Ask a Grocer
- Thread starter Maimonides
- Start date
You can have it.
On a more serious note, does your store have a salad bar? Do you make money off of it, or not? And is it more of a hassle than it's worth?
Godwynn
March to the Sea
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I do when I stock Ice Cream. I just have to buy a pint and eat it on break.
I didn't in the short time I worked in a store, but it certainly helped me plan meals. Plus with the job I had, I had a lot of contact with the customers looking for a particular item, and picked up a lot of ideas from them.
ironduck
Deity
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- Oct 13, 2002
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There are a lot of factors contributing to alcohol problems though. Historically price has played a major role, but a country's drinking culture is the most important. There are many countries with a much higher alcohol consumption per capita than the US, but with the same or fewer alcoholics. I tried to find stats on alcholics per capita, but nothing turned up. The US has a large amount of abstainers, which is rare in this country. As a result per capita consumption will be higher here automatically.
On the other hand, countries with stricter laws on distribution and steeper prices such as Sweden have significantly less alcoholics than Denmark. There is less of a drinking culture and at least for some parts of the population this seems to have been helpful in terms of abuse. In the opposite end of the scale is Russia where alcohol (vodka) is extremely cheap and the men are dying like flies as a result, it's a very serious problem. Nonetheless, both Russia and Sweden share a culture of home brewing alcohol, and the destitute Russian alcholics often buy non-approved vodka with large amounts of methanol with severe consequences.
So a country's drinking culture tends to change slowly, but imposing tight control and steep pricing does have an effect in terms of alcoholism. There have been significant changes historically in Denmark when the government has relaxed or tightened pricing of alcohol to the point where it cost several times more or less.
The more general drinking culture and behavior associated herewith tends to speak in favour of the relaxed cultures in my opinion. There used to be a lot of mocking of the Swedes who would go to Denmark for the cheap booze and drink way more than they could handle lying around in the streets all drunken and then going back to Sweden again. In the US it's my impression that drinking is very much a rite of initiation among a lot of young people because they're not used to drinking at all. Young people drinking too much at parties is also a problem here though, but probably less so.
We've recently had national discussions about young teens drinking too much and parents needing to be more involved which will definitely have a positive effect. Similarly there has been a general increase in drunk driving awareness and as a result that is less of a problem than it used to be. Both the above are more cultural than legislative adjustments, but they're supported by laws such as the restriction to no longer sell to under 16-year olds. That law seems not to be taken very seriously though.
Btw, I much prefer coke from glass bottles, the difference is obvious, but the sugar is the same here.
Maimonides
Emperor
I prefer beer from draught or glass in that order. Honestly, I haven't had a canned beer in a long time, but if I had a glass, I wouldn't need beer in a can. Canned beer is something I would use at a pool or beach or somewhere that broken glass could be a safety hazard or harder to clean up. I'm fortunate enough now to be able to afford to pay a little more for better beer, but, in my younger days, I drank all sorts of cheap swill.
I probably drink a couple of beers a week these days. Keystone is an American brand that once used special plastic lined cans to protect it's beer from tasting metallic. Then they figured out that those who drink Keystone do so for it's availability & low price. Now, it's promoted as a low price beer rather than for it's taste or quality.
On a related note, RedWolf has an interesting thread on alternate packaging for wine.
Pardon me. I guess I misunderstood your point.
The answer is a little funny in my case. Despite being surrounded by food constantly, I'm kinda thin & don't eat much. My friends have always been amused by this.
Similar to Godwynn's answer, it is hard for me to walk by the candy or pastry section without grabbing something.
My grandfather was a grocer. My father was a grocer. I grew up with food everywhere I looked. The only time I've known real hunger was a few months in college when I was totally broke. I guess that feeding myself holds less interest to me because food isn't a novelty or something I ever lack. I never eat breakfast & rarely stop at work to eat lunch. I do try to eat a nice dinner every night, but I don't always do that, either. I usually eat because I appreciate good food or because I feel I need to for my health, not because I'm feeling hungry.
This reminds me of a couple of related sayings I heard years ago:
-Never trust a skinny chef.
-Never trust a sober bartender.
In my case, trust the thin grocer.
I do know some very fat grocers, too...
No it doesn't. The previous owner had a deli, but he removed it to expand his frozen food section. I would like to put a deli in, but space is too tight. I'm not interested in having a stand alone salad bar, but wouldn't mind having a good salad selection as part of a deli.
I've never had a store with a stand alone salad bar so I don't know how profitable they are. When I see one in other grocery stores, it looks like a huge waste of space to me. Remember, space equals money in a store.
One way that some grocery stores try to compete with other channels & each other is to tout "fresh" product. Some feel that salad bars are complimentary to this strategy.
Channel is an industry term meaning types of retailers. Examples of channels are convenience stores (C-stores), supermarkets, supercenters, etc. C-stores & supercenters usually can't outfresh a grocer.
I'm recovering from an addiction to Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby.
This is one of my favorite things about the grocery business. Food is a neverending learning process. There seems to be no limit to the variety of cooking styles, ingredients & methods. I've particularly learned allot about Hispanic food in the last few years because of the increasing Mexican immigrant population around my store. My previous store had lots of customers from eastern Europe & the Mediterranean.
Ironduck, thanks for the info from Denmark. I appreciate all the posters who are adding info to this thread.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I have updated the pet food recall info in Post 96.
Maimonides
Emperor
Sorry about the huge bump, folks. I thought this thread had died, but recently noticed that I missed a couple of questions. I'm still around.
They vary much too widely for me to generalize. Everyday food items are far different than electronics which are far different than specialty food items. Frozen food is different than dry goods. You need to be more specific please.
The 2nd part is answered below.
For everyone else's information, shrink is an industry term that means products & services lost to theft, damage, spoilage, etc. Shrink is bad because it directly translates into money lost. I've seen many stores go under because their shrink got out of control.
There are several ways to calculate shrink percentage. Some retailers do it as percentage of inventory. Some do it as pecentage of revenues. However you are asking, my shrink percentage is proprietary. I will say that it is well under control & doesn't vary widely from year to year or even month to month, though we do see a huge increase in shoplifting & check forgery leading up to Christmas.
That being said, I don't like to see any shrink at all. It's money right out of my pocket as far as I'm concerned. As you probably know, mrt144, it also negatively affects my employees & customers. I'm always on the lookout for issues like theft & backroom disorganization.
They vary much too widely for me to generalize. Everyday food items are far different than electronics which are far different than specialty food items. Frozen food is different than dry goods. You need to be more specific please.
The 2nd part is answered below.
For everyone else's information, shrink is an industry term that means products & services lost to theft, damage, spoilage, etc. Shrink is bad because it directly translates into money lost. I've seen many stores go under because their shrink got out of control.
There are several ways to calculate shrink percentage. Some retailers do it as percentage of inventory. Some do it as pecentage of revenues. However you are asking, my shrink percentage is proprietary. I will say that it is well under control & doesn't vary widely from year to year or even month to month, though we do see a huge increase in shoplifting & check forgery leading up to Christmas.
That being said, I don't like to see any shrink at all. It's money right out of my pocket as far as I'm concerned. As you probably know, mrt144, it also negatively affects my employees & customers. I'm always on the lookout for issues like theft & backroom disorganization.
How often do people shoplift?
how much do they steal?
what's the most usual think they steal?
what people are the most common shoplifters?
what happens to them if busted?
are some individuals coming often just to shoplift?
what methods do you use, and what are the most effective to bust them?
have you ever set up a poster with a picture: "don't let this man in" or something?
do you have a shotgun to protect from robbers?
how much do they steal?
what's the most usual think they steal?
what people are the most common shoplifters?
what happens to them if busted?
are some individuals coming often just to shoplift?
what methods do you use, and what are the most effective to bust them?
have you ever set up a poster with a picture: "don't let this man in" or something?
do you have a shotgun to protect from robbers?
would you say that a greater portion of shrink is spoilage related? I was wondering because I often wonder how things like clam juice can be stocked as much as it is (like 2 dozen bottles) when anecdotally I haven't ever seen it be purchased.
also, who gets the most power in stock decision making?
Maimonides
Emperor
Zhuge Liang has a thread about paper or plastic bags going on.
I see evidence of it almost every day.
That varies. It could be anything from a candy bar to thousands of dollars. The biggest single theft I've seen at a grocery store was $15,000 in cash. Luckily, that was not my store.
OTC drugs, meat, baby formula & beauty items (cosmetics, razors) are most often targetted.
I need more information. What ethnicity? What age group? What economic class? That being said, thieves come in all ages, shapes, colors & sizes.
It depends on how much they steal. In my area anything under $1500 is a misdemeanor-anything over is a felony.
For misdemeanor theft, assuming they have no outstanding warrants (which is unusual) & they are not habitual criminals, they are taken to jail, processed, issued a summons to appear in court & released. If convicted, they pay fines usually. Sometimes they are sentenced to jail time or community service, too.
For felony theft, they are held until a bail/bond hearing. If granted bail, they can bail themselves out until their court date. If not, they sit in jail until they appear in court. Again, punishment consists of fines, prison time and/or community service.
Conviction of any form of theft means they will have a hard time ever gaining employment. Nobody wants to hire a known thief.
Also, they usually do not go to jail quietly. If they put up a fight or try to flee, they are charged with other offenses like assault, battery, aggravated assault, attempting to elude, etc.
I always have the police issue a tresspass warning to any thieves or anyone I'm sure is stealing, but can't prove in court. That means that they can be arrested & prosecuted for tresspass if ever seen again at the store.
Yes, but they tend to be very dumb. We notice repeat visits quickly so they are easier to catch.
If I said that, the thieves would know, too. I'll just say that we have a camera system & always keep open & alert eyes.
No. There are legal problems with doing that even if it's in an employee only area. Stores have been sued for doing that. I do keep records of everyone we've caught or suspected, but they are not posted on the wall. I did once put up a wanted poster for a known man who had tried to run our manager over with his car, but was still on the loose.
No. My store has only had one armed robbery in 30 years & that idiot died in a car crash while fleeing the scene. I have worked at stores with much bigger crime problems where the managers are all armed all the time.
At my store, it's pretty equal between damage/spoilage & theft. Every store is different, though. My biggest source of shrink is probably bad checks.
Clam juice is an unusual item. It is used for some drink & cooking recipes, but those are few. Some people like clam juice in their bloody marys, but there is a product now called Clamato that has tomato & clam juice already mxied together. It sounds like your store is carrying too much of it on the shelf. On the other hand, it only takes one customer to wipe out that inventory & you don't want to be out of stock.
Just go up the management chain to see who has the ultimate decision making power. At store level, usually a department manager decides how much to order. Decisions on what to keep in stock are usually made at the store management level or above. Chains have people who do nothing but decide what to carry in their stores. These people have titles like Buyer or Merchandising Director or Category Manager.
I see evidence of it almost every day.
That varies. It could be anything from a candy bar to thousands of dollars. The biggest single theft I've seen at a grocery store was $15,000 in cash. Luckily, that was not my store.
OTC drugs, meat, baby formula & beauty items (cosmetics, razors) are most often targetted.
I need more information. What ethnicity? What age group? What economic class? That being said, thieves come in all ages, shapes, colors & sizes.
It depends on how much they steal. In my area anything under $1500 is a misdemeanor-anything over is a felony.
For misdemeanor theft, assuming they have no outstanding warrants (which is unusual) & they are not habitual criminals, they are taken to jail, processed, issued a summons to appear in court & released. If convicted, they pay fines usually. Sometimes they are sentenced to jail time or community service, too.
For felony theft, they are held until a bail/bond hearing. If granted bail, they can bail themselves out until their court date. If not, they sit in jail until they appear in court. Again, punishment consists of fines, prison time and/or community service.
Conviction of any form of theft means they will have a hard time ever gaining employment. Nobody wants to hire a known thief.
Also, they usually do not go to jail quietly. If they put up a fight or try to flee, they are charged with other offenses like assault, battery, aggravated assault, attempting to elude, etc.
I always have the police issue a tresspass warning to any thieves or anyone I'm sure is stealing, but can't prove in court. That means that they can be arrested & prosecuted for tresspass if ever seen again at the store.
Yes, but they tend to be very dumb. We notice repeat visits quickly so they are easier to catch.
If I said that, the thieves would know, too.
I'll just say that we have a camera system & always keep open & alert eyes.have you ever set up a poster with a picture: "don't let this man in" or something?
No. There are legal problems with doing that even if it's in an employee only area. Stores have been sued for doing that. I do keep records of everyone we've caught or suspected, but they are not posted on the wall. I did once put up a wanted poster for a known man who had tried to run our manager over with his car, but was still on the loose.
do you have a shotgun to protect from robbers?
No. My store has only had one armed robbery in 30 years & that idiot died in a car crash while fleeing the scene. I have worked at stores with much bigger crime problems where the managers are all armed all the time.
At my store, it's pretty equal between damage/spoilage & theft. Every store is different, though. My biggest source of shrink is probably bad checks.
Clam juice is an unusual item. It is used for some drink & cooking recipes, but those are few. Some people like clam juice in their bloody marys, but there is a product now called Clamato that has tomato & clam juice already mxied together. It sounds like your store is carrying too much of it on the shelf. On the other hand, it only takes one customer to wipe out that inventory & you don't want to be out of stock.
Just go up the management chain to see who has the ultimate decision making power. At store level, usually a department manager decides how much to order. Decisions on what to keep in stock are usually made at the store management level or above. Chains have people who do nothing but decide what to carry in their stores. These people have titles like Buyer or Merchandising Director or Category Manager.
How often do you fire your teen/young adult workers, and usually on what grounds?
Godwynn
March to the Sea
- Joined
- May 17, 2003
- Messages
- 20,523
Stealing, drugs, and multiple no call/no show.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
Do you often times do inventories?
Egad!! You have the same terminology for the company I work for!
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
It's more commonly used at truck stops and gas stations. It's kind of like a credit card but instead of 'mastercard' or 'visa' it would have the name of the company on the card. Anything charged on that card will be billed to that company (this is usually for very large businesses and corporations that would have hundreds or thousands of vehicles delivering things or traveling around for business). This usually requires the customer (worker for that business) to enter in a pin ID # into a machine for security purposes.
It was done that way at some restaurants in the 80's and maybe part of the 90's (Not sure if it still is). Never heard of it being done at grocery stores.
JohnnyB said:
I don't know about stores, but from the distribution center end of it, that would depend on what you call alot. If I gave you the amount of damaged product it would seem astronomical, but if I told you how much good product we ship out in comparison, it wouldn't seem like that much.
Sometimes the vendors like to stick a damaged case in the middle of the pallet so we don't see it (so we end up eventually absorbing the cost instead of them). During the process from the receiving end to putting the product to where it is order filled then to the shipping end, some more cases can be damaged, especially when you have new workers who don't have much practice stacking (a typical pallet will have 50-200 cases on it, all of different sizes, so it isn't that easy).
I work with the dry goods, so there really isn't an issue with spoilage, unless a case had been busted open and not noticed right away.
We deal with cases, so each case may contain a dozen or more packages inside of the case. We have a reclaims department that will take those damaged cases apart and try to recover some of the non-damaged packages within those cases. Dented cans and busted open packages are thrown out. If the case was damaged early enough in the vendor process that it has attracted bugs by the time it comes to us, the entire pallet is rejected. Sometimes for produce an entire truckload can be rejected. Hopefully we find these before accepting the pallet so the vendor takes the hit and not us. Assuming no bugs, after throwing out the damaged packages they will try to make a full case out of the remaining ones (like if half of the packages was damaged in two cases, you could combine the good ones to make one good case), and it would be sent back into the warehouse and shipped out. Or some stores would accept a partial case (requires more paperwork, but the store gets a discount for this). Or we donate it to charity. If a box is a little crushed, but not busted open where it is perfectly fine but wouldn't look good on a store shelf, we give it to charity. Once in awhile if there is produce or something we need to get rid of quickly (ordered too much) they will sell it to the employees at way below cost (we have hundreds of employees).
Godwynn said:
Did you ever get calls asking about wages? Supposedly my company does a survey every year to compare salaries of area businesses (ones that would compete with them for workers, not customers) to take into consideration for cost of living increase. I always wondered how they went about doing that.
Godwynn said:
Is it wrapped by hand or machine? If the machine is set properly it should be wrapped enough and hold unless the person filling the order stacked it really terrible like putting heavy cases on top of light cases for example, or by not 'brick-layering' the cases where each 'layer' of cases overlap with each other to form a solid stack, just like bricks in a wall overlap.
Maimonides said:
After almost 8 years, I can recall twice where someone at company HQ made a mis-key and we ended up doing double the work we needed to do. Stores were calling us telling us not to send the trucks because they had no room for the product. There has been about a half dozen times during this time that the system was down for a couple of hours, and probably a dozen times it was down for 15 minutes or less.
They also do adjustments by doing computerized forecasts (how much of each product is typically sold on a given day based on time of year, what day of the week or month it is, holidays and other events (like the superbowl), etc. These forecasts were absolutely terrible the first few years when there wasn't much data (new stores, and it was a new distribution center, etc.), as we had many times where we were either way over-staffed, or way under-staffed.
Maimonides said:
Good to see someone else agree that the 'customer isn't always right'.
Maimonides said:
Check items out myself, yes. Not so much with groceries, but if I need to buy condoms, underwear, or if a girlfriend asks me to pick up some 'feminine health care' items...it's nice to have a little privacy.
So would you say they have had an overall negative impact on your business or positive? We always hear this thing about Wal-Mart forcing all the mom-pop shops to close. You seem to be surviving. Was there other grocery stores you competed with that closed down when Wal-Mart went into the grocery business? Maybe you picked up some business from that grocery store that closed because there will always be some people that refuse to shop at Wal-mart.
But how many of them became loyal regular customers after that emergency trip to your store, and how many once again went back to Wal-mart the next week?
Yes, this is one thing that irritates me about Wal-mart. They try so hard to be so efficient with space that they don't have much room at all to stock extra items if they end up selling more of an item than what they normally do. The stores get a shipment of grocery items from the distribution center every single day, some of them twice a day. So they usually only stock about a day or two worth of an item. But if there is a slight rush on an item, they quickly sell out.
And because the store doesn't stock that much, the distribution center can't work ahead, getting the store over stocked with items before a big rush. So on days like today, Christmas Eve, was supposed to be the biggest day of the year for the distribution center (thankfully the snow storm prevented many from shopping the day before so it wasn't that busy). I think the store should be over stocked BEFORE the big day.
And those companies are free to dump Wal-mart if they feel it isn't worth dealing with them (not making money).
Most of the blame goes to the consumers for demanding the cheap goods. If Wal-Mart didn't do it, someone else would have.
Fair enough. Wal-Mart gets alot of unfounded criticism and crazy accusations, but this is a legitimate one. Wal-Mart wasn't the only retailer that had sold those goods, but of course they are the only ones ever mentioned. Not much risk for this in the grocery department is there?
That doesn't mean those shoplifters wouldn't be banned from the store, or if an employee did it they wouldn't be fired. Maybe some of it is from people who like to turn things around and demonize Wal-Mart "They threw me in jail for stealing a donut!".
Wal-Mart mostly sells every day items that doesn't really need any explanation. If you need some home improvement advice go to a hardware store. You may pay a little bit more at the hardware store, but for some it would be worth it to get that expertise. If you already know how to do things and know exactly what you need, then you don't need to pay more since you don't need the advice. I don't work in a store, but I imagine they have their staff more flexible so they can easily shift workers around the different departments instead of being focused on only one area, so they don't get stuck with one department being understaffed if they have people call in sick.
Maybe it's different for you personally because of your preferences, but for most other companies it's the same as putting any other entry-level job, including your store, on their resume. Now if they somehow got fired by Wal-Mart then their resume really looks like crap.
The only people I hear say this are people who have never worked there and from the Anti-Walmart coalition spokespeople. I have yet to see any evidence of this. How do you know this is true? Got any numbers for employee theft at Wal-mart compared to other retailers? This claim of huge employee theft is because of the stereotype that they do this because they are low paid. You don't pay them anymore than Wal-mart does (and probably less, in fact it certainly sounds like you start them out at less). Maybe you are being stole from right now by your employees, but you are blaming it on shoplifters.
Well, if they only work 20 hours a week, why should Wal-mart pay them as if they worked 40 hours? Got any real numbers of the % at Walmart that get assistance compared to other retailers?
And did anything every come of this? Until it is proven in court, it is merely yet another accusation. Are you sure this isn't because less women pursue managerial positions or because some of them lost an advantage because they put their career on hold to have a child?
True. Just one of our centers ships out more product in one day than many small companies ship out in an entire year.
Finally, someone posts this! I've wanted to, but felt it would just be ignored since I work there. And good to see you aren't one of those people that doesn't have ANYTHING good to say about them.
You win some, you lose some.
Ansar
Détente avec l'été
Who would you hire: A teen who wants a job for money, or someone who can't get a better job and applies because he needs to earn money to live?
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
If you close at 8pm, and somebody shows up at 758, will you let them in to get a sack of potatoes or a loaf of bread? What if they reach the doors as you're locking up? Would it make a difference if they were regulars?
Do you sell stuff in bulk? Of course fruits and veggies are almost always loose when they come in "units", but do you have anything else, like rice or oats or candy in bulk?
How good are you with keeping aging milk out of the coolers? If something's expiration date is Friday, do you pull it Thursday, Friday, or later? I assume you don't wait until later but I'm wondering how often you miss a jug.
"No call no show" is more than "industry standard" terminology. It's English standard.
Do you sell stuff in bulk? Of course fruits and veggies are almost always loose when they come in "units", but do you have anything else, like rice or oats or candy in bulk?
How good are you with keeping aging milk out of the coolers? If something's expiration date is Friday, do you pull it Thursday, Friday, or later? I assume you don't wait until later but I'm wondering how often you miss a jug.
Egad!! You have the same terminology for the company I work for!
"No call no show" is more than "industry standard" terminology. It's English standard.
