In my previous post about the Christian James’ Macintosh OS X software PayGo SP life kind of has an ironic twist. I was complaining about the poor customer service of the company and hoping that I warn a few people to run away from the company as they have refused to address my issues. When I jumped on to the blog page, I found that Christian James is advertsing on my site using Google AdSense.
It’s great for me that they are adverting on my site. I’m sure that users were clicking on the ads as they visited the page. Thanks Chris!
Grocery store marketing directors don’t have a clue
Grocery stores throughout history have never been known for their marketing genus. That’s how Wallmart was able to become the industry behemoth giant that it is today. In some markets they’ve got the grocery stores shaking in their boots.
Today while standing in line at the local Albertsons. I realize that companies like Albertson’s treat their best and highest profit customers with distain. Their marketing director knows nothing about modern marketing techniques and doesn’t really care about any sort of customer service. The modern grocery store’s tracking systems is broken and they their computer systems don’t know how to order niche items to increase their profitability.
They director of marketing’s should be fired immediately fired. Their best idea in the last few years is to force you to use a tracking card and offer a 5% to 15% discount at the grocery store. Every one of these grocer stores uses a tracking number to figure out what you are buying, but not one of them are using it very effectively.
Grocery stores treat their best customers in the absolute worst way. They make me wait and stand in line when I’m going to buy several hundred dollars of groceries. Most of these items are organic, and niche items that fetch the store a much higher margin on average than say the big conglomerated brands. These niche items yield higher profits. You see, our family is vegetarian. My wife buys organic vegetables and tries to make most meals from scratch. Therefore most items are higher prices and give the grocery stores much higher profit. They should be treating me better, as I’m offering the corporation a higher profit margin every day.
It always amazes me that the grocery store reward the customer who buys 3-4 items, but they punish the customer that’s spending $300 for their weekly groceries. You see, they don’t make it easy for someone who’s buy many items, but make it very easy to buy less than ten items. With profits in the industry becoming harder to come by, it would make more sense for the stores to cater to the more profitable customer.
While they are torturing me in line by making me wait a longer amount of time to buy my items, they make sure that I try hard not to bring my children. Owning my own business, I know that you can usually garner a few extra dollars per sale by offering items at the point of purchase. However, grocery stores offer candy, sundries and entertainment magazines at the checkout stand. The grocery store let’s me be torture by constantly telling my children NO when they ask me for candies or other stupid items that the grocery store sells. They would be better off to offer different items on each line, as I would probably pick lines that cater to my preferences.
One of the other peculiar problems with the company is how they do their ordering. We enjoy niche products such as Morning Star’s Recipe Crumbles. These are a niche vegetarian product that is hard to find in most grocery stores. Vegetarians and people whom have high cholesterol are the typical customers whom buy this product. However, 8 out of 10 times when I venture to the grocery store, I have to run to a second or third store that may or may not carry the item.
As grocery stores want to remain profitable and retain the loyalty of their customers, they need to totally re-think their marketing efforts. Online Grocers are starting to look better and better, as I will be able to purchase items that I prefer without having to resort to being hassled to buy items I don’t want, being treated badly if I make a large purchase, and finally having to run to two or three stores to get the items I prefer.