Discount grocery, reloaded
April 7th, 2007 | by mbhunter |I was saddened when our local discount grocery store went out of business. After nearly a year, though, it’s back in business with a new twist.
It’s no longer just “scratch and dent” groceries for sale. About half of the shelf space is groceries as it was before — canned goods, household chemicals, pet food, pre-packaged food, dry goods — and the other half is clothes, toys, tools, and other household items. There was even a small section of DVDs and video games. There were a lot of overstocked and salvaged Costco items there. The frozen food and refrigerated sections were gone. (No more 99-cent Ben and Jerry’s pints!)
The pricing was similar to what it was before — some of the items were great deals; others were fair deals; and some weren’t deals at all. Being able to buy the bulk quantities of some items without the membership fee is worth a little, though.
This new format gives the owners more flexibility. What convinced them to go out of business before was that they couldn’t get the product at as good a price, and the product that they were getting wasn’t as good. With the new store format, they can adjust the type of stock they carry to what brings in the most money.
Another thing that’s different is that it’s only open four days a week. A couple of restaurants in the area do this as well. Having the appearance of scarcity may end up giving them more volume than they would have gotten if they were open every day. It also helps their labor costs, which are expensive.
As a customer, it’s nice to have more options. I hope they stay in business for a while with this new format. I missed it!
11 Responses to “Discount grocery, reloaded”
By iportion on Apr 8, 2007 | Reply
I loved my discount grocery stores but we moved.
it wasn’t a scatch and dent but a no major brand names style store.
By melvin berg on Dec 29, 2007 | Reply
i sell to bargain grocery stores,food items
i am always looking for leads
By Brenda A on Jan 20, 2008 | Reply
hi, i am looking to find out to buy and sell scatch and dent food items, can anyone help me to find this, i am trying to open a store to do this, any responds would be great. thank you
By melvin berg on Jan 20, 2008 | Reply
send me an e-mail lubainc@comcast.net
By melvin berg on Jan 20, 2008 | Reply
send me an e-mail lubainc@comcast.net
By Debra on Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
I live here in Louisa, Va.Need a place that have plenty of space for food,in need of refrigerators,shelves for items,for people to get a discount price,I need someone to pick-up when recieve orders,If anyone could help, I would appreciate it.Debra
By Adam Busch (Wham Foods) on Mar 4, 2009 | Reply
Melvin Berg is a theif, buy from us.
Adam
By VANESSA on Jul 5, 2009 | Reply
DOES ANYONE KNOW OF ANY SCRATCH AND DENT GROCERY STORES IN OR AROUND NASHVILLE TN? OR BARGAIN GROCERIES?
By mbhunter on Jul 6, 2009 | Reply
Vanessa: There are two in Lebanon:
http://www.mightybargainhunter.com/2009/07/06/discount-grocery-store-directory/
By william on Jul 27, 2009 | Reply
We just had our local grocery store close. Living in a small town in Iowa (USA), you become totally dependent on the local grocer and when they can no longer make ends meet, well it’s really bad for the town.