Walmart Market fresh fruit prices

[citizen72]

Has anyone noticed the prices of fresh fruit at your local Walmart market.  Wow! Try tangerines at $ .50 each or oranges at $ .69 each. It is like trying to shop at a QuikTrip. Their vegetables are not much better.

[TurismoDreamin]

I'm a student and I work as a produce associate at a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in South Tulsa.

Reason's for price changing:

-We go competitor shopping around a demographically set parameter. We usually try to keep our cost prices before the competition.

-The Home Office in Bentonville, Ak controls everything (they even control the thermostats at every store). They print out daily price changes every morning whether the price change is for an increase or decrease.

-In produce, it usually depends on whether the item is in season or not, if we get a lot of that one particular item for an event, if the item is a low/high selling item, profit margin is inadequate, etc.

-The department managers have control of pricing and can change the price to whatever they feel like changing it to without any approval of the upper management. Keep that in mind. This does not mean it always pleases upper management, lol.

-Produce is an incredibly profitable area of every store. For example, our store sells, on average, 10,000-13,000 lbs. of banana's weekly. Banana's have a very low cost price (I think it was $0.18/lb or something like that last I checked). The mark up price that you guys see is somewhere between $0.27/lb (if on sale at Aldi's or something) to $0.48/lb regular selling price. Therefore, produce has a lot of flexibility for price changes. Grocery department is not so lucky tho. Cost prices on grocery items are pretty close to the sale price.

After working at the same store for almost 5 years, I will say this and this is solely what I have observed over the years so take what I feel as my opinion as you will...warehouse market's prices are hard to beat at times with grocery items. Reasor's is over-priced and lowers "eye catching items" at the same time they raise prices of normal items. Even when Reasor's puts 12pk Pepsi's on add for 4/$10, our store sells them for $1.98 all the time. Albertson's is a joke and many of their items almost double our regular prices for those items. Aldi's is only good for banana sales and maybe a few of "their brand" grocery items. Target's prices are sometimes competitive but are most of the time, pretty close to our prices. Target's audience that they want to appeal to are the 20s-30s. For those of you who think wal-mart supports more over-seas items over domestic items, 75% of the items in the average supercenter are domestic.

That is all...

[Steve]

I don't know about Wal Mart prices, because I refuse to patronize Wal Mart, but...

They say citrus fruit prices are going to go sky high, due to the California central valley freeze.  The day after I heard of the citrus grove freezes in California, I was in Reasor's grocery and bought 10 cans (12 oz. cans) of Minute Maid frozen concentrate orange juice, at $1.49 a can.  At the rate I drink OJ, that will last me a full year or more!

[AMP]

The Save A Lot stores are cheap all the time on a number of items.  Most canned goods are 29cents every day.

They also have ground beef for 99 cents a pound.  

WM has some good deals, but you need to shop at three different stores if you want to really stretch your budget.  

The Wal Mart Neighbor Hood Market has a good variety of produce, most is very fresh.  I have purchased leaf lettace at different stores, and the lettace I buy at Wal Mart NH Store on Brookside is crisper and lasts longer than the other stores I have shopped.  They had some awesome Peaches last Summer too.  

http://www.save-a-lot.com/display.do?page=shopping

[TurismoDreamin]

I keep forgetting about Save A Lot. Yea, they usually have good sales too, but most of the savings come from their-brand items. Meat is iffy at most places. It doesnt matter which store you go to at times because so many stores play around their meat prices (no pun intended). The Brookside Neighborhood Market, although smoothly run, isnt the best Neighborhood Market around. The one on 81 n Sheridan has the best in-stock and lowest prices in the Tulsa area usually, sometimes even better than the supercenters (three time winner of Neighborhood Market of the year out of the nation). 71st n 145th in BA is another well run store just because they have senior management there and the local income surrounding it (once named number 2 supercenter in the nation).

The thing about the California situation was true. They expected all domestic fruit to skyrocket.

Here's another thing to look for. If the fruit is in a box and printed in the box, it says "CA". Unless its listed immediately following a location (ex:Santa Ana, CA), than CA stands for Controlled Atmosphere. This means the crop was grown in a controlled environment to make it last longer and use it sorta like a contengency. This is last year's crop with an extended lifespan. This crop usually doesnt taste the best but its a crop and thats all that matters to them. Usually we wont sell too much of those and we'll get a request from the home office to lower the price unless my dept. manager hasnt already done so....

The best peaches that you'll ever taste will be Porter Peaches. Its probably one of the few times local crops will be in a Wal-Mart. Porter peachers come from Porter, Oklahoma (near Haskell) and they have their own personal driver deliver their peaches to the stores so thats why they're hard to come by when they come in season cuz their drivers have a hard time keeping up with demand...

[AMP]

I try to stay away from South Tulsa.  Now that there is a NH Market at 21 and Yale it fits into my travel zone as I office in Mid Town.  

I don't really care where I buy groceries or what the brand names on the boxes are. Price is more important to me than most anything else.

Kinda like the newer vehicles that have no brand name or serial numbers that come from Asia.  As long as they work and last for a decent lentgh of service time they are worth buying.

Believe the future will see fewer brand names and more focus on pricing.  Noticed the new Wal Mart near Woodland Hills has the "Always" Signs 4 times larger than the Wal Mart sign.  The Always also sports a large R registered trade mark insignia by it.  

Wonder when Wal Mart will totally change over to the ALWAYS store?

If anyone is really interested in buying fruit at lower prices, then can make a trip up to the Trenton Market or over on North Yale to the Fruit peddlers outlets.   Gutirezz Banana gassing warehouse or other distribution warehouses in the Tulsa area.

[citizen72]

I have not compared Albertson's fruit and veggie prices to Walmarts market, but would not be surprised that the Walmart's is higher. And, Albertson's is plenty high. We just refuse to  pay 50 cents for an orange or $ 3.00 a pound for plums. There are many other examples but just listed these.

We have even shopped some at the Warehouse market in Broken Arrow and found the experience not at all disagreeable. Decent prices and the store is clean and has a pleasant atmosphere. You don't feel like you are being taken advantage of.

[TurismoDreamin]

quote:Originally posted by citizen72

I have not compared Albertson's fruit and veggie prices to Walmarts market, but would not be surprised that the Walmart's is higher. And, Albertson's is plenty high. We just refuse to  pay 50 cents for an orange or $ 3.00 a pound for plums. There are many other examples but just listed these.

We have even shopped some at the Warehouse market in Broken Arrow and found the experience not at all disagreeable. Decent prices and the store is clean and has a pleasant atmosphere. You don't feel like you are being taken advantage of.

Theyre not in season. 2/$1 is a good price. Home office recommends us to sell them at somewhere around .68-.78 but once again they arent in season so to go against the home offices prices is doing a service for the customer. Its either domestic and priced high cuz its out of season, or overseas where the imported market marks up their price cuz they kno we'll buy from them no matter what. So expect plums to be $2.98, all packaged berries to be super expensive, grapes to be higher than usual, strawberries to be high priced and not of best quality and just about every other fruit there is cuz for the most part, all that is imported.

[rwarn17588]

Citizen, count your blessings.

I'm old enough to remember the days when it was nearly impossible to get fresh produce during the winter months, especially in the Midwest. That's greatly improved in the past 20 years or so.

[cannon_fodder]

Since we are talking about produce... I have fallen in love with Blood Oranges.  So good.  So good.

I have yet to try the Market at 21st and Yale but plan on skipping Reasors next time to give them a try.  I have no angst against wal-mart, whatever serves me best is the winner (go capitalism).

[Trams]

I like Wal-Mart too.  I'm happy the one at 21/Yale is finished.

Albertson's is ridiculous.  Their prices are outrageous.