<p>The Wegmans that’s going up in our area is across the street from Walmart. Our local WM doesn’t have a full grocery store, though. The new Wegmans will be located in an outer suburb (where rent/land is cheaper), but within the range of lots of pricey communities. There will be LOTS of MoCo folks happy to drive to Germantown instead of Leesburg, VA!</p>
<p>Even in the DC area, folks complain about Whole Foods as “Whole Budget.” </p>
<p>We like TJs a lot and avoid Food Lion like the plague. I miss the days when Izzy Cohen ran Giant. Went to a Harris Teeter the other day and boy, has it changed from when I was in HS. Pretty darned upscale! Pathmark was a dive when we lived in Phila. Is it still around?</p>
You really think that is a valid comparison? There is a lot more going on then scale in your analogy that I do not see going on in real life. And I would note that Chevy makes the Corvette, which competes with Porsche… so I just do not see where this is going.</p>
<p>A great deal of time and effort goes into finding an acceptable location for a new Wegmans store. They are extremely large and attract very high numbers of shoppers. This, in turn, will cause traffic problems in certain areas that are prone to congestion. Due to this, there may be certain areas that may never get a Wegmans. I know that our local Wegmans was in the planning phase for at least 5 years before it was finally approved to be built.</p>
Lots of stores besides Wegmans hand out samples, including my local Meijer (a direct Wal-Mart competitor). Samples and flowers and body care products have nothing to do with why I (or anyone I know) shop at one store versus the other. Wal-Mart cannot get the basics right, nor do they really save anyone money. Flowers don’t figure into it.</p>
I don’t. I buy some groceries from Target and Meijer, but I get most of my fresh food from a local chain, Schnucks - their prices on such items are slightly above that of the other stores, but the quality and shelf life is far superior. We have a Wal-Mart, I have been in it a few times, but having looked at their grocery section I will not shop there. We do have some organic stores and farmers markets, but I rarely buy there.</p>
<p>It might also be good to know that the “free sampling” is not necessarily a gift of the store operators. Those expenses are usually part of the cost of the manufacturers and negotiated along slotting fees, ad campaigns, and other pass-thru used by the stores. </p>
<p>When that friendly girl at Costco passes our the Breton toats loaded with cream cheese and Chipotle Raspberry sauce, the bill goes to Fischer Wieser. </p>
<p>Obviously, the manufacturers do prefer to see their products given out than languishing on a shelf.</p>
In browsing around I discovered the Wegmans has announced they are opening a store in Newton across from the Mall at Chestnut Hill, but it will “only” be 70,000 sq ft which is about half the size of the normal ones. They are calling it an “urban concept”, not that Newton particularly qualifies as urban.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that had Walmart tried to open a similarly sized store in Newton, they would have faced a huge uphill battle. There are definitely class issues involved there.God forbid the riff-raff might come from out of town to use the store. :rolleyes:</p>
I would not ever consider Whole Foods to be a “regular” grocery store - they carry few if any major national brands, focusing on organic and other very-high-end items. The vast majority of people shopping at Wal-Mart could do better and no more expensive by shopping at Wegmans, but relatively few people can do more than BCEagle and shop there sparsely, if at all. THIS is the Chevy vs Porsche comparison!</p>
<p>You will find Wegmans located in low, medium and high income cities and towns. The median household income for Mechanicsburg in 2009 was $52K. Not sure what the difference is between per capita income and median household income. I’m not a statistician. The median household income for our city is $145K, so I think we are definitely on the higher end.</p>
The Hunt Valley Wegmans is very nice - that is the store I mentioned driving to Saturday mornings from Columbia. It is well worth the drive, if you can schedule to avoid beltway traffic.</p>
<p>Everyone in my family shops there and I hate it. I refuse to give shop there. My Walmart is the ugliest Walmart I have ever been too. The floor is dirty, shelves are disorganized and workers are always having conversations instead of doing there jobs. No one seems happy and the Dunkin donuts that’s there is ugly too. The nicest Walmart I have been to is in Orlando Florida.</p>