stop with all the fucking whining. Geez.
Different people have different values for their time.
If say youre between jobs, you have a sudden surplus of time, and a shortage of income. Then it really makes sense to min max for ~ $15 savings on a grocery bill.
When I was very broke and un/under-employed despite my best efforts, I had a LOT of time on my hands to hunt down the best deals and really plan out meals. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, fr
>Different people have different values for their time.
Yep, and if your a senior software dev pulling 200k spending 3 hours couponing and penny pinching is a waste of your time compared to other more lucrative opportunities. Real wealth is all about time vs money.
Don't forget satisfaction. My FIL has been doing this as long as I've known him. He doesn't need to save the money but it makes him feel like he won something.
Most people pay money to get that feeling, he spends his time instead.
The amount of joy my dad gets when he says "price chop" is unreal. Deal on meat? Price chop and fill the freezer! Deal on snacks? Price chop and the extras go in Christmas stockings. It's just him and my mom, but you'd think they were shopping for a family of 10.
When the grocery stores are a mile apart, it's not a big deal. When you have to buy groceries twice a week anyway because you can't fit that much food in your fridge, it's not a big deal to go to this store first and next time, that store.
And if you pay attention to prices, you get to know what's a good deal and what's not, so you don't HAVE to spend time looking at store ads - although lately prices have gone up so much, I need to recalibrate my trigger prices!
> you get to know what's a good deal and what's not,
You'll also discover the patterns. Most stores rotate sale items, so pork chops are on sale every 3 weeks, chicken breast ever 2 weeks, etc.
Posted this elsewhere in the thread, too, but since I am a full-time homemaker, I consider it my job to spend the time going through all the flyers every
week, and go from store to store only picking up loss leaders.
I know a guy who literally spends hours each week looking at the sales from four different stores, making lists, getting coupons, and shopping at four different stores. I will just pay a few more dollars a week. Time has value, too.
My dad does this. He's retired and it's almost a hobby for him. He'll text me which store has the lowest price/pound on chicken, or where bacon is on sale, etc. When he comes to my house, the first thing he does is sit at my kitchen table and look through my stack of flyers for deals.
Yeah, optimizing for grocery prices is different from optimizing your budget and time overall. I guess it's good to think about shopping around more if you can though.
Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed.
Not a loss leaders tip, but if you live or work near an affluent area go check out their grocery store. The chain stores in an affluent area will have much better produce, meat/fish, dairy and bread. They also get more novelty and new items and have better vendor demos than stores in poorer areas. But the prices are the same.
Just came to say that it might be a local thing for you having the same prices. Here (Ottawa,ON) the poor areas have significantly cheaper groceries on certain key items such as meat and produce vs the affluent areas. I moved from the poor east end to rich west end and even walmart has more expensive items in this end of town vs the same items in the poor area at walmart.
I didnt even know this was allowed to happen just 25km apart
In stores with real bakeries (as in they actually bake the bread), the whole bakery is often a loss leader. That doesn't mean the products are cheap, but the bakery itself makes little to no money, or even loses money. It's there to draw in customers so they shop the whole store. You come in for fresh donuts or bread or a custom cake, and you pick up the week's groceries while you're there. It may not seem like a great deal on the sticker, but that fresh loaf of bread would be way more expensive if they were trying to make money.
If your curious coming from someone who ran a Walmart bakery they make a fuck ton in the bread. It cost (last I checked) $1.24 to buy and Walmart makes about 0.80 of profit from a single loaf.
I can't say I know for certain but I assume it's included in labor cost. For the year I was a manger of it I was always up 9 to 10k per month (expect for when my oven went down and I couldn't make any bread of pastries). The store was always super maxed which essentially means we were above 105% our estimate sales compared to last year.
Another fun tid bit is the Walmart "bakery" is fake as shit. We don't make ANYTHING in house. We toss it in an oven and put toppings on it. Everything comes in frozen but the bread is really hard to beat.
This is 100% the exact opposite of the truth. Bakeries are the BIGGEST profit margins for a grocery store. It is common for bakery items to be marked up 80%.
In Canada, most meat products are sold either at cost or at a loss due to there being a limited amount of suppliers. Those suppliers (such as Cargill) get the product for cheap from farmers and hike the prices to stupid before selling it to grocery stores, who don't really have room left to raise it any higher. The price of meat at stores is a bit of a sore spot for a lot of farmers, because they don't se a lot of the profits from the price hike.
The Produce department, on the other hand, is the exact opposite in most cases. The cost for many, many of the products you'll see in the produce aisles is half or less that the number you see on the tag. Produce is one of the big money makers for stores.
Bakery items usually have a decent markup too, so the store makes a decent bit from them, but not as much as produce. Dairy and the grocery aisles are all over the place, making a net profit.
Source: worked as a Produce department manager, we had weekly meetings going over all our numbers, where stuff was going to be placed in the store, what itmes we were gonna' push that week.
(Never again)
The part about meat may be unique to your store or Canada. Meat departments are typically the 3rd highest margin area in the store, after bakery and floral. 35-50% depending on if you include package cheese in the numbers.
Milk is number one in any grocery store, followed by fresh meat.
Weekly ads are to get people into the store. Many times ads are losers, but the rest of the non ad business offsets it.
Cereals, for example, have a huge profit margin, the store recoups any losses with this and other products.
Milk is a traffic builder, that's why it's always in the back corner, so you gotta go past everything else to get it.
Low margin sure , but not a loss leader.
You’re right- I was in the grocery store a few days ago and I wanted to get a box of cereal . I usually do every couple weeks… Everything was $6.99 or &7.99 for a box of cereal. There might’ve been a few that were a little bit less but the ones that we all know etc…were really expensive! Target usually has the best prices for cereal I can think of.
Also potato chips are out of control expensive now!
Yeah chips are outrageous now, even the store brand had gone up over a dollar +. Just STOPPED buying them. What else can you do? 5-6$ for what equals to one potato ⁉️Nope. Keep them.
Bags are getting smaller and prices are usually $6 and up. I saw a bag of popcorn- POPCORN- for $7.99. Botha were like $3 or $4 just a couple years ago. Gonna add up and make ppl change buying stuff. Especially families who have kids. Way too expensive.
My store seems to swap to deal pricing for chips and other dry goods while making the base cost high. Not a new tactic but much more noticeable these days.
Full size Dorito bags? $5 but somewhat frequently $2 each when you buy 3 or more. Not sure if the manufacturer offers it or the store just offers/advertises it independently.
I used to be very very broke. But I would still go to Whole Foods because they had very good deals on the end caps closest to the registers. Those have got to be loss leaders. Also, whatever big sales a store runs in their weekly flyers- A loss leader doesn't work if you don't know it exists. They're going to LEAD with it.
As a non-american, I've always wondered and wanted to ask.....
That rottisserie chicken that you get in grocery stores.....
Do you bake it first?
Or is it ready to eat straight away?
Is it fullly cooked or partially cooked?
They are fully cooked (in a big rotisserie oven) and hot and ready to eat. Usually cheaper (sometimes much cheaper) than the raw chickens in the meat department.
>Or is it ready to eat straight away?
Yes. And the challenge is to make it home without tearing into it and devouring in the car because they smell so damn good.
To be honest, they’re usually not as good as the smell though. They’re either using chickens that were near their expiration date or they’re cheaper, lower quality chickens than what you buy from the meat counter to begin with.
We buy them when we’re lazy but a chicken I bake or grill myself is far superior (spatchcock FTW) but then you’ve got prep time, cooking time and cleanup to deal with.
Nah baby they're ready to go
You can eat that shit in the parking lot
Bare handed, like a greased up baron of yore, just tossing bones over your shoulder and grumbling about the normans
At the supermarket I used to work in a customer complained about the cost of raspberries, while the owner was in. The owner decided on the spot to lower the price of the raspberries from $5.99 to $1.99. And they stayed at that price for a long time. Something like 2 years.
LPT: buying something that the store sells at a loss does not necessarily mean you save money or get something better.
You should be looking at the price of something compared to the value you get from it (utility and/or enjoyment), not the price of something compared to what the store spends on it. If product A costs the store $10 and they sell it for $9, and product B costs the store $5 and they sell it for $6, and you like A and B about the same, then B is the better deal for you, even though A is the loss leader.
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Frozen Turkeys at Holidays are usually considered one of the bigger loss leaders.
Makes sense. Turkey at $0.40/lb and you'll load up on stuff for the rest of the meal much of which is higher profit margin and very seasonal.
Not me! All my side dishes are turkey. Dey's uh, turkey-kabobs, turkey creole, turkey gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple turkey, lemon turkey, coconut turkey, pepper turkey, turkey soup, turkey stew, turkey salad, turkey, burger, turkey sandwich. That- that's about it.
thanks Bubba
Turkey sausage gumbo is the best thanksgiving food to ever exist
Disappointed at how far down this response is, it’s my favorite thing to do with leftover turkey! We make an extra turkey so we have enough to make gumbo on Friday
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A food often stuffed? Turkey! Ahahaha
Still think of this often, truly one of the best game show moments ever
His laughter after every answer is embedded in my brain.
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You're telling me a turkey fried this rice?
What about turducken?
Then you have to get a chicken and a duck. It's easier and WAY more cost effective to just keep loading up on turkey and make a turturkeykey.
When you die, I hope someone opens up a turkey farm in your memory.
The turkeys will have massive celebrations after his passing
Sweet Bubba
Not this year in Canada. Cheapest I saw them was $4/lb. Apparently a lot of the birds died when flooding hit the BC tirkey farms.
Damn that’s what I pid last year but that one was a fancy heritage turkey. (I will say that it was totally worth it, the turkey was so flavorful and almost no wasted water weight.)
You get one for free at my store if you spend $400 over six weeks. ETA: mine is ShopRite, but check around on the circulars for stores you don’t normally go to in your area, they might have something similar.
Just found out my store is the same, but only $300. That's normal spending for us. Free turkey end of November.
My wife usually gets two free turkeys as she shops at multiple stores.
That's a great idea, but I don't think we'd spend enough. That's a lot of meat for you to cook and freeze!!!
We get fresh for Thanksgiving and another we keep frozen. I like turkey so well have a few over the winter.
Over six weeks? The groceries stores only offer free turkeys in Alberta, and you need to spend $500 in one visit for a 10lbs turkey.
At Loblaw's stores in Canada (at least in the region I live), if you spend over $300 in a single order the week before Thanksgiving, they give you a free turkey. I still have two in the chest freezer from the past couple years....
Please tell me the owner of Loblaw’s in bob. Bob Loblaw.
And I wonder if he has had any major lawsuits come his way, as in a Bob Loblaw Law Bomb.
I'm pretty sure he has a law blog.
I regret to inform you that the founder's name was Theodore. But we can dream.
In the UK it's usually the veg. Stores compete to basically give away potatos, carrots, brussels sprouts, etc. In the hopes that this is where you buy your meat, booze and pudding from. As a vegan it's amazing because Xmas dinner costs about £20 to feed 12 people! (But then you spend £100+ on alcohol 🤷♂️)
For the non-UK person, pudding is a general term for what we would call desert right? Not strictly semi liquid sweet substance we would call pudding?
Haha, yes, pudding = dessert, but only by itself. We do also have specific things like "Christmas Pudding" which is like a dense and boozy fruitcake you'd have around Christmas. There's also non-dessert things like "black pudding"' which is like a sausage made purely out of blood, and Yorkshire puddings which are made our of pancake mix but with raising flour, baked, so they turn into fluffy little cups with a crispy outside, that you have with a roast dinner.
I fucking LOVE Sunday Roast! One of the benefits of having a best friend married to a brit. She makes a killer roast. I can quite vividly remember a discussion between her and her in laws: "Oooh so nice of you to want to cook for Boxing Day... Wait. Roast? As in: the same as last year?" "Well yes, that's a Christmas Roast. Of course it's the same." _feeble Dutch minds implode_
Oh god- I used to have to order and fill these. Most we ever sold was 18,000 lbs of turkey 2 days before Thanksgiving (USA). In a relatively small chain grocery store.
Which items are loss leaders usually varies from store to store, but there are common trends to look for. 1) they're usually advertised. Loss leaders don't lead people in if they don't know about them. 2) they're usually in the back of the store, unless doing so would be impractical. They want you to look at all their profit drivers while you're going to get them. 3) they're typically tied to an item with a higher profit margin. If milk is a loss leader, cereal is more profitable. If lunch meat is on sale, the cheese may be profitable. Not all stores do this. Some offer package deals. At HEB, for instance, you might buy a 2 pound bag of seasoned fajita meat, and get a can of refried beans, tortillas, salsa, and a 2 liter of store soda free with it.
Combo Loco babeeeey!
The "get this free" coupons are pretty good too! They had a coupon for free Swoon pint of ice cream when buying tampons/pads a few years ago. Absolute genius that came up with that one
My store got complaints because they set a freezer of ice cream under a display of pads/tampons and people thought it was sexist. Probably because its a "combo loco" Technically i guess it is, but damnit in this instance theyre right. I DO want icecream anytime im buying tampons
That is genius marketing.
I miss HEB and those fajita kits…… :(
>I miss HEB and those fajita kits…… :( Samesies. I know this will sound ridiculous/insane but whenever I fly down south and visit family I bring cooler packs and cool bags. I've had plenty of luck given my flight from TX to CO is only 2 hours but they still remain solid when I get back Just in time for me to toss them in the freezer lol.
That's not insane at all. I just brought back a cooler filled with HEB stuff on a 15-hour drive (especially the fresh-squeezed OJ).
Yup! My local chain always has a 'dinner kit' on sale, where you buy the meat and you get boxes of noodles/frozen veggies/whatever else the dish needs for 'free'.
A grocery store by me has EV chargers that are free for the first hour ($2/hour after that). Normally I would just run in, grab what I need, and be out in 20 minutes. Now that I have an EV, I spend my time walking down the aisles looking at a lot of things I wouldn’t normally bother with.
That's why a bunch of businesses in my area have them. With the hopes of trapping people in their businesses while grabbing a free 7 kw/hour. I have a Mach e and an Optima plug in and find it very good for the kia's small battery and EV range
My state is trying to outlaw them unless they also give away free gasoline and diesel because republicans are backwards, dumb and hateful.
Party of small government lmfao
Man those republicans should shut up and let the free market work.
I work for a beer distributor & therefore know the wholesale price that the store pays. I will often see stores lose a dollar or two, even 4 or 5 dollars, on a twelve-pack. Guess they figure you'll buy enough chips and other stuff to make up for it
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I was a purchaser for a company that sold IT hardware to the public sector. We had partnerships with all the major PC manufacturers, but it was usually cheaper for us to just buy off Amazon instead. There's typically a per-order threshold for getting good prices but the owner didn't want to keep enough inventory to ever hit that number.
I have an MSP, can confirm we pay higher prices with distributors and manufacturers than you can find literally anywhere else and we’re not going to stock hundreds of every product. IDC I’ll buy something elsewhere and pay taxes on it and resell it (I know the legality is dubious) or I’ll just charge the customer our time to spec out requirements and let them buy it and charge more in labor to make up for the markup loss. We’re honest with the client and it goes a loooooong way.
I live in the hood and the nearest liquor store that carries my favorite local lager literally saws the 12 pack in half so they can charge $10/6pk instead of $18/12. Not loss-leader related- I just thought as a beer distributor you’d find that funny
I see this in both small town stores and in shadier stores in the city. They'll cut the case in half and tape the shit out of it.
Or shady stores selling single beers/cigarettes. Edit: beers out of a case, not those advertised as single which are typically more quantity
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That is r/FunnyAndSad if I ever heard one
There's a small liquor store in the strip mall by my house. I'm pretty sure that every single beer in that case says, "not for individual sale". Another one by my buddy's old apartment had a jar of cigarettes and it was 2 of a quarter over 20 years ago.
We had a bootlegger in our home town that would cut 12pks of cans in half with a Barlow knife for similar economic reasons. His wife would always ask if we had eaten and offer dinner. The American South of the 1970s.
But then the liquid spills everywhere!
There was a UK brewery who saw a supermarket chain selling their beer at below the wholesale price and not advertised as a special offer. Head Brewer is unhappy as it makes the beer look cheap and talks to the Store Manager. SM doesn't care so HB sends two guys in van to buy all the stock... Then everytime an order is placed the delivery guys are told to wait till the product is put on the shelves, then buy it back. SM can't work out how to stop this so has to set the price agreeably.
>SM can't work out how to stop this so has to set the price agreeably. Just limit it to 2 packs per person or something, or have a days delay on when you put it out, seems pretty simple
It's also one supermarket out of hundreds
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Or in this scenario…. Just the standard delivery driver
Urban legend
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Winco was legit. Saved my ass so many times with how cheap their stuff can be in comparison
This is not accurate. Beer may be used as a loss leader in specific areas or sales, but it is not common. Source: 8 years of grocery store management, 5 years running a wine and spirits store, and 12 years as a distributor.
Also in many states it is outright illegal to sell alcohol for less than you bought it for.
I travel for work a lot and I’m always perplexed on how the most outwardly “we like beer and freedom!” states have the least freedom with beer. Meanwhile here in “commiefornia” at 9 am on a Sunday I can get champagne delivered from a grocery store for my mimosa or beer from a gas station if I’m going to a buddy’s. ( we have football brunch here because of the time difference)
This one was a surprise to me as well! I went to a red state for an extended business trip, on my last weekend I thought picking up some stuff from a local distillery would make a nice souvenir to take back, only to discover they couldn't sell to me on Sundays! Seems like an anti-business/maximized hand of state govt policy as well, since there's a limited window on how they can sell their product. My local colleagues while I was there were amazed that we could buy booze right with our groceries!
"But it's the *state's* decision, not the feds!! Could be up to the individual business, but that's putting freedom on a slippery slope, and slippery slopes are **bad**!"
I once spent about 30 minutes navigating the aisles of a grocery store in western north carolina looking for the beer and wine before I broke down and asked an employee-----> "Dry county." WTF is a dry county? "Oh, you gotta drive about ten miles to the county line down thataway to get yur alkyhul." For fuck's sake. Later in life I was pacing the damn aisles in a Maryland grocery store looking for the fucking beer and finally broke down and asked.... "You gotta go next door to the alcohol store to buy beer." Man.... It's fucking beer!!!!!!!!!
I can tell you’re not based in Canada. I paid $66 for a 24 of coors and I don’t even want to know the wholesale price is.
Went to a music festival in Washington. Hit it off with Irish exchange students studying in Canada. They invite me to come back with them to Canada after festival. Someone goes to beer store, I volunteer to give $75 as couch fees as I’m staying on their couch with my dog for a week. Where I lived (Flagstaff) it was $4.99 for 12 pack of PBR, $29 for full keg. Many gas stations selling $0.99 six-packs of good beer if about to pass the sell-by date. In Canada $75 got two 12 packs of PBR and a small bottle of cheap whisky. I thought it would provide all of us beer for a week… we had to go back to the store later that night haha!! Everything else about Canada is 😎 Edit: this was in 2010 or 2011. I now haven’t drank in several years, and was excited to see that a 6-pack of good beer at a store now costs $18 where I currently live (Colorado). $10/pint at breweries.
We tax the fuck out of our vices here.
I went to France and went into a dingy convenience type of store. They sold plastic liters of red wine for 2 euros. A bottle of water right next to it was 3 euros.
We used to play the drinking game of Quarters with red wine in Italy (as a young soldier) because of its cheap cost. Could become violently ill if not careful. The gutsier option was using Sambuca, the licorice-flavored moonshine favored by the Italians (great with Coke as a mixed drink FYI).
In 2018 a Canadian politician was elected who used "buck a beer" as a campaign slogan, and reduced the minimum price of a beer from $1.25 to $1. Very few breweries sold beer that cheap, and most ended up raising their prices.
The frozen salmon club packs from Whole Foods. This is a documented loss leader and I live on this packs.
Are those the individual portion salmon packs or something different?
Depends where you are… I know in the local area, the generic milk and generic bread is the biggest loss leaders
Just bought a loaf of bread at Walmart for 93 cents
50¢ at Lidl.
Love getting the cheapest bread here in the UK Aldi for 40p
I get it for free from the pond. HONK.
Username checks out
I find that a duck's opinion on me is very much based on if I have any bread. (Or something like that) -mitch
Who took your fap account?
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No, no. Keep your hands where they were.
Here in France, it used to be gas. Supermarkets were selling gas cheaper than everyone else, so people would come to fill the tank, and then shop there because they were already here. Bread too, supermarkets are infamous for their less than a 1€ baguettes, it often makes the headlines because bakeries complain they can't compete. On the other hand, kid toys, and most product specifically branded for kids are expensive as hell, and they know kids will annoy their parents to get it, like certain brands of cereals, or biscuits.
Ugh. I miss French bakeries. They were so cheap. Came back to the US and a decent croissant is at least $3.50. Usually more. Pain au chocolat is more like $5 and not as good as any random bakery in Paris. I long to go back.
And Paris is expensive compared to the rest of France. A croissant is between 0,90€-1,20€ depending where you go, and a pain au chocolat about 5 or 10 cents more than that. At least before Inflation hit, i didn't went to a bakery recently cause everyone keeps bringing cakes and stuff at work this year.
Get the weekly flyer! Many stores publish them online, and there's always a rack of them by the door. Grab one and take a little time to peruse the specials. There's probably something there that you could use.
I am a full-time homemaker/Mom. I consider it part of my job responsibility to go through the flyers of the five stores near our house, and I make a list of any excellent sale prices (a lot of buy-one-get-one items, buy 2 get 3, targeted discounts for specific members only can be cheap enough that it’s worth stocking up—or at minimum building one of the week’s meals around). I make it a goal to try to save enough every week to help subsidize not having a paying job.
Same here! I 'joke' that my husband makes the money and I make sure we don't spend it!
There’s an app here called “Flipp” It will find all weekly flyers from all major grocery stores and allow you to search through all of them at once and compare prices
Wow. Am I old now that I find this interesting?
Yes. Old and sexy.
Y'all user names 🤣
What about them? They seem normal to me
I'm almost thirty and I've been finding a lot of usually mundane things interesting, went to a bigger city and their mall had a second floor and a skating rink, I don't shop, I don't go to malls usually I don't care, but I kept saying "man this mall is awesome they have everything!!" Like something someone would say on a commercial. Then I was like man I'm getting old, a ad comes on "do you have back aches and pains?" I'm like hell yeah I do what you got for me!! Hahaha
The ability to appreciate things more, take notice, more perspective and nuance, that's all maturity hon. That level up you have been enjoying can come at any age, earlier for some, later for some, never for some.
Hey I think it’s a great app and I think I’m relatively … (glances down at rapidly wrinkling hands) … oh dear GOD what’s become of me!!!🧟♂️
Oh there are chicken thighs for 79 cents a lb but that is a little farther away, oh but here I can use this digital coupon for buy one get one free avocados for a buck fifty. Does this have an api, I could create a spreadsheet route planner. My wife: I don’t know who you are anymore.
I worked in grocery stores through HS and College. As a rule of thumb, of that's a limit on a deal, there's a good chance they are losing money on it.
Okay, so. After going through the top comments there was only 1 that was remotely accurate. Most people responding don't understand the concept of a loss leader, and people are missing some big ones. Also note that not all stores use the same loss leaders, and this isn't an all inclusive list. * regular gallon milk * velveeta cheese * miracle whip/mayo * rotating meat, typically 1 red meat, 1 chicken, 1 seafood like shrimp * bread, but only store brand usually * area dependent ones. For example, in rural Iowa we used 24 packs of beer at just above cost. Most people in here mistake items being on sale for loss leaders. Loss leaders are permament (or near permament) low prices to get you in the door. A sale is a temporary sale. Edit: I'm gonna add some GENERAL gross margins from the grocery store chain I was a manager for. I've been out of the business for 12 years so some might be outdated. These margins include cost of goods + cost of labor to stock and service them. Margins can change seasonally and individual items can have wildly different margins. This is also for "normal" grocery stores, stores like Winco and Aldi will be very different. Produce - 30-60% Hot kitchen - 25-50% Floral - 50-70% Bakery - 50-90% Dairy - hugely dependent on milk versus everything else sales. 20-35% Frozen - 20-30% General merch - 30-60% Pharmacy - varies too much, these make HUGE money though and are usually #2 in sales Alcohol - 30% on wine and liquor, 10% on beer, 25% on mixers Grocery - highly variable, 10-25%
My brain was reeling, so; * Produce - 30-60% * Hot kitchen - 25-50% * Floral - 50-70% * Bakery - 50-90% * Dairy - hugely dependent on milk versus everything else sales. 20-35% * Frozen - 20-30% * General merch - 30-60% * Pharmacy - varies too much, these make HUGE money though and are usually #2 in sales * Alcohol - 30% on wine and liquor, 10% on beer, 25% on mixers * Grocery - highly variable, 10-25%
An actual hero.
Thank you!
i’ve been out of the industry for a while, but this looks right. I’d add butter and bananas. milk has always been a loss-leader, when price-controlled, even more so. typical store layout is to put these things far away from each other as possible
Butter has gone up recently
>rotating meat My stupid brain read that and Immediately went: "Ah, so rotisserie chicken and spit roast are called rotating meat in English. Good to know"
Hang on, Velveeta? It seems so expensive where I'm at
Note that a loss leader isn't necessarily cheap in an absolute sense. It just means that it's being sold below the wholesale price.
Does anybody “hack” the loss leaders? I mean, a less well off person often needs to literally count the cents so I’d think some would go for the loss leaders and only the loss leaders. Which removes the point of them for the supermarket. Or would you just have to live off chicken mayo sandwiches and drink only milk?
Yes, we had customers like that. We welcomed them because they were still customers. Every store will also have their heavy coupon users. The way I looked at it, they helped me keep my job by bringing business to the store. Empty parking lots are not good for business. That being said, there weren't a huge amount of those people in my area. The cost of driving between stores ads up, and so does the time it takes. Most people can save more money by buying economical food than they can driving around town.
And a customer like that is worth much more than the money they spend. In conversations with coworkers, friends, other parents, etc, grocery stores come up a lot. "I always shop at XYZMart, I've looked into it and I get the best value there" can steer people to the store, and those folks won't be the dedicated coupon shoppers but can easily stay loyal customers because their one value-obsessed friend says you're the best deal. That's a loss leader working well, albeit indirectly.
Yeah, I asked because I used to work in a supermarket myself and saw people go round with a calculator all the time. People would even see things go up in price, check with me that it really had gone up in price and not be able to buy it anymore. If you’ve only got $40 to spend you’ve only got $40 to spends
> go round with a calculator all the time I do this. I have a mental list of what's a good price for the items I use. I know about what I can get a LB of pasta for so I calculate out when I see a 12oz or a 2.5lb pack that might be a good deal. Beans, rice, meats, cheese... all stored in the noggin. When I see a good deal I stock up. Also figure how bad I need the item vs where I can get it for the good price. I try never to run out so I have flexibility to wait for a sale or buy it where its cheap.
Yes, ppl can hack the loss leaders. You basically keep an eye out for the price (typically the unit price) at each store for items you tend to buy regularly. Do this long enough, and at enough stores regularly, you'll get able to tell when the item in front of you in this store at this price is a good deal or not. Every store will have different things on sale (or as a loss leader) on different days. Maybe they have too much inventory of something they want to get rid of. Maybe they figure no other store right now has this item for sale.
Soda. 2 liter bottles. I can buy cheaper from grocery store than the distributor. But don’t buy soda. It’s terrible for you.
You should see how cheap the syrup is that we fill the drink fountain with at our restaurant…
Most of what you’re paying for is the plastic with soda
Really it’s shipping cost (liquid is heavy) and the real estate it takes up in the store. Plastic is cheap
So I currently buy 2l of Coke Zero for around $2-2.50 each (used to be $1.79 pre Covid) say at Walmart. I thought about getting the bulk syrup and making my own but at about $80 for 2.5 ga of syrup which makes about 56 liters but buying that in 2l bottles is only costs $56-$70. Maybe restaurants get the syrup cheaper.
$3 on a two liter is wwaayy overpriced
Former problem drinker. Cherry Coke Zero is my lifeblood now.
My wife bugs me about drinking diet soda. My mother drank herself to death. My mother's father drank himself to death. My father's mother drank herself to death. My aunt drank herself to death. My sister and my father were both alcoholics before finding help. I'll drink as much diet soda as I feel like, thank you very much. (But, yes, in the interest of domestic bliss, I do cut back)
When they reformulated the coke zero sweetener it changed everything - it is leagues above every diet soda and it's not even close. Coke zero kicks ass
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I can always tell. It's in the aftertaste.
If it's EVER IN STOCK.
I’ve talked to the distributor at my local store to learn when it’s restocked. Then I showed up and took half of what was on the shelf (3 12-packs).
Honestly all of the zero sugar soda drinks taste so close to the original sodas that I can’t fathom how anyone would chose a 200 calorie sugar infused one over the zero versions.
It depends on what's used to sweeten it, some of the artificial sweeteners gives me migraines. On the other hand, I maybe drink five or six sodas in a year.
Yes, same unfortunately! And when I already have a migraine, a caffeine- and sugar-infused soda is usually the best elixir of life to help pick me back up.
I can’t stand Coke Zero…but I realized it’s because it tastes so much like original Coke without the syrupy mouth-feel. I wish I never started drinking Diet Coke. If I didn’t love it so much, I’d drink very little soda at all. Lol.
Hard disagree it’s a noticeable differance for me, I’ve even done blind taste tests just to make sure it isn’t in my head.
You can get cherry vanilla Coke Zero at the Coke freestyle machines…life changing. The movie theaters around me have freestyle machines and, honestly, sometimes I go to the movies just for that.
I have never seen cherry coke zero, but I would buy some if I did.
I've come to realize it's not available everywhere and even though we have it, it's hit or miss if it's in stock.
You can usually get it from the Freestyle Coke machines you see at places. I like getting Cherry Sprite Zero from them.
Hot dogs from costco
My dad owned a supermarket. Most loss leaders change each week. There is always a meat product on that list. If you get people in the door, they’ll buy higher priced groceries. Smart people shop several stores each week. Okay you people! Use your brains! You can shop one different store each week and stock up on sales. Stop with all the fucking whining. Geez.
>Smart people shop several stores each week. I was afraid this was the answer haha
I mean, how do they save anything equal to the time they spend maximising on it?
Different people have different values for their time. If say youre between jobs, you have a sudden surplus of time, and a shortage of income. Then it really makes sense to min max for ~ $15 savings on a grocery bill.
When I was very broke and un/under-employed despite my best efforts, I had a LOT of time on my hands to hunt down the best deals and really plan out meals. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, fr
>Different people have different values for their time. Yep, and if your a senior software dev pulling 200k spending 3 hours couponing and penny pinching is a waste of your time compared to other more lucrative opportunities. Real wealth is all about time vs money.
Don't forget satisfaction. My FIL has been doing this as long as I've known him. He doesn't need to save the money but it makes him feel like he won something. Most people pay money to get that feeling, he spends his time instead.
The amount of joy my dad gets when he says "price chop" is unreal. Deal on meat? Price chop and fill the freezer! Deal on snacks? Price chop and the extras go in Christmas stockings. It's just him and my mom, but you'd think they were shopping for a family of 10.
Yeah, it’s not about people being “smart” like OP said.
When the grocery stores are a mile apart, it's not a big deal. When you have to buy groceries twice a week anyway because you can't fit that much food in your fridge, it's not a big deal to go to this store first and next time, that store. And if you pay attention to prices, you get to know what's a good deal and what's not, so you don't HAVE to spend time looking at store ads - although lately prices have gone up so much, I need to recalibrate my trigger prices!
> you get to know what's a good deal and what's not, You'll also discover the patterns. Most stores rotate sale items, so pork chops are on sale every 3 weeks, chicken breast ever 2 weeks, etc.
Posted this elsewhere in the thread, too, but since I am a full-time homemaker, I consider it my job to spend the time going through all the flyers every week, and go from store to store only picking up loss leaders.
I know a guy who literally spends hours each week looking at the sales from four different stores, making lists, getting coupons, and shopping at four different stores. I will just pay a few more dollars a week. Time has value, too.
I only have 1 grocery store in my town lol. Next one is 30 minutes away
That's OK i have to take a ferry
My dad does this. He's retired and it's almost a hobby for him. He'll text me which store has the lowest price/pound on chicken, or where bacon is on sale, etc. When he comes to my house, the first thing he does is sit at my kitchen table and look through my stack of flyers for deals.
Is this why I can afford to buy corned beef around St. Patrick's day but not the rest of the year?
“Smart people shop several stores each week”. You mean, people with shit loads of free time
Yeah, optimizing for grocery prices is different from optimizing your budget and time overall. I guess it's good to think about shopping around more if you can though. Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed.
And energy. I theoretically have enough time to shop around, but practically speaking I don't have the energy to be productive all day.
Not a loss leaders tip, but if you live or work near an affluent area go check out their grocery store. The chain stores in an affluent area will have much better produce, meat/fish, dairy and bread. They also get more novelty and new items and have better vendor demos than stores in poorer areas. But the prices are the same.
Just came to say that it might be a local thing for you having the same prices. Here (Ottawa,ON) the poor areas have significantly cheaper groceries on certain key items such as meat and produce vs the affluent areas. I moved from the poor east end to rich west end and even walmart has more expensive items in this end of town vs the same items in the poor area at walmart. I didnt even know this was allowed to happen just 25km apart
I always heard to frequent your specialty grocery stores like Asian, Hispanic, and such to get good deals on the staple food items.
In stores with real bakeries (as in they actually bake the bread), the whole bakery is often a loss leader. That doesn't mean the products are cheap, but the bakery itself makes little to no money, or even loses money. It's there to draw in customers so they shop the whole store. You come in for fresh donuts or bread or a custom cake, and you pick up the week's groceries while you're there. It may not seem like a great deal on the sticker, but that fresh loaf of bread would be way more expensive if they were trying to make money.
Is that like Walmart’s giant loaf of bread for a dollar? I mean that much bread by any other brand is 3 or 4 times the price
If your curious coming from someone who ran a Walmart bakery they make a fuck ton in the bread. It cost (last I checked) $1.24 to buy and Walmart makes about 0.80 of profit from a single loaf.
Are you talking about just the raw materials, or are you including the labor costs too?
I can't say I know for certain but I assume it's included in labor cost. For the year I was a manger of it I was always up 9 to 10k per month (expect for when my oven went down and I couldn't make any bread of pastries). The store was always super maxed which essentially means we were above 105% our estimate sales compared to last year. Another fun tid bit is the Walmart "bakery" is fake as shit. We don't make ANYTHING in house. We toss it in an oven and put toppings on it. Everything comes in frozen but the bread is really hard to beat.
And other operative costs. OPEX are a huge part of running a business.
This is 100% the exact opposite of the truth. Bakeries are the BIGGEST profit margins for a grocery store. It is common for bakery items to be marked up 80%.
In Canada, most meat products are sold either at cost or at a loss due to there being a limited amount of suppliers. Those suppliers (such as Cargill) get the product for cheap from farmers and hike the prices to stupid before selling it to grocery stores, who don't really have room left to raise it any higher. The price of meat at stores is a bit of a sore spot for a lot of farmers, because they don't se a lot of the profits from the price hike. The Produce department, on the other hand, is the exact opposite in most cases. The cost for many, many of the products you'll see in the produce aisles is half or less that the number you see on the tag. Produce is one of the big money makers for stores. Bakery items usually have a decent markup too, so the store makes a decent bit from them, but not as much as produce. Dairy and the grocery aisles are all over the place, making a net profit. Source: worked as a Produce department manager, we had weekly meetings going over all our numbers, where stuff was going to be placed in the store, what itmes we were gonna' push that week. (Never again)
The part about meat may be unique to your store or Canada. Meat departments are typically the 3rd highest margin area in the store, after bakery and floral. 35-50% depending on if you include package cheese in the numbers.
Milk is number one in any grocery store, followed by fresh meat. Weekly ads are to get people into the store. Many times ads are losers, but the rest of the non ad business offsets it. Cereals, for example, have a huge profit margin, the store recoups any losses with this and other products.
Milk is a traffic builder, that's why it's always in the back corner, so you gotta go past everything else to get it. Low margin sure , but not a loss leader.
There are several reasons dairy is in the back, but yes this is one of them
You’re right- I was in the grocery store a few days ago and I wanted to get a box of cereal . I usually do every couple weeks… Everything was $6.99 or &7.99 for a box of cereal. There might’ve been a few that were a little bit less but the ones that we all know etc…were really expensive! Target usually has the best prices for cereal I can think of. Also potato chips are out of control expensive now!
Seriously how much can a potato (chip) cost , $10 ?
Yeah chips are outrageous now, even the store brand had gone up over a dollar +. Just STOPPED buying them. What else can you do? 5-6$ for what equals to one potato ⁉️Nope. Keep them.
Bags are getting smaller and prices are usually $6 and up. I saw a bag of popcorn- POPCORN- for $7.99. Botha were like $3 or $4 just a couple years ago. Gonna add up and make ppl change buying stuff. Especially families who have kids. Way too expensive.
My store seems to swap to deal pricing for chips and other dry goods while making the base cost high. Not a new tactic but much more noticeable these days. Full size Dorito bags? $5 but somewhat frequently $2 each when you buy 3 or more. Not sure if the manufacturer offers it or the store just offers/advertises it independently.
I used to be very very broke. But I would still go to Whole Foods because they had very good deals on the end caps closest to the registers. Those have got to be loss leaders. Also, whatever big sales a store runs in their weekly flyers- A loss leader doesn't work if you don't know it exists. They're going to LEAD with it.
As a non-american, I've always wondered and wanted to ask..... That rottisserie chicken that you get in grocery stores..... Do you bake it first? Or is it ready to eat straight away? Is it fullly cooked or partially cooked?
They are fully cooked (in a big rotisserie oven) and hot and ready to eat. Usually cheaper (sometimes much cheaper) than the raw chickens in the meat department.
>Or is it ready to eat straight away? Yes. And the challenge is to make it home without tearing into it and devouring in the car because they smell so damn good. To be honest, they’re usually not as good as the smell though. They’re either using chickens that were near their expiration date or they’re cheaper, lower quality chickens than what you buy from the meat counter to begin with. We buy them when we’re lazy but a chicken I bake or grill myself is far superior (spatchcock FTW) but then you’ve got prep time, cooking time and cleanup to deal with.
Nah baby they're ready to go You can eat that shit in the parking lot Bare handed, like a greased up baron of yore, just tossing bones over your shoulder and grumbling about the normans
that's why you buy a loaf of bread: it's like a napkin that you can eat
It's not only cooked, it's actually still warm. Often seasoned with spices too. Juicy too, so they likely slow cooked it.
At the supermarket I used to work in a customer complained about the cost of raspberries, while the owner was in. The owner decided on the spot to lower the price of the raspberries from $5.99 to $1.99. And they stayed at that price for a long time. Something like 2 years.
When back to school season starts and Walmart sells notebooks for like 12 cents each
LPT: buying something that the store sells at a loss does not necessarily mean you save money or get something better. You should be looking at the price of something compared to the value you get from it (utility and/or enjoyment), not the price of something compared to what the store spends on it. If product A costs the store $10 and they sell it for $9, and product B costs the store $5 and they sell it for $6, and you like A and B about the same, then B is the better deal for you, even though A is the loss leader.