Walmart accused of falsifying "Walmart challenge"

Hi- On Jill Cataldo's couponing blog, she has an article, about how other retailers are accusing Walmart of falsifying their "Walmart challenge" ads. I am sure that everyone has seen those ads, where a Jewel customer shops for the same identical items at Walmart, and Walmart is always cheaper. Other chains accuse Walmart of cherry picking what items the shopper is going to buy, and maybe the item is cheaper the day the shopper goes to Walmart, but by the time the commercial is aired, the price is actually cheaper at the other store. Here is the article.

http://jillcataldo.com/walmart_challenge_challenged#new
Thanks, Nancy

NFriday wrote:Other chains accuse Walmart of cherry picking what items the shopper is going to buy, and maybe the item is cheaper the day the shopper goes to Walmart, but by the time the commercial is aired, the price is actually cheaper at the other store.

Breaking News! The sun will rise tomorrow! Comparison shopping ads have been around for decades. Even a slightly-intelligent consumer knows that most stores have periodic (usually weekly) sales, and any comparisons they make should be done based on sales flyers from the same time period.

If those "other chains" do in fact, at times, have cheaper prices than Wal-Mart, then they should run their own ad campaign. Seems to me the "other chains" are trying to save money by whining to the media, in the hopes that someone with an axe to grind against Wal-Mart would write an article. In this case, they apparently succeeded.

There are a lot of reasons to dislike Wal-Mart, but IMO this ain't one of 'em.

I don't know...just extrapolating from me, I was fooled. (I said so in a different thread when I first saw the ad.) I'm not a coupon kind of guy, and I'm not price-sensitive when it comes to groceries in general, so I am on the dumb side when it comes to this. But that said, I came away from those ads believing that Walmart was doing an apple-to-apples comparison of realistic everyday prices, and I believed them. (Until Nancy set me straight.) So I think maybe there is a case here.

Yes. It's a stupid premise for an ad campaign. Which is why historically most companies have not initiated ad campaigns based on that premise.

You're welcome to your opinion, but the last thing I want to see are a string of ads from different companies telling me "Our tomatoes are five cents a pound less than out competitor's!" "yeah, well, our carrots are 3 cents a pound less than theirs!!!"

[quote="riddlemay"]I don't know...just extrapolating from me, I was fooled. (I said so in a different thread when I first saw the ad.) I'm not a coupon kind of guy, and I'm not price-sensitive when it comes to groceries in general, so I am on the dumb side when it comes to this.[/quote]
Since you're not price-sensitive when it comes to groceries, you're not exactly the target for such an ad. So extrapolating from your experience would be a dangerous proposition.

Roger Ramjet wrote:It's a stupid premise for an ad campaign. Which is why historically most companies have not initiated ad campaigns based on that premise.

Tell that to the auto industry, among many others. Historically it's been an effective method when selling in a competitive, price-sensitive market. In the retail grocery industry, Aldi has been particularly effective using this method.

Roger Ramjet wrote:You're welcome to your opinion, but the last thing I want to see are a string of ads from different companies telling me "Our tomatoes are five cents a pound less than out competitor's!" "yeah, well, our carrots are 3 cents a pound less than theirs!!!"

And you won't see it, at least in an ad. (Nice straw man, though...I might use it sometime!) I find it hard to believe, however, that you have never heard an independent shop proprietor make comments about the prices of their competition...

The positive thing about the ad campaign is that a lot of people have discovered that Walmart's prices are significantly less than the everyday prices at Jewel and Dominick stores.

However, Walmart prices are significantly higher than the prices at Aldi as I was reminded this weekend.

Hi- I have never done it, but you can price match at Walmart. Some people do that so they don't have to shop at 5 different stores. I don't live close enough to a walmart to make it worth my while though. I go past Dominick's and Jewel all the time, and I just hit the lost leader items there. Saturday I got 4 boxes of Fiber One cereal at Dominick's. They were $1.99 a box if you buy 4, and I had a $.75 coupon applied to my fresh values card. For some reason it took $1.50 off, and so I got 4 boxes of cereal for $6.46, and they are also good for movie cash. I am going to get two free movie tickets. A lot of people on Jill's site do price match at Walmart all the time though.

Hi- Yes if you compare Dominick's and Jewel's regular price to to Walmart's, Walmart is going to be 25% lower. Last time I went to Dominick's though, I spent $26 there, and I saved 51%, and with the exception of a few things, most of the items I bought at Dominick's were cheaper than what I could have bought at Walmart. The bananas were comparable in price, as was probably the cottage cheese, but the Fiber One Walmart probably does not carry, and most of their comparable cereal is more than $1.99 anyway, and the Edy's ice cream, which was $3, Walmart does not carry. Walmart does carry Breyer's which is usually around $3.12. The bread and orange juice was probably about the same price. The milk, green onions and clementimes were cheaper at Dominick's though. There is not anything that I bought at Dominick's that I could have gotten cheaper at Walmart. The only thing that I bought at Dominick's that I could have gotten cheaper at Aldi's were the cottage cheese, the bread, and the ice cream. Aldi's doesn't carry low fat ice cream, and I don't care for their ice cream anyway, and the Breakstone cottage cheese I bought at Dominick's had a longer expiration date. Thanks, Nancy

[quote][quote="riddlemay"][quote=quote]Comparison shopping ads have been around for decades. Even a slightly-intelligent consumer knows that most stores have periodic (usually weekly) sales, and any comparisons they make should be done based on sales flyers from the same time period.[/quote]
I don't know...just extrapolating from me, I was fooled. (I said so in a different thread when I first saw the ad.) I'm not a coupon kind of guy, and I'm not price-sensitive when it comes to groceries in general, so I am on the dumb side when it comes to this.[/quote]
Since you're not price-sensitive when it comes to groceries, you're not exactly the target for such an ad. So extrapolating from your experience would be a dangerous proposition. [/quote]
I mostly agree with that. Yet their big newspaper ad made an impact on me. To the extent it's relevant, I was like: "I'm not price-sensitive, but on the other hand I don't believe in wasting money. If all other things were equal (convenience of location, extensiveness of selection, the shopping experience, etc.), I'd be a fool not to go to the Walmart across the street from the Jewel instead of to the Jewel." All Walmart really had to accomplish with that ad was to put itself on grocery shoppers' radar...and I think they probably did.

Maybe some definition of terms is in order. For myself, "not price sensitive" doesn't mean "completely immune to considerations of price." It means other factors that are important to me might outweigh price. (For instance, I might sometimes buy a book at an independent bookseller instead of Amazon because I want to support the independent bookseller.) However, when the playing field is absolutely level, presenting no other factors of personal importance to consider, I will choose lower price. (How could anyone not, in that scenario?) If there is a significant cohort of others like me out there, the Walmart ad reached them.

If you go to Dominick's website, they have a section where they will match Walmart and Target's prices on many sale items.

Hi- I'm signed up with the J4U program at Dominick's, and I love it. I shop at Dominick's a lot more since they started the program. Yes, they do have deal match on their site, but they only match selected sale prices at Jewel and Target. Walmart will price match other stores, although each Walmart store seems to make up their own rules about which stores they will price match. Some Walmart's will not do price matching on a store that is 25 miles away, and some will. I've heard that it also helps if you bring the specific ad, even though they advertise that you don't need a copy of the ad. They have had some people that have made up prices at other stores, to try to take advantage of Walmart.

Walmart is considering allowing people to download an app on their cell phone, and scan the items in their cart with their cell phones, to free up people that work checkout to stock store shelves. I'll have to see if I can find the link to this. Apparently they finally realized that their stores are really disorganized, because they do not have enough employees stocking shelves. Hope this helps, Nancy

If you really want to see cheating, check out the pick-n-save reply ad.
I was actually laughing.