"NOYB" wrote in message
news
"I am pleased our associates achieved record quarterly sales and
earnings,"
said company president and chief executive Lee Scott.



...except in Rochester, right Doug?

Hehehe.


The sales figure doesn't break apart categories. The only thing I've bought
repeatedly at WM, on an experimental basis, was groceries. With that in
mind, I can only tell you what I see:

1) I track grocery prices for my own shopping, using about 50 items I buy
repeatedly. Wegman's, a locally owned, high-quality behemoth of a chain, is
consistently cheaper on 3/4 of the items. For the other 25% of the items,
they're so close that it's not worth bothering with Wal Mart, with its
aisles littered with empty boxes, spotty unit pricing (a trick, by the way),
30 minute lines at the registers and annoying "don't give a damn" employees.
Further, I won't buy meat at WM because it's tainted with some sort of crap
to tenderize it. (Read the labels). And, the produce looks like the stuff I
leave for the squirrels in my garden, laying under the good stuff.

2) On any busy weekend, the Wegman's (4 blocks from WM) is packed with
customers. No matter: At any register, I'm out in 5-8 minutes.

3) Tops, another chain (owned by Ahold) is now being serviced by one of the
two largest wholesalers East of the Mississippi. This particular wholesaler
buys at better prices than WM most of the time. It's reflected in the Tops
stores, whose prices are suddenly giving WM and Wegman's a run for their
money.

Don't question #3. It's the business I'm in. I know how WM buys groceries.