Grocery Store Stocking Logic...

[Whoey]

Ok, over the years I've been living here in Spain one thing has bugged the hell out of me.

From time to time some of our regular supermarkets seem to get new items in. Sometimes they are things that I am used to from living in the UK or Canada. In particular certain brands and products. For example we have a small supermarket very close by, and when we first arrived they had Mountain Dew, nothing strange in North America, but over here it's pretty rare. So I'd buy a couple each time we shopped, and eventually they stopped restocking whatever they had in the back room and that was the end of it. Never seen it there again. This also happened with Irn Bru in a different supermarket, however in that case I saw a few cans and I bought everything they had on the shelf (which turned out to only be 4 cans). This also happened with well known varieties of chips such as Doritos (there are several types available pretty much everywhere, but only certain supermarkets carry certain flavours here) and more similar stories to that.

In the old days I'm pretty sure the store managers were well aware of what items sold out quickly so as to keep some sort of consistent stock level. I feel like they paid more attention to little details like this anyways. Nowadays everything is tracked electronically. Since all the cashiers seem to need to do is wave the bar code over the scanner and swipe your bank card (and in some places, not even that) and occasionally take cash and return some change, but the computers control it all. I'm pretty sure the managers can get reports of items that are selling out and that there is probably some restocking routines in place.

Seems like items my wife and I take a liking to end up out of stock in a hurry and they seem to remain that way for several months if they are ever restocked at all. You may think well you must be the only one buying the items and you cleared out whatever stock they had laying around, but that does not seem to be the case as there are definitely other people buying the same products as there are times when there is less left on the shelf than the previous time we shopped, and then restocked the following visit. To me it almost seems like they'd rather have the shelves look full all the time than actually make more money from the customers.

So, have you had this happen? Any big name products that suddenly stop being stocked in your local supermarket(s)? As it is we shop in 4 different supermarkets to get the regular items we want, rotating each week depending on what we're short on, and where the best price is. That's another issue... example: Dr Oetker pizzas ranging from 2.60-2.85 euro in one supermarket and 3.20-3.50 euro in another! A few cents difference couple probably be overlooked, but 0.50-1 eur regular price difference is just ludicrous!

[jzmtl]

Haven't noticed anything about stock level yet, but the price difference is quite common here as well. some supermarkets are just more "upscale" than others, and would sell the same item at a higher price. if you are familiar with the supermarket here, IGA is more upscale compare to super C, exactly the same items, but fancier decoration, and more expensive. Also not a supermarket per se, but Shoppers Drug Mart consistently sell at twice the price compare for example, Costco.

[Whoey]

I have a bit of experience in Canadian supermarkets, Mostly Sobey's and IGA, while I was in Toronto I used to do shopping runs to Costco (with a friend who had a car) as we had a membership as part of my work benefits package and more recently in the east coast it seems that Atlantic Superstore is taking over, I remember there being one really huge one many years ago, now they seem to be everywhere.

It's rather ironic how much money you can save just by carefully shopping, not even including sales!

I should mention that within a 5 min walk from us here we have about 10 supermarkets, with several of the same brands.

[Grant Lamontagne]

The East Coast of Canada is the scene of a major grocery battle between Loblaws (aka IGA, aka Superstore, aka Cash & Carry) and their arch rivals and East Coast Royalty the Sobeys.  I used to be a contractor for Loblaws and part of my job was going to each and every one of them.  That was about ten years ago, and at the time there were seventeen Superstores within the city limits.  Assume at least that many for the Sobeys, and this is not even a really big city.  I think the population of HRM is about 300,000 so that's a lot of grocery stores.

The one I usually have issues with when it comes to certain products being there today and never again is Costco.  When I first got a Costco membership 4 or 5 years ago my mother warned me that if I see something I like there I should buy it immediately because it likely wouldn't be there the next time I came back.  She was right.  I have bought a number of products that I liked and would have bought more of except that they were never there again.

I'll be Dave Bowen would have some interesting insights on this as he has managed at least two different grocery brands that I know of.

Def

[Whoey]

We've noticed that some items have very different prices in stores from the same chain less than 5 min walk from each other... 

[Cupboard]

I've experienced some similar issues here. I don't buy that many brand name products so don't get affected as badly.

Tesco can be quite sneaky too - my closest Tesco is a full size one but is a very small full size one. It doesn't stock a lot of their Value range, and is a bit patchy with stock of some other items in the Value range. Small Tesco stores claim to have the same prices as the large ones but seem to compensate by stocking different products. For instance, you can usually buy a packet of 3 peppers or 5 value peppers in a Tesco. Go in to a little one and you'll probably only find a packet of 2 peppers that you can never find in a larger store.

The silly thing is that if I think ahead I can book a Tesco delivery to my door for £3 which is less than the cost of me driving to the shop. The delivery comes from a Tesco that's a good half hour drive away from me which is a bigger store than the closer one and as a result has a better range of stuff. But then I miss out on the reduced to clear items.

[Whoey]

last night:

150g store value brand nuts in recloseable clamshell container 2.09 euro
200g store value brand nuts in plastic bag 1.59 euro

 

[David Bowen]

I see it first hand all the time having worked at Winn-Dixie and now Harvey's ( which was just bought by Bi-Lo); we carry various items new and that have been around a while and they get cut from where they are on the shelves for various reasons. Older items could be a local item that the the main company says doesn't sell good but your selling the mess out of it, they don't care because your only one store. With new items they go through a trial period, if there is little to no movement on that product in a certain timeframe they discontinue it and it works like the older items, one store may sell the mess out of it but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter to the company.


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[Landrew]

Costco is a bit of a liquidator in my opinion. Although they seem to have stock on certain items all the time, there are a few that only appear for a short time, until the stock is gone, and that's it. You never see it again. 


Also, it's not really a department store, because they don't really have a full line of all the things you'd expect to see at a Wal-mart for example; if you go there to buy a set of pliers, they may have it or may not.

[jzmtl]

Costco is a bit of a liquidator in my opinion. Although they seem to have stock on certain items all the time, there are a few that only appear for a short time, until the stock is gone, and that's it. You never see it again. 


Also, it's not really a department store, because they don't really have a full line of all the things you'd expect to see at a Wal-mart for example; if you go there to buy a set of pliers, they may have it or may not.

Some insight on how Costco operates.