About consumers switching their buying [View all]

I would note the following from a grocery store visit today. In my area there are some run of the mill chains like Kroger and then there are some regional chains. Some of those are a higher tier of quality as far as meat, produce, bakery etc. One such "higher level" store is one that I visited today.

The store is located in a suburb that is more or less "upscale" with homes easily averaging $300,000+ and dominated by white collar types. The visit was at 6:00 p.m. which is normally a very busy time for them and usually you have to stand and have a considerable wait at their excellent deli. The checkouts are usually quite busy at this time of day with people coming home from work and buying things for evening meals etc. The "ready made" section in the deli is excellent and trends "ready gourmet" or just below. The meat and seafood section is well staffed and has things like almond crusted flounder, high end beef, various exotic types of chicken breast etc. all looking freshly made and ready to take home and pop in the oven.

The produce section looks like it came from an issue of BH&G and everything in the grocery aisles is perfectly faced. A very clean operation and they price higher by about 20%+ on identical items compared to the lower tier stores. But that price difference has never deterred their shoppers before and I have visited during ups and downs in the economy and they have always maintained their shoppers. But what I saw today was a stark contrast.

I was only one of 3 people buying in the deli. I was the only one at the meat case and over in the huge produce section I was again one of 3 shoppers. When I checked out there were only 2 lanes open and one had 2 people and one had none having just finished with a man who had a small order. In total there may have been 10 shoppers in the whole store. It was eerily quiet for 6:00 p.m.

I believe this may very well tie into a trend of higher income shoppers moving to lower tier or "discount" stores not only for groceries but for other items as well. There was a report today from Dollar General that they are seeing a noticeable increase in customers from a higher economic level than before. DG had an earnings call on 06/03/25:

"In a Tuesday earnings call, CEO Todd Vasos said the company saw net sales increase by 5.3 percent to $10.4 billion."

The report also noted:

"Vasos said that according to a survey, his stores are seeing more middle and high-income earners spend their money at his locations.

"We believe these behaviors suggest that higher income customers are looking to maximize value while continuing to shop for items they want and need," said Vasos on the earnings call."

So here we are folks with Crumb The 1st on the attack against tourism, visitors as workers, visitors as students and announcing that they will now change how much data is collected for economic reporting from the US government. In other words "cooking the books". Seems to me somebody got felony convictions over crooked accounting. In any event here we are with the last report from the Fed not being encouraging either. So in a few short months we have gone from best economy in over 60 years to picking fights with every country in the world, grabbing people off the streets to the point that people are wary of visiting this country and attacking institutions of higher education. Higher education returns a very high net positive for our economy.

So many people, middle income and higher, are obviously changing their buying and what happens to various retailers remains to be seen. But price certainly appears to be making itself a higher priority in shopping decisions.