Yes, I worked Wednesday 8 to 4 and even though it was the day before Thanksgiving, it wasn't any busier than a normal Saturday. I couldn't believe it, we are normally slammed the day before Thanksgiving.
Yeah, it was a little weird for me too. Our sales numbers in bakery were good ($3500 one day, more than double a regular day in my store) but overall in the whole store, it wasn't as crazy as i expected it to be. It was like a regular Friday or Saturday.
I wonder what area you are in -Probably a combination of things:better deals elsewhere, it might have to do some with all the ppl they just fired.. They, their family, friends etc word of mouth... - They probably didn't shop there -plus if they are out their complaining it might have driven other's off to. Basically the "restructure" didn't help - nor does Kroger's worsening reputation and ability to retain good workers help..
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of the shelves being low/empty (because Kroger refuses to adequately staff grocery and the other departments) and are turning elsewhere for their grocery needs.
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of only a couple of registers being open on the front end as they walk past the multiple clusters of self check-outs with shopping carts of the stuff that they did find on shelves and want to buy (keep yanking out registers to make room for more self check-outs so you can slash cashier/courtesy clerk hours, Kroger).
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of how cluttered the stores are because of shippers/rounders/displays taking up precious space down already narrow aisles/at the end of aisles (instead of putting stuff on the shelf where customers go first let's make them search half/the entire store for a random shippers, FUN!).
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of how nasty and dirty the stores/carts/bathrooms/departments look because there aren't enough employees/hours to do proper cleaning.
Other than that, I can't possibly imagine why it might have been slower this past Thanksgiving...
No, we were crazy busy. Did like 100% more in sales this year. But we had 2 grocery stores close in the past year in my town, including a small Kroger.
Yes People in the store move slower. My coworkers are so entitled they said they think its a holiday they dont have to work as hard. They are getting paid time and a half. Come in the next day and have to struggle on a skeleton crew to get things done its a damn debacle.
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of the shelves being low/empty (because Kroger refuses to adequately staff grocery and the other departments) and are turning elsewhere for their grocery needs.
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of only a couple of registers being open on the front end as they walk past the multiple clusters of self check-outs with shopping carts of the stuff that they did find on shelves and want to buy (keep yanking out registers to make room for more self check-outs so you can slash cashier/courtesy clerk hours, Kroger).
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of how cluttered the stores are because of shippers/rounders/displays taking up precious space down already narrow aisles/at the end of aisles (instead of putting stuff on the shelf where customers go first let's make them search half/the entire store for a random shippers, FUN!).
Maybe customers are finally getting tired of how nasty and dirty the stores/carts/bathrooms/departments look because there aren't enough employees/hours to do proper cleaning.
Other than that, I can't possibly imagine why it might have been slower this past Thanksgiving...
Good sales might get to the point where Kroger won't keep stores open on turkey day. People should be with their families. I lost so much family time with this company. Time I'll never get back. Thanks Kroger *middle finger*.
Yes, in the past, once the lines got started they wouldn't die down, until the evening, but this year during the middle of the day, it only got busy once.
Yes. Hopefully people are discovering that they have many options for where to shop. You get extra pay for the actual holiday so half of your usual hours. Busy, most of the time but sometimes quite slow.
My bakery did $7800 on Wednesday, which is double what we would normally do. Thanksgiving day seemed to be slow but we did beat our forecasted sales budget for the day by almost $500
Thanksgiving was one week later this year than mast year. There have been several price increases since the same time last year. You'd have to really look at last year's Thanksgiving week sales, vs this year's and shave about 2-5% off this year(price increases in fresh departments) to really get a true number.
If your division president didnt recognize any record sales during the holiday, that's a bad sign