our former Safeway just opened as Haggen's today. They sent out an advertisement that included four coupons for $5 of a purchase of $25 or more. One coupon for each week for 4 weeks. I took the first coupon and went down to check it out. Boy was I disappointed! All the prices went up except milk, eggs, candy, and alcohol. I don't really drink milk, I get eggs from the family ranch, I am not supposed to eat any sweets, and I never touch alcohol. I had a few things in my basket when I realized that the price hikes were so significant, and a few items I liked were no longer even there, that I would just be wasting my money, not saving. I left with just dish soap we really need. I work right across the street from this store, but I don't think I will be going back. Our local food co-op has better sales than this store. That's what shocked me so much, the new store in town putting some of the same items on sale this week as the co-op, but the discount is less.
That's all it takes for me to decide not to go back. Regardless of convienance, if they are sheisty then I'm going somewhere that is a bit more honest and upfront. I try not to be TOO picky, but sometimes price and location aren't enough to keep me coming back.
I would not call them dishonest, but they are totally out of touch with our area. They claim to be a Northwest company and make an effort to stock local products, which is all great, but this Southern Oregon here. Not a lot of people have much money here. You can't just role into this town and try to be a yuppie store, there are hardly any yuppies here. They will discover really quickly that they have to lower prices or people are going to just buy a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs there and go down the road to get everything else.
I noticed the same situation here with our Haggens stores in California, my husband works for a grocery store and knows the prices of everything and what is a good deal or not. He almost died laughing when he saw their first ad he couldn't believe the outrageous prices they were charging for simple staple items. Most stores send out their first opening ad filled with door buster prices to get new customers, not Haggens. Like you said it seems like they wanted to market to the kind of people that have so much money they don't look at prices, but our area like yours is a simple mostly rural area with a lot people who can barely afford their ridiculously high California mortgages.
I had no idea Haggen's was in California too. They claim to be a Northwest store, hmmm. Maybe they should expand their identity to West Coast if they are now there too.
They are from the PNW originally I think. A real estate holding company bought both Safeway (which owns Vons) and Alberstons, but they couldn't keep all of the stores so they had to sell off a certain number of stores to avoid a monopoly I guess. In our area some of the Vons became Haggens and some of the Albertsons became Haggens.
Wow, that was a bad move on their part! You'd think they'd lure you in with better prices, not hit you in the pocket right at hello! They'll soon learn, as people will probably decided to take their custom elsewhere!
The store's name is Haggen, not Haggen's. It's the largest independent grocer in the Northwest, which explains why the prices are somewhat higher. As the company has penetrated into California, each store has started with higher prices and then worked to lower them to meet consumers' preferences. The company recently purchased 140 stores from Albertsons, Vons, and Safety along the West Coast, though all of those stores are owned by Albertsons, parent company of Safeway/Vons.
Maybe I'll take another look in 6 months or so and see if they figured out how to price things for this town.
