Your local store is lying to you

I was at big chain store earlier this evening, I'll call it All Start for the purposes of this blog post. It is a relatively new store, only 2 or 3 years old. And they just finished a complete remodel. Part of the remodel was widening the aisles and redoing all the shelves. Well with widening the aisles there is less room for aisles in the store. Hence there are 1 less aisles on the grocery side and vice versa on the housewares and everything else. There is also 2 less aisles in the automotive, electronics, shoes and arts and crafts area. So that is four less aisles in the store. All the shelving units are shorter now. Instead of having shelves that used to go up to over 6 feet, the shelving units are only about 5 feet 10 inches. There are more shelves on the units, but they are closer together vertically, and where there used be two or three rows of product on each shelf, there is now one or maybe two rows. More and more you are seeing items out of stock on the shelves. The stores are reducing the products foot print/shelf space and ordering less of the product to keep on hand. Also many products are being removed from inventory entirely. Remember? Less aisles.

Also once again the downsizing of products is getting more noticeable. A 18 ounce can of chili which I paid .79 cents for 4 years ago has the same size can but now contains 15.45 ounces and costs $1.79. My 10 lbs box of laundry detergent, that I paid $14.99 for 4 years ago is now 8 lbs 14 ounces and cost $21.99. I can continue on for hundreds of products, if not thousands. The stores are lying to us. Less shelf space for product means they don't have to order as much product to store in their warehouse. Less product purchased means they save their $$ for other things.

They know something they are hoping we won't notice.

Look at the economy. Really look at the economy. There are dozens if not hundreds of new stories telling you that we are in a recession. There are several dozen stories I have read in the last week alone telling us that energy costs are getting ready to rise for the entire country. Stores know if they want to make a profit they have to keep the power on at their stores. They know that if they have too much stock sitting in warehouses, they have tied up that money until they can sell that product. So because they want to keep their stores open so they can make money when the energy costs go up, they have to cut somewhere else. And you shelf space is where they are cutting. Less shelf space, less product, less money spent.

If there is an emergency or a disaster to hit, how long do you think it will take the stores with less shelf space to run out of product? When they normally stock 20 items and now are only stocking 5, you tell me. Plus costs continue to rise. Slowly but surely the costs are going up, and they are still lying to you by hiding it by still selling you the same size package. There is just less in the package than there used to be.

The stores are lying to you. Wake up and realize why, and try to do something about it now while you can afford it. Not when there is a hurricane 2 days away, or just after a tornado ripped through your town.