My favorite grocery store, Superfresh, is closing in 2 weeks. They found out about 2 weeks ago. I have not been there for 2 weeks because of school, etc. so I was shocked when I went there. They are being replaced with a Shoprite. Can anyone give me any info on Shoprite?

I'm sorry to hear of the closing. That's tough in this day and age.

We have Kroger & Super Walmart in my area that does a large volume of business. We also have a huge Meijer but there is never anyone there anymore. It opened in 1999 and was packed all the time. But about 5 years ago, they changed their coupon policy where they would only accept 2 coupons for each item. Their business started dropping off and after Kroger remodeled and Walmart closed their smaller stores and opened super centers, it just got worse. Every day I wonder if we are going to hear they are going out of business.

__________________
Catt
~ Mirror Mirror on the wall, I am my mother - after all! ~

Superfresh is pulling out of Maryland except for Ocean City, MD. The county that I live in does not allow Walmarts (except one that is in the upper county). I have to go to another county to shop at a Walmart. We have Giant, Safeway, Shoppers, one Harris-Terer (spelling) , one Wegman and one Bloom. The last 3 are a distance from my house. Superfresh always had the best prices and would reduce their meat early on Saturday. Several of the Targets put in food areas so maybe they lost some of their business. But Target is expensive and limited.

Here's a few things for you:

1. ShopRite is a cooperative, rather than corporate store (most of the stores you might have in MD [I'm assuming that where you are since that's where most of the Superfresh closings are] like Giant, Food Lion, Safeway etc. as well as SuperFresh are corporate stores).
The difference being, ShopRite stores are owned independently (some owners have just 1 store, others have 10 or 15 or even more, especially in parts of NJ) and use the ShopRite cooperative for things like buying, advertising etc. since it's cheaper to do some of these things in a larger group.
Where it most affects you as a shopper is that rules at your store may be different than ones at another store even a few miles away (things like doubles, taking IP's or not, sale prices, even limits in some cases).

2. Given the above, most ShopRites do do some type of doubles - the amount of like coupons and amount of the double (Superfresh, I believe was usually doubling any coupon $0.99 or less with a limit of 2 or 4 like coupons at once? - some ShopRites do this, others only do up to a total of $1, where anything $0.50 or less doubles completely, anything $0.51 to $0.99 rounds up to $1.00).

3. Most ad items are a limit of 4 PER VARIETY (so if there are 5 flavors of spaghetti sauce, you could get 20 total if you wanted to) - a few really special items will limit to 1, 2 or 4 total - maybe 1 to 4 items each week do this. This helps if, say you had a $1/2 coupon and wanted to use 4 of them - you could get 4 of flavor a and 4 of flavor b.

4. Watch the x for $x sales - many of them require you to buy all x for that price.
As an example from this week - Planters Peanuts are 2/$5 - must buy 2 - additional or lesser quantities will scan $3.29 each. With this, if you buy 2,4,6,8 they'll be $2.50 each, but if you bought 3 you'd pay $2.50, $2.50 and $3.29. This is mainly an issue if you had (say with this deal) a coupon for $x/3 - you'd either pay the extra for the third or hopefully have 2 coupons and get 6 of them.

5. Regular ad runs Sunday - Saturday each week - they often also have a section of "4 day price break" only good Wed-Sat - for example last week they offered Schick Hydro Razors in that section for $3.99 each with a $10 purchase (which made them free with the $4 coupon from last Sunday).

6. Most times, if they have those w/$xx purchase (like the $10 one in #5) you can get all of them with one purchase - this week there are 6 coupons in the ad each saying with $10 purchase - all you need to do is spend $10 once to use all 6 of them (not $10 per coupon).

7. They do what they call a Can Can sale twice per year - once in January and a smaller version in July with lots of canned (and non canned too) items - these are big sales and you tend to see people with carts full of cases of items (limits tend to be higher on these sales for the most part).

8. In general - most of their sales items are pretty good and they do a good job of matching items on sale with coupons coming out the same week (or that are already out) - if you wind up getting the full doubles you should be able to get things for $0.50 or less quite often.

I'm probably forgetting something, but at least it's a start. The best thing to do is go in once the store is open and check at the service desk for their specific rules.

We have a Shoprite that opened about 1 yr ago near me. The flyer doesn't get put in our local paper for some reason, but they do mail it to me weekly, which I appreciate. The flyer contains special coupons each week for some really great deals, one item per coupon. The prices are decent. Double coupons. However, there are times I skip the store entirely for several weeks as the deals are not all that appealing to me. Physically, the store is dumpy; they did no appreciable renovations when the took over from Shaws. They hardly ever have any baggers so it can be a very long wait in check-out. What apalls me about this store and I am amazed they can get away with it is the way they price their merchandise. There are tags under the items. The price of the item is listed first, then underneath in equally large type is another $ amount; this is the amount that you save. Upon first glance in the store, and if you are not paying attention, you would think the first price is the regular price of the product, and the other amount is a sale price, not the amount you are saving. It is very deceiving, IMHO.

Thanks for all the info on Shoprite. I did go on Saturday and took advantage of some of closing prices. I feel sorry for the people that work there because many have been there for years. Some might be hired for the new store. It was always a clean store and not crowded like some stores. They always had good prices.

Well, I am glad that I have a stockpile because summer is always harder when it comes to food because I am home and people stop over.