Remember the Walmart Receipt Comparison Tool story I did at the end of August? I had just been to Meijer when I heard a Walmart commercial asking shoppers to send in their receipts to see how much more they would have saved if they’d shopped at Walmart.
I sent my Meijer receipt in, and Walmart returned a list of results showing I could have saved 65% by shopping at Meijer. Unfortunately, their comparison tool falsely inflated the prices of what I had bought at Meijer, and I actually paid about 20% less by shopping at Meijer that week.
Today’s issue of Crain’s has a story about my experience, as well as Walmart’s determination to “bury Dominick’s and Jewel:”
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is taking its low-price message directly to individual food shoppers as it closes the gap with metro Chicago’s long-reigning grocery leaders, Jewel-Osco and Dominick’s Finer Foods.
Jill Cataldo isn’t buying it.
Ms. Cataldo was leaving a suburban Meijer store recently when she heard a radio ad for Wal-Mart’s new receipt comparison tool. She decided to try it and find out which grocery chain offers lower prices on her particular purchases. She uploaded a photo of her Meijer receipt to Wal-Mart’s website and, two days later, received an analysis telling her she would have saved 65 percent, or more than $30, if she had shopped at the nearby Walmart instead.
When Ms. Cataldo checked the math, however, she discovered that she would have paid 20 percent more, or $9, buying the same goods at Walmart. One of the problems: Wal-Mart’s system misread a juice on sale at Meijer for 10 for $10 as costing $10 for one versus $1.22 at Walmart. “The way it works is pretty clunky,” says the northwest suburban Huntley resident who runs a popular couponing blog and publishes a weekly syndicated newspaper column.
Her experience highlights the potential downsides of Wal-Mart’s new tool, which the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer quietly began testing last month in Chicago, Atlanta and Albuquerque, N.M., and plans to expand to other parts of the country. It can make mistakes, and it can make the competition look better.
“Using actual individual receipts is a unique spin on price-comparison ads,” says Bill Wunner, who runs an Atlanta-based website, Coupons in the News. “This is a very gutsy move by Wal-Mart, considering it runs the risk of showing some customers that they might actually have spent more at Walmart.”
…
In metro Chicago, Jewel and Dominick’s remain the biggest supermarkets, with 14.8 percent and 12.5 percent of sales, respectively, according to Chain Store Guide’s 2012 grocery industry report. Wal-Mart is fourth, with 10.4 percent, but it has been grabbing share as it moves deeper into the city.
“Perception is reality,” says Marian Salzman, CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR North America, based in New York. “I believe that Walmart will not rip me off, so even if I find out it was a dollar or two more expensive sometimes, I’m not going to stop shopping there.”
Outlander says
I can’t stand those commercials! I find them really annoying.
theresa1740 says
I always wonder where the coupon savings are shown or if they disregard them. I can’t stand the scrolling down and have never watched the whole thing. Not that I watch TV hardly at all, so I am not their target market.
firegod97 says
Another thing they don’t mention is the Walmart customer service (or lack thereof).
We have a Walmart Supercenter literally 3 minutes from the house. I still drive almost 15 minutes to do 80% of our shopping at Meijer, with a few things at Dominick’s and Jewel (even if it means a little more cost).
It’s not uncommon for there to be 7 or 8 customers in a line, and employees and managers just walk by and keep going. I worked in retail in high school and college. I’ll never forget my store director constantly reminding us that the single most important part of the store, because it’s the last interaction most customers have, is the front end/register area. That’s what the customer remembers most. He’d make managers from the stockroom jump on registers if there were more than 2-3 people in any line (and this was a large national chain).
I will admit though, the overbake rack at Walmart is still one of my favorite stops at any store. :)