Mormon Day Off
I respect those who honor the Sabbath day. After all, it is one of the commandment. It’s one of the reasons Hill Cumorah Pageant is not presented on Sunday nights. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is a special Mormon day-off. It’s Monday. It is especially noticeable during Hill Cumorah Pageant.
Mondays, for member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are dedicated to the family. No church activities are to be scheduled on Mondays, and chapels are not to be used. The evening hours are dedicated to a traditional activity called Family Home Evening.
So, today being a Monday, those in the Hill Cumorah Pageant take the day off (in a sense). There is no performance tonight. Instead, cast members will be spending time with their family, and if they are traveling away from family, there will be activities for those people too.
Wegman’s vs Walmart
Recently I heard said that the Walmart in Macedon has never met their sales goals. I guess I contribute to their woes. I only shop there if I’m in a bind time wise, or if I don’t know where else to go for certain products. But, I would hope this message makes it back to Walmart.
When I first moved here, I was doing all of my shopping at Walmart, and I noticed certain prices to be high. I just thought it was the economy and creeping inflation. A soon tried some other stores, and noticed most items I bought were less expensive than Walmart.
After several bad experiences with poor shelf stocking, unknowledgeable staff, poor quality meats and produce, and a ridiculous price-match policy, I stopped doing any regular shopping at Walmart. They advertise the “low price leader”, and that they will match competitor’s advertised prices, but it is not a proactive measure.
I would expect Walmart to do what Wegman’s apparently does. This theory was tested twice in the last two weeks. It is this… Wegman’s watches the prices of its competitors, like Tops, and then drops their prices accordingly. I tested this last week on ground beef. Tops had a great price on ground beef, but I went to Wegman’s first, expecting to make a special trip to Tops to purchase some ground beef. What did I find? I found Wegman’s price was the same as Tops advertised price.
I didn’t have to bring an ad in to Wegman’s and request they match Tops price. I didn’t have to put up with some clerk placing unwritten conditions on the price matching. (i.e. like saying, “Yeah, but you have to buy 10 pounds”, or “You can only get one package at that price”, etc.) It was just the price Wegman’s was charging.
If you’re going to claim to be the “low price leader”, then you better do your leg-work and make sure your price is lower than anyone else. That might mean sending secret shoppers to local stores, monitoring their print and on-line ads, and adjusting your prices accordingly. I would also go so far as to say you should be at least 1 cent lower on any given item.
It is no surprise to me that the Macedon Walmart hasn’t met their sales goals.
Walmart-bashing is not my goal here. My goal is to bring it to Walmarts attention that they have a problem. Perhaps it is just this local Walmart. I don’t know how they do their price setting and how much is under the control of local management.
Here are my suggestions…
- Better inventory control so you don’t run out of normally stocked items. (This is a common problem I experience at the Macedon Walmart.)
- Train your staff to know the products, know where they are in the store, and take customers there (instead of pointing them in that direction)
- Hire real butchers and buy better meat.
- Get your produce locally as much as possible and keep it fresher
- Have a no-hassle price match policy. If the competitor says “4 for $1”, sell a customer one for 25 cents if they only want one. And, as soon as someone brings a price-match ad in, lower your price to match it or beat it.
- Realize that you are not a Wegman’s, but they are your biggest competitor in this area. If you want to compete, you have to match their quality, service and prices.