<p>My downfall is that we usually shop on either Friday night after work when I am starving or Saturday morning when the entire bakery section is filled with fresh, warm, scented goodies that call me by name. A couple of times I have really gotten carried away with myself to the order of a lot of money. I should be embarrassed to admit this, but a couple of weeks ago my son and I bought a round layer cake (an entire cake, not a mini) and sat down with forks and ate the entire thing in one shot just because it looked good. So you see what my poor husband has to deal with. </p>
<p>I should never grocery shop because it’s like an addiction to me. I want EVERYTHING. When my husband shops we don’t go hungry, but save quite a bit of money because he is not an impulse shopper. Honey, I really needed 20 pounds of potatoes this week!</p>
<p>I agree with both of you about Wegmans as I’ve mentioned in several posts on this thread that I started. I love to browse the produce section every time I go because I never know what I’m going to find. They always try to carry fruit or vegetable varieties that you will unlikely find in any other grocery store. Just last week, I discovered something called a sumo mandarin orange. Heavenly! Only other grocery store that sells it is Whole Foods. Your typical grocery store probably carries 3-4 varieties of onions. Wegmans has at least a dozen different types to choose from.</p>
<p>Another word of praise for our local Wegmans. I’ve seen the store general manager numerous times out on the floor unpacking boxes, arranging displays, sweeping up a spill, etc. That says a lot to me about the quality of their management. Managers are hands-on and willing to help out in any aspect of running the store.</p>
<p>When our store opened a few years ago, they had an astronomical number of applicants. I believe it was 1 applicant for every 10 jobs. We live in an area with a low unemployment rate. I recognize several employees who now work for Wegmans who used to work for other local grocery stores. At our store, 250 out of the 700 jobs (36%) are full-time. I’m not sure how that compares to Walmart, but I suspect it’s higher.</p>
<p>Okay I am definitely disenfranchised because the Wegman’s experience is not available to me. We need a federally funded study to evaluate the negative social repercussion for the Wegman’s disenfranchised. This elitist system needs to be changed NOW.</p>
<p>Wow, I’ve always felt rather disenfranchised for not being considered one of the disenfranchised. Wegman’s has solved this problem.</p>
<p>You should sue, deitz. If the opportunity to eat an entire Wegmans cake with your kid is unavailable to you, there has to be something your lawyer can do about it.</p>
<p>I have a little flirtation thing going with the man who serves me the prepared food on Friday nights, he always makes sure I know what vegetarian options are available that day, even if they aren’t always ready yet. Good for planning.</p>
<p>Also, there is now a baked potato bar. Clearly that is all about me. (For those who don’t know, in my real life my nickname is Spud).</p>
<p>Have any of you guys tried the Wegmans brand small potatoes in microwaveable bag? Excellent. Much better than the ones at Key Food. We have them at least once a week because they are so easy. Also, the “Food You Can Feel Good About” cup up soup veggies. Excellent for use in quick soups, stews and risottos.</p>
<p>It is a little silly talking about Wegmans and Walmart in the same breath. Wegmans is a regional grocery chain with less than a hundred stores. Walmart is a global mass merchandiser with over 8500 stores…two completely different animals.</p>
So? What is it that Wegmans does that Wal-Mart cannot? Economy of scale suggests that anything Wegmans can do, Wal-Mart should be able to do better.</p>
<p>The issue is not that they are different, it is that they choose to be different, and why. Wegmans chooses to offer quality products and decent prices while treating its employees with respect and giving them the opportunity to live reasonably. Wal-Mart chooses to offer junk at barely-low prices while setting new benchmarks for how poorly employees can be treated in the modern era.</p>
<p>If anything, this may be an indictment of publicly-traded corporations - I hear Wal-Mart was better back when it was a family business. Perhaps the perceived obligation to maximize shareholder return and the loss of any moral compass naturally steers companies to places that are bad for us all.</p>
<p>Both get you where you need to go…just depends how comfortably you think you need to ride :)</p>
<p>My sister moved and can’t stop whining there is not a Wegman’s. We don’t have them but now I want to find one.</p>
<p>I did a quick google of clerk type wages at Walmart and Target and the difference was extremely negligible. I’ve never understood why many cc posters seem to think Target is such a better corporation. I acknowledge the stores look better inside.</p>
<p>In looking through the list of Wegmans, I see they are located in areas such as Allentown, Scranton, and Bethlehem PA, Brockport, Buffalo, and Elmira NY, etc. Not exactly the high-rent districts.</p>
<p>And I bet there are Walmarts located near most if not all Wegmans. I know there is a Walmart very near the Wegmans in Northborough MA, which is the closest Wegmans to me.</p>
<p>So it appears there is quite a bit of overlap between their target demographics.</p>
<p>Our new Walmart is 2.6mi from the Wegmans. The Target (which was here first) is 2.5mi from the Wegmans. Walmart and Target are 2.7mi apart. I’d say they are going after the same demographic.</p>
<p>Walmart would love to open way more stores in Wegmans’ market area. Walmart has had a very difficult time expanding into metro NY and the surrounding region. Zoning problems, permitting, expensive real estate, local resistance, etc. have resulted in Walmart being not much more than a novelty in areas like New Jersey with a relatively small number of stores for such a populated area. Same for California.</p>
<p>I travel to PA frequently to visit family. I’ve been known to stop at Wegman’s before I even get to my sister’s house (past King of Prussia). I love their Indian food buffet and other vegetarian options, their beer selection and bakery. I wish we had one here in TN!</p>
<p>I have never felt that way about a Walmart!</p>
<p>I had a look at their Allentown store via Google Maps. It looks like that store is located in the middle of a subdivision and that the general area is in SFHs with more space than the more densely populated cityish areas to the East.</p>
<p>I also had a look at the Scranton store which is actually in Dickson City. From Wikipedia:</p>
<p>“The Upper Green Ridge area is the wealthiest of the neighborhoods, which extends into the neighboring borough of Dunmore. It was here and in parts of the Hill Section that the mansions built by former coal barons still stand.”</p>
<p>The Greenridge are is not too far from Dickson city.</p>
<p>The store located in Bethlehem is actually some distance north of the city and is in the area of a lot of subdivisions and industry. The houses in the subdivisions look pretty nice compared to the triple-deckers in the city.</p>
<p>I assume that you can check the remaining cities for the local demographics within cities otherwise going through tough time.</p>
<p>What I think is more telling, though, is what they are doing in MA. Northboro, MA has a median household income of $67,292. They plan their next store in Burlington, MA which has a median household income of $86,052. Let me know when Wegmans plans a store in Lowell, MA.</p>
<p>BTW, it’s nice to know that they’ll have a store in Burlington. It means that I’ll actually get to check one of these places out.</p>
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<p>Probably more to do with Route 9. There’s a Spags nearby too.</p>
<p>Here are some things that Wegmans or Whole Foods Market do that would be hard for Walmart to duplicate because of the regionality of the supplies and the events. It all goes to providing an experience to the customers. Shopping does not have to be a slow-death experience, especially at the stores that have embraced the new digital world.</p>
<p>Whole Foods Market
fl@vors, its shopper e-newsletter, provides a wide range of high-experience, unique and authentic digital content including recipes, meal preparation stories from shoppers, and narratives that relate to fresh products for sale in specific WFM stores. fl@vors is a lengthy e-newsletter offering information on store specials and events, as well as access to general WFM videos, apps, blogs and podcast content. The retailers complex digital presence in food culture works to complement high experience in-store shopping as well as shopper immersion in food culture outside of the store.</p>
<p>Wegmans
Similar to the WFM e-newsletter in terms of depth and authenticity of food narrative, Wegmans provides Fresh News to shoppers. Fresh News provides recipes, news about new items and shopper card specials, store events, and links to Wegmans blogs, twitter feeds, videos, apps, and related digital content. As implied by the name, Fresh News provides stories about prepared foods, meal planning tips, and store brand launches and specials that relate mainly, but not exclusively, to fresh or prepared foods.
As with WFMs fl@vors, Fresh News is an authentic, high-experience digital platform that links to both in-store experiences and consumer involvement with food culture outside of the stores.</p>
<p>Different strokes for different folks. Florida based, employee owned, Publix groceries has 1000+ stores and is the only grocery in Florida that can really compete head to head with Walmart for grocery shoppers in Florida and a couple of adjoining states. Publix aims for more upscale shoppers, Walmart shoots more for the middle. Walmart has pretty much wiped out other regional grocers like Winn Dixie and Food Lion/Sweet Bay. Stripped down low end grocers like Sav-a-Lot and Aldi pick up the lower end and bargain shoppers. There are different markets, and demographics, but it is dog eat dog in the grocery business in Florida…same as everywhere else. Change, improve or get run out of business.</p>
<p>My son went to a chocolate festival held at Boston-area Whole Foods around the time of the big snowstorm. They gave out samples of high-end chocolate products that they carry. You’re doing that to get people to buy high-end chocolate products and I’d guess that the demographic has to be able to afford that on a regular basis.</p>
<p>That whole foods is pretty good about giving out samples from their pizza bar too. I imagine that you could get half-a-lunch out of sampling several of their pizzas.</p>
<p>They also have a very nice fresh flowers section and a nice body-care section. I see segmentation even within the grocery stores in town. The store chain with lower prices does not have a fresh flowers section at all. The nicer store with much higher prices does have fresh flowers.</p>
<p>A small FYI, just as Trader Joe’s is hardly a small corner grocery, Food Lion is not a regional grocer. Not owned by Aldi in this case, but Food Lion is part of the Delhaize Group of Belgium that operates on three continents. Delhaize is considered a high-end grocery retailer and could not be more different from a hard discounter a la Aldi.</p>
<p>The “buy America” is getting tougher by the day. Heck, all your money spent on Bud Light also travels to the far countries of Belgium … and Brazil.</p>