"According to Retail Forward, 10 years ago, supermarkets accounted for 44 percent of food and drug retail sales. Nowadays, Skrovan says, it's down to 28 percent. Skrovan said Retail Forward found only a third of shoppers polled in the company's Shopper Scan survey still made a weekly trek to the supermarket.
Plenty of factors are chipping away at grocery sales. "Supercenters are a big change driver," Skrovan said during the Web seminar, noting that Wal-Mart's food business was estimated to total $120 billion in domestic 2005 sales. Meanwhile, Target stores (as well as smaller retailers, like dollar stores) are devoting more shelf space to food.
The key: Be different
In order to better compete with the price-slashing capabilities of giants like Wal-Mart and Target, today's grocery stores must re-invent their core selection and focus on a new mix of categories, ranging from ethnic to gourmet to organic foods, said Dan Stanek, executive vice president of Retail Forward, during the Web seminar.
Lakeland-based Publix, he noted, was experimenting with this concept by testing a "store within a store" hawking health-focused, natural and organic products under Publix's Greenwise banner. Locally, a new Mandarin Publix location on San Jose Boulevard has devoted several aisles to its Greenwise store, which has seen success, according to Dwaine Stevens, a Publix spokesman.
"I'll put it this way: (Greenwise) has been largely accepted by our customers," Stevens said, noting that Publix executives are pleased with its performance. "I think with this particular market, customers are looking for something unique: customer service and a huge offering of products."
That's a sentiment echoed by Retail Forward's Stanek. "Retailers are trying to differentiate from one another," he said during the Web seminar.
Hamstra says that's an opportunity for supermarkets to wow customers by emphasizing in-store butchers or an extensive produce selection - things the local Wal-Mart might not have. Meanwhile, grocery stories are becoming more deft at retooling their strategies by cutting operational costs so they can slash prices, and by developing exclusive "private brand" products customers can't find elsewhere."
SCREECHING HALT
Oh for heavens sake shut up already. Publix lobbies long and hard to exclude Wal-Mart from potential cash-cow city's, and as a Florida based business is very successful in persuading the good old boys to thumb their collective noses at Wally World. Wal-Mart itself tried the being different approach and it failed, miserably, because...
...the bottom line is PRICE. Publix stores have on average a 35%, no typo, higher prices for their foodstuffs than Wal-Mart Supercenters, and all the multiple clerks in the world awaiting to carry your bags to the car isn't going to make up for the glaring difference. Upon moving to Florida I was appalled at the cost of a weeks groceries, and since Gainseville is anti-WM our only alternative was driving the 30 some odd miles to the nearest Supercenter, but guess what?
We still came out way ahead. Add to that, the gas station on the Supercenter property was selling at an average 23 cents cheaper than any station in town meant a fill-up as well as a grocery-up. We save $4.14 in gasoline, plus approximately $32 in lower grocery prices, so do the math. $36 and change for the 60 mile roundtrip that costs $4 in gas.
This of course impacts seniors and the disabled who cannot blithely to and fro themselves at will, and another reason I load a bus-full of them every time they wish to make the trip. Wal-Mart's policies be damned, and they ARE damned oh yes they are, those on a fixed income or the lower income homemakers have no choice but to shop out of town whenever possible.
Publix and Wynn Dixie can parade their "something unique" approach 'till the cows come home and it won't make a bit of difference. Money talks. There are a plethora of boutique groceries catering to the hale and hearty, but nothing for the cash conscious shopper. The unique-approach is to keep the shareholders happy that something is being done to counteract the low prices of Wal-Mart, but until their stores actually lower THEIR prices as well, the trickle to Wally World will continue until it's a certifiable flood. If they truly wanted to compete they'd appeal to the bottom line, and anything else is flummery of the highest order.
I despise Wal-Mart but who but myself am I hurting by spending so much more for the same thing. Yes, it's bad enough that the dumb white kids in Publix are brain dead while on the clock and merely going through the motions, and all but intolerable at Wal-Mart where the absolute dregs of humanity yawn in your face, but it isn't a perfect world and even the most curmudgeon among us learn to accept the pain of a foray to the bizzaro world that is Sam's brainchild. When not in the mood, we can bite the bullet and go elsewhere. Not everyone is as fortunate. And with the baby boomers nearing and already into retirement, the hoards of cranky old folk demanding lower prices is only going to grow until places like Publix and Wynn Dixie implode.
And maybe, just maybe, all of those phone calls and letters and emails to Wal-Mart Corporate might even be paid attention to, and at least SOME of the stores might try hiring suitable human beings to man the battlements.
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