Supermarket Promotional Leaflets

[liuzhou]

I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated by supermarket promotional advertising and the leaflets or pamphlets they hand out. They are full of this week's or month's "bargains" and I peruse them carefully, but seldom buy anything on them - unless it's something I was going to buy anyway.

 

I see people going around with the things in their hands like shopping lists buying everything on the page, often in multiple quantities. One supermarket was unloading excess toilet tissue recently. It comes in bags of 12 rolls. People were staggering out the stores carrying 10 bags or more as if expecting a sudden plague of dysentery or worse.

 

Anyway, I don't know if anyone shares my odd fascination, but here are the food related parts of the latest offering from my local supermarket. Prices are in Chinese Yuan (元） and 1元 = $0.14 USD.

 

If there are any questions, please fire away. I'd also love to see what they trouble you with in wherever you are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anna N]

Dysentry or dehydration.  What struck me at first was the amount of juices/drinks on offer.  After that there is something very familiar about your flyers.

 

 I do not know if you will be able to access This but it's a link to a flyer for one of our better supermarkets. 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2016 by Anna N (log)

[liuzhou]

Thanks @Anna N.

 

Some slightly different products, but very similar, yes. Down to the cheap printing and, I'm guessing, low quality paper.

 

What I'm noticing is the fresh produce. This seldom features on the Chinese promo material, although Chinese supermarkets have a lot more fresh produce than any supermarkets I've seen in the west. Fresh produce and prices change daily, so do not feature in a brochure intended to cover up to a month.

[Anna N]

 A flyer from one of our Asian chains 

 

Click

[rotuts]

thanks for both of the above.  for Canada , I just typed in the postal code sample.

 

I follow food flyers here.  there are 4 large stores and they come on Thursday w the mail.

 

Im always struck on how random some of the sales are , on national brands , and when a sale comes up it seems to rotate around all the stores.

 

a store manager at a large easter chain  ( stop&shop ) told me the flyer sales were determined months in advance.

 

so example , barilla pasta was on sale for $ 1 at one chain for a week.   then went to 88 cents at another a week later , then back to the first chain , the $ 1 one for 99 cents.

 

then back to the 88 cent chain for $ 1.

 

go figure.

 

they think you didn't by 10 boxes @ 88 cents but waited to stock up a few weeks later for a dollar ?

 

thanks four the posts !

[rotuts]

http://www.mydemoulas.net/weekly-circular/

 

http://rochebros.mywebgrocer.com/CircularMain.aspx?st=C8F73370&cc=1&s=395748763&g=668602ab-52be-4c21-bf16-32179508c871&uc=56AF622

 

https://coupons.stopandshop.com/weeklyad/?store=00006&s=

 

http://shaws.mywebgrocer.com/CircularMain.aspx

 

here are the 4 chains.

[Anna N]

My fliers arrive on my doorstep once a week in a huge bundle as is probably the case for most people.  I used it to while away a Saturday morning reading every one of them. Now they go directly into the recycle bin!   No longer having the ability to hop into my car and go grab whatever bargains were out there I find it less frustrating if I don't look at all.

I have friends and relatives who will grab certain things for me that go on sale occasionally like butter.  You might think I could grow wealthy this way but there is still Amazon.ca. 

[lindag]

I have learned over time to ignore the ads altogether.  There are scads that come with the Sunday paper and I wish there was a way to opt out and have them left  out.  I go through and pull all of them out of the paper and throw them directly into the trash.  I don't need to 'stock up' on things and so buy only what I really need.  I've also learned that if I buy extra of some items that I do use, that the time often comes when a better product comes along or I decide I no longer want to use that particular item and then I have stock I need to get rid of.  Tossing the ads makes life simpler.

[ElsieD]

I used to look through them until I realized there really weren't that many "specials" in them.  A lot of it is just pictures of what they sell at their regular prices.  I use an app called Flipp and when I want to know the price of say, butter, I do a search on Flippi and it will tell me who is selling what kind of butter at what price.  I do look at the front page as that is where their main specials seem to be and sometime the occasional look-see through one but that's about it.  We have three stores here, Loblaws, Independent and Superstore which is owned by Loblaws and they put out nearly identical flyers every week, right down to the cabbage on page 2 and the cod (previously frozen) on page 7.  

[Martin Fisher]

I don't subscribe to any propagandist rags AKA newspapers, but I do follow the weekly flyers online.

I also use appropriate coupons and other discounts.

I'm the frugal type — I keep a price book and i'm able to save at least a few hundred dollars over the course of a year by taking advantage of sales and such.

I live well below the poverty line. A penny saved and all that......

Edited November 25, 2016 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, Anna N said:

What struck me at first was the amount of juices/drinks on offer.

 

Er, I just went through my original post again and there are very few drinks/juices. What you may be seeing as drinks or juices is, in fact, a lot of cooking oils.

 

[rotuts]

im very fortunate in that I can easily get around, and the 4 stores in question are not far away.

 

before I started going to MarketBasket , Stop and Shop pointed out your cumulative savings on sales at the end of your grocery receipt.

 

by the end of the year it was several hundred dollars for very little effort on my part.  MarkeBasket doesn't do this and they can't factor in ordinary price differences for

 

the identical item.  these differences are some times astonishing. 

 

I don't seek them out as such , as im at MB from time to time anyway.  

 

Wagman's is moving into the W.Burbs of BOS.   they have a large store much closer to BOS and send a circular in the USMail from time to time.

 

there will be a very large Wagman's  in the same nesting area as the 4 stores above soon.  They bought a JCPenny's in the local and very copse large Maul.

 

their circular is not printed on NewsPrint , but quite glossy.  Ill take a peek when it opens out of curiosity. Their target market  is more the Neiman Marcus crowd

 

at least those w/o a personal shopper.  and yes there is a NM in that large Maul , in a newer section.

 

to each their own.

[Anna N]

31 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

Er, I just went through my original post again and there are very few drinks/juices. What you may be seeing as drinks or juices is, in fact, a lot of cooking oils.

 

Ah.  That is quite possible.   I am only slightly less fluent in the language of China than I am in Aramaic.

[Shalmanese]

I mean, toilet paper doesn't ever go bad. Just buy it once a year when it's on special and you don't have to worry about it ever again.

[rotuts]

I grew up in a frugal home.  Frugal and Cheap are very have little in common.

 

for me , why should I pay more for run of the mill items when its beyond easy to tell the difference 

 

based on geography for me , its easier to save from time to time than falling off a log.

 

if I had to work at it , and spend time traveling around, it might be a different matter.

 

mostly I wonder Who is running Barilla USA and what are they smoking . 

 

I see no point in subsidizing their habit , unless they want to share .

 

 

[liuzhou]

56 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Ah.  That is quite possible.   I am only slightly less fluent in the language of China than I am in Aramaic.

 

If it says 油 (usually the last character), it is oil.

When I find a passing Aramanian, I'll find out how they say "oil" and pass it on.

[Anna N]

Just now, liuzhou said:

 

If it says 油 (usually the last character), it is oil.

When I find a passing Aramanian, I'll find out how they say "oil" and pass it on.

[Arey]

I get some on Thursday I don't even look at and a slew of them on Sunday but the only one I look at is a flyer of all sorts of coupons which occasionally will have a coupon good for Swanson's chicken broth.  There is also a Proctor and Gamble flyer some Sundays that I check for the Bounty paper towel coupons.  They used to be a $1.00 or $1.50 off but lately they've only been for 20 cents.  Why waste your time cutting out a 20 cent coupon?

(Parenthetically speaking why doesn't my keyboard have a cent sign key.  If I'm too lazy to cut out a 20 cent coupon, I'm certainly too lazy to search through WingDings font for a lousy cent sign I'll probably forget how to  type before the day is done,)

[IndyRob]

2 hours ago, Arey said:

(Parenthetically speaking why doesn't my keyboard have a cent sign key.  If I'm too lazy to cut out a 20 cent coupon, I'm certainly too lazy to search through WingDings font for a lousy cent sign I'll probably forget how to  type before the day is done,)

 

(If you're using a Windows machine, oddly enough the short answer, (Alt+0162), doesn't seem to work here.  But I thought it was a good and worthy complaint and I can now tell you how to change your machine to allow it with Ctrl-Alt-C, but it's a pretty annoying process.  But I now have my cents ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢)

 

Anyway, I'm an almost religious follower of these pamphlets, but mostly online, and as others have indicated, only for things I would buy anyway.

 

Soda prices, for instance are the classic example.  If you're buying soda for more than 1/2 the list price at a supermarket, you're a rube (or desperate).  Likewise, if you're lured into a store by low soda prices and fill your cart with other stuff you are, again, a rube.

 

Grocery stores will rely on this and will sell soda, milk, etc. at a loss knowing that they will make it up with other things you buy.  Discount places like Walmart and Aldi will almost never have the best prices on soda because they're not playing the same game.

 

It would be really cool if someone mashed up all of the weekly flyers in an area into one publication.  And included stores without flyers like my local Asian and Hispanic marts.

[Porthos]

On 11/25/2016 at 7:45 AM, DiggingDogFarm said:

... but I do follow the weekly flyers online.

 

LIke Martin, I have a folder in my browser bookmarks with links to view all of the markets that I shop at (nope, Aldi isn't in there ).  I mostly look for meat prices and soda prices. The major exception to that is in the springtime when I look for loss-leader deep discounts on BBQ sauces and Lawry's marinades and such. We go through a lot of these in my spring ren faire kitchen and, since the feast budget is fixed, every penny I save on these items lets me buy better quality meat and produce.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Porthos
better wording ... (log)

[Lisa Shock]

What is the product shown in the second image, on the left, with a photo of a man?

 

I'd like to point out that if one has the space to store it, buying TP in bulk can be useful. I insulate part of my house with it -upper shelf in laundry room which is on an exterior wall.

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, Lisa Shock said:

What is the product shown in the second image, on the left, with a photo of a man?

 

This one?

 

It's what the Chinese think is yoghurt. Chinese yoghurt is thin, watery and invariably tooth-achingly sweet. It is sold as a drink.

I never buy it - I make my own.

[Anna N]

Because I buy most of my groceries from the only available service that delivers to my postal code, I receive "flyers" by email. Their software is so pathetic, however, that I can only ever view one screenful of specials. Anything else is never revealed.  Complaining has so far done little to change the situation.  

[nonkeyman]

3 hours ago, Anna N said:

Because I buy most of my groceries from the only available service that delivers to my postal code, I receive "flyers" by email. Their software is so pathetic, however, that I can only ever view one screenful of specials. Anything else is never revealed.  Complaining has so far done little to change the situation.  

Sounds like a lot of non-tech industries....hospitals, financial companies, apparently even grocery stores just can't create good software...

[Lisa Shock]

Thanks! I just wondered what someone felt needed a model or pop star to endorse.