NEW YORK — Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. and BI-LO have slashed prices on more than 1,000 items.Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. and BI-LO have slashed prices on more than 1,000 items.
Customer surveys have led the supermarkets, owned by Southeastern Grocers, to reduce prices on products including toilet paper, cereal, mayonnaise, toothpaste and ice cream.
Customers told the grocers that affordability was their priority, the parent company said.
“We expect to see our customers shop more with us because we’re giving them what they’ve said is most important — lower prices,” Southeastern Grocers president and chief executive officer Ian McLeod told The Charlotte Observer.
BI-LO ranks fourth in the Charlotte/Gastonia/Concord market in the Carolinas, where it competes with other low-price grocers including third-place Food Lion, as well as No. 2 Walmart.
The average price cut at BI-LO was 17%. Crest mint toothpaste is now $2.05, down 36%, while Breyers vanilla ice cream has been discounted by one-quarter to $4.50.
BI-LO has spent $15 million on the new pricing program, which McLeod told the newspaper is “here to stay.”
He said that the discounts were prompted by the “hard-working families shopping on a budget” who make up the chain’s customer base.
The cuts were fostered by “efficiency improvement programs,” he said.
Salisbury, N.C.-based Food Lion reduced prices on thousands of staple items over the summer after extensive customer research. Harris Teeter, based in Matthews, N.C., and the No. 1 player in greater Charlotte, cut prices on thousands of items last year as a result of efficiencies gained through its purchase by Kroger Co.
At Winn-Dixie, discounts are as high as 53% and average around 20%. New prices include $2.10 for a four-pack of double-roll Angel Soft toilet paper, down 30% from $2.99; $3.35 for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, down 25% from $4.49; $2.50 for a 4-pound bag of Domino sugar, down 25% from $2.50; $4.50 for Hellmann’s mayonnaise, down 25% from $5.99; and $5.70 for an eight-pack of Gatorade, down 19% from $6.99. The total savings on those five items is $5.66, or 24%.
Winn-Dixie has lagged in market share in central Florida behind No. 1 Publix Super Markets Inc. and Walmart.
It has been caught between Walmart’s everyday-low price positioning and the high-low, heavily promotional approach of Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix. There has also been increased competition from specialty grocers such as Whole Foods Market Inc. and Fresh Market, which are both adding stores.
Winn-Dixie is trying to carve out a spot below Publix and above hard discounters, Steve Kirn, a business professor at the University of Florida who specializes in retail, told the Orlando Sentinel. “They are hoping people will acknowledge that the high level of service at Publix comes at the cost of a higher price.”
Since margins are so thin in the supermarket business, Winn-Dixie is hoping that discounts on basics will help drive sales on other goods, Kirn said.
Walmart had targeted the supermarketer in a series of TV commercials claiming shoppers could save as much as 19% over Winn-Dixie prices by shopping at Walmart.
