There’s less competition among grocery stores in this area than there was a week ago, and I’m pretty sure that is NOT a good thing. The more grocery store chains in an area, the more they have to compete for a piece of the shopping pie. At least, that would seem logical, right? Unfortunately, with the departure of several grocery stores over the past few years, I’ve seen the competition become less and less.
When people ask me what I collect, I always mention my decoys - both ducks and fish - and my papier mache santas and snowmen. I keep forgetting something else I seem to collect, although unwittingly - shoppers club cards from grocery store chains that no longer exist in this area. A quick trip through my purse becomes a trip down memory lane:
The first “antique” card - ah, yeah, they’ve been gone awhile! It wasn’t a big chain, but it definitely provided variety. The next card my eyes land on - that chain frequently had dollar double days - much better than the oh-so-limited, oh-so-restrictive doubles that remain in this area. (See what I mean about competition being good for my wallet?) And now, another store on my list of regulars is gone, or going. Five of the stores were sold to one of the two large grocery chains that remains in this area. Gee - I don’t think that’s going to make things very competitive, do you? The remaining ones are closing, without my knowing who - if anyone - will take them over.
This leaves, as I mentioned, only two large chain stores. We have Target stores, but not Super Targets, where there is an actual grocery store in the Target store. And I don’t shop WalMart at all, but even if I did - we don’t have Super WalMarts.
Looking on the bright side, at least we still do have TWO large chains, instead of one. And thankfully, we have Aldi stores. Ah, Aldi - yes, I promised Aldi will get its own blog entry, and that’s coming soon. I have a feeling I will be shopping there even more frequently now. Finally, there are some high-end grocery stores that have terrific loss leaders, and even mark-down produce deals that can be pretty amazing.
Time will show what affect all this has on my wallet. In the meantime - goodbye, Jewel-Osco. I’ll miss you.