Timex's Wife's Journal: Wal-Mart's "Always Low Prices" and other Fairy Tales

I shop at several stores every week for groceries and other household necessities. This serves two purposes: 1- It allows me to save money by comparison shopping and (most importantly) 2- I am able to buy my youngest son a wider variety of foods (He cannot eat anything with wheat, barley, rye, oats, milk or soy in it).

One of the stores I go to every week is the local Wal-Mart Super Center. Going there and several other stores every week, I have noticed something: every time they have a "Rollback" on one item, 6-10 other items go up in price. Not by much, mind you-- just 2-10 cents, but added together, they usually make up the difference in price from the "Rollback". Guess what? Now I won't buy the items whose prices have increased, only the ones that have stayed the same or are "Rollbacks" Hurray for price notebooks!

I am getting really tired of Wal-Mart's pricing games. Not that other stores are really much better, but at least their motto isn't, "Always Low Prices".

Keeping notes is smart.

[tomhudson]

People just assume:

1. The larger size is cheaper per unit
2. "Sale price" really means less $$$
3. If items A, B, and C are cheaper at one place, items X, Y, and Z probably are too

Prices don't just vary between different companies, but also individual stores, and WalMart is no exception. They know what sells best at each location without needing to be discounted, so if you go to different cities, don't be surprised to see stuff that is full price back home being sold at a discount elsewhere, and vice versa.

I

Pricing

[stoolpigeon]

I was a Pricing Analyst for a major grocery chain for a couple years. I worked grocery for quite a while and worked my way up to doing that job in our division office. (It was Safeway in AZ).

We played games with all kinds of stuff. Basically the bottom line is trying to get everything as high as you can and get away with it. Walmart of course really messed us up. They could retail stuff below our cost because of the bargaining power they have.

But ultimately they are playing the same gam

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

Here in the DC area, certain stores seem very jacked up in certain areas.
You have to know to shop tea at World Market, cheese at Trader Joe's, and go to Whole Foods only when you're really needing the selection, like that killer yogurt in the glass bottle.
If you set up a web site with regional pricing information, they would just put out a contract on your life, wouldn't they?

Re:

[iminplaya]

If you set up a web site with regional pricing information, they would just put out a contract on your life, wouldn't they?

That would be only if Plan A [arstechnica.com] doesn't work...

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

It would be an interesting exploration of the First Amendment to try such, though the final diagnosis might be: gangrene.

And that...

[Timex's Wife]

..is where passing high school math comes in handy. See, Wal-Mart is not exactly good about unit prices. If they display them, they are usually pretty useless unless you have a calculator handy (I always do, or at least a notebook and pen). For example a product sold by ounces will have the unit price label in grams, or the small size will have the unit price in quarts, while the larger size will be labeled in ounces. Sometimes they don't even bother displaying the unit price, or they display an incorre

Re:

[Timex]

....and it's this sort of thinking that makes me pester you about posting on Slashdot more often. If nothing else, it would actually raise the average IQ of the Slashdot population. (I'm not worried about Teh Circle, 'cause they're a pretty smart lot. It's some of the people on the front page that worry me. ;) )

Re:

[iminplaya]

I always go shopping armed with notebook, clipboard, calculator, coupons, lists, meal plans, sale circulars, rain checks...

You make a day at the accountant's sound easy :-) Then you'll see us doing the same (meal "plan" is chips and beer) before we head off to Micro Center. Nothing beats the Sunday paper.

Re:

[ces]

See, Wal-Mart is not exactly good about unit prices. If they display them, they are usually pretty useless unless you have a calculator handy (I always do, or at least a notebook and pen). For example a product sold by ounces will have the unit price label in grams, or the small size will have the unit price in quarts, while the larger size will be labeled in ounces. Sometimes they don't even bother displaying the unit price, or they display an incorrect number.

Wal-Mart isn't the only one playing those games. I've seen the same thing from the local Kroger and Safeway. Good thing I can do the math to get a rough idea of the unit price in my head.

Before I had to shop around my youngest son's allergies (food that does not contain gluten, casein, or soy is expensive), I was able to feed our family for about $40- $60 per week including toiletries, diapers, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how much money people waste simply because they cannot be bothered to plan meals, clip coupons, ask for rain checks, comparison shop or (gasp) think!

Well for some of us it is a question of time. I don't really have a lot of it to be spending traveling around to different stores (or sadly plan meals as crazy as the work schedule has been lately). Very often I'll end up buying something I know I can get cheaper elsewhere simply because I don't want to make another stop

Re:

[FroMan]

Well for some of us it is a question of time. I don't really have a lot of it to be spending traveling around to different stores (or sadly plan meals as crazy as the work schedule has been lately). Very often I'll end up buying something I know I can get cheaper elsewhere simply because I don't want to make another stop. There is also the question of quality. I'm willing to pay much more than the "cheapest" price for high-quality food especially for produce, seafood, and meat.

My mother would do the same as

Grocery Prices

[GeckoFood]

Where I am at, there are really only two choices - Wal-Mart and Food Lion. I used to shop Food Lion all the time because they were less expensive than other chain stores, but when I found that the prices of some things at Wal-Mart were literally *half* of that at Food Lion, I gave up and made the switch. I have since noticed something about Food Lion - they used to include the expression "Extra Low Prices" in all of their ads and commercials. There is no sign of that slogan in their advertising anymore.

I wish my wife did this

[Degrees]

My wife (and I love her dearly) does not do this - and I've stopped going shopping with her because it drive me nuts.

For example, Wal*Mart carries the cologne I wear in two sizes: 4 oz., and 7 oz. The 7 oz. bottle is $1 cheaper than the 4 oz. bottle - every time.

The catch is, they run out of stock on the 7 oz bottle often.

So when I go shopping with my wife, and they have the 7 oz. bottles, I buy two or three. If they are out of stock, I buy nothing. My wife on the other hand, feels the need to get *somet