As RetailWire readers know, I think pretty highly of Wegmans. But I will admit that it's been nearly two years since I shopped at one of the chain's stores. The reasons are pretty simple. Like many other American families (ours is slightly larger than the average), we've faced rising costs in an uncertain economic environment and have done our best to stick to our household budgets. Wegmans, with its European breads, patisserie, cheese shop and prepared foods, was a clear budget buster every time. Once in the stores, I just couldn't (didn't) resist.
Recently, however, I was given a couple of excuses to go back. Firstly, I recently received a gift card ($20) for the supermarket from a friend. Secondly, I was going to be near Wegmans as a result of visiting the local Apple Store with my daughters. All of us were excited about the prospects of shopping at Wegmans.
Upon entering, my older daughter noticed that Wegmans had changed. "I don't like it, Daddy." The younger one was just hoping the trains that she remembered circling overhead at the back of the store would be there. (Thankfully they were.)
What my daughter and I had recognized was that Wegmans had switched to a more utilitarian look. Gone were the wooden displays in the produce section. Instead, fruits and vegetables were stacked on top of plastic containers used to store and transport the produce.
Areas of the center store appeared to have more of a warehouse club appearance to them and the frozen foods section, which had been tucked at the front right-hand corner of the store, was now dropped in the center/back area.
An interesting thing happened while we were shopping the store and mentioning that we were not fans of the changes made. We noticed the pricing. Wegmans was not only competitive with our regular grocery shopping destinations, it was often less expensive. Moving into the coffee section, my daughter saw the store sold some Peet's (my favorite) whole bean varieties and the price looked good. Much to my surprise, it was not only good, it was a buck a bag cheaper at Wegmans' everyday than it was at Target (or about 50 cents cheaper if using my Target REDcard).
With the excuse of the gift card, we moved to the prepared foods section of the store and bought a few items (the chocolates bought at the patisserie never made it out of the store) before heading to the checkout.
After we finished checking out and started to head toward the exit, my daughter asked me how much we spent. When I told her, she, like her father, was clearly surprised.
"We should probably shop here more often," she said.
We will.