Word: supermarketeers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1950
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Every day for the past two weeks it has been the same," said a checkout girl in a Detroit A & J supermarket. "I just get the prices fixed in my mind when the manager comes up with another half-dozen raises. Eggs are down two cents today-that I can remember...
...grocery business must be a good one," one of A & P's top men likes to say, "there are so many stupid people in it." John himself insists that he and George were almost the stupidest of the lot; they almost let the self-service supermarket go by without recognizing it as the biggest revolution in the food business since John's economy store...
...When supermarkets sprang up in the early '30s, Mr. George and Mr. John thought them mere Depression pan-flashes. Not until their own sales tumbled did they realize that supermarkets were putting their own "combination" stores out of business. But if the Hartfords started late, they moved fast, started opening supermarkets right & left, and added such wrinkles as pre-packaged meats & produce, weighed and pricetagged. They expanded by contracting. Each new supermarket closed some six of the old-type A & Ps so that the number of stores dwindled from 1930's peak of 15,737 to today...
...such flipmagilding. He sat down and personally signed letters to 40,000 men & women in his employ warning them, on penalty of discharge, that every A & P customer "must get 16 ounces to every pound." Moreover, John set up a big board at headquarters to mark every supermarket's quarterly showing, raised hob whenever one turned up the white card indicating a "stock gain," i.e., a dollar "take" exceeding the retail value of all goods sold, a sign of possible overcharging or short-weighing. Now, says Mr. John firmly, virtually all of the supermarkets consistently show stock losses...
...says that it has abolished Acco's double role. It has also leaned so far backward to avoid selling below cost that even its fiercest rivals now concede that they can frequently undersell A & P. In New Orleans last week, Independent Grocer John Schwegmann, who runs a thriving supermarket, said: "I started on a shoestring right down the street from the A & P supermarket and I have done all right. I consider them the fairest competition I have...