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Supermarkets have to operate at scale, and their inventory has to be a relative mirror image across all locations, as well as match prices they plan and adverti
by PakG1 10y ago
Supermarkets have to operate at scale, and their inventory has to be a relative mirror image across all locations, as well as match prices they plan and advertise in advance. To enable that standardization, there's a lot of central planning, and I imagine also a lot of centralized logistics.
These farmer market-style operations are much more fluid and flexible.
- billc8 10y agoHow does El Super do it because they appear to operate at scale. A friend said it could be cheaper labor cost and I just saw this- http://elsupermarkets.com/supply-chain-act http://elsupermarkets.com/supply-chain-act They reference slavery and human trafficking, and say they investigate reports of it but don't audit their suppliers. I don't have specifics but I think you could buy apples for 80 cents a pound, and everything else is just unbelievably cheap. I'd buy a shopping cart full of vegetables and fruits for $30 which at Gelson's would easily cost 3-4 times as much.
- akiselev 10y agoThey appear to operate at scale but they dont, at least not when compared to the major national chains. El Super has 40 stores in California and a few hundred more in Latin America whereas Safeway and Kroger have about 2500 stores each, in a market that is more picky about the appearance of produce and other factors not relevant to most other markets. El Super, Superior, Superking, etc also source their products differently and there can be huge variation between stores depending on the neighborhood socioeconomics.l