BJs Wholesale Club degradation

[Amethyst]

Belonging to a grocery club is part of our LBYM strategy for groceries. The closest one to us is BJs, and we get a reduced BJs membership fee through work. We accept that BJs doesn't carry everything we need, so we have a complementary grocery-store strategy as well.

In the past year, BJs seems to be going downhill. They keep moving the products around to weird places in the store (raisins and dried apricots have been in 4 different illogical places), and there is never anyone to ask where anything is located. Worse, they're starting to lose items that we consider staples.

Item: ACT fluoride rinse. Disappeared roughly a year ago; hasn't been seen since, although BJs has an entire aisle devoted to dental products.
Item: Giant box of Triscuit crackers for $5.99 - roughly 1/3 what we'd pay for the same amount of Triscuits at the grocery store. Disappeared from the shelves 2 months ago.
Item: Big box of Carnation dry milk, which I use for instant-coffee mix that I take to work. Today, there was nothing but canned milk.
Item: Friskies cat food, shredded style, which our cats prefer. For a year, BJs has carried only loaf style.

Anybody else noticed this degradation at their box store? Is Costco any better?

 

[freebird5825]

Um...before somebody else gets frisky, please re-read your thread title.

I'm not a BJ's shopper, but dh2b's boss is, big time.
I've heard (secondhand) that his boss had similar things to say about BJ's.
No Costco in the immediate area.

 

[REWahoo]

Um...before somebody else gets frisky, please re-read your thread title.

Intervention complete. Friskyness averted.

 

[bbbamI]

Intervention complete. Friskyness averted.

Ahhh....shoot.

 

[W2R]

Belonging to a grocery club is part of our LBYM strategy for groceries. The closest one to us is BJs, and we get a reduced BJs membership fee through work. We accept that BJs doesn't carry everything we need, so we have a complementary grocery-store strategy as well.

In the past year, BJs seems to be going downhill. They keep moving the products around to weird places in the store (raisins and dried apricots have been in 4 different illogical places), and there is never anyone to ask where anything is located. Worse, they're starting to lose items that we consider staples.

Item: ACT fluoride rinse. Disappeared roughly a year ago; hasn't been seen since, although BJs has an entire aisle devoted to dental products.
Item: Giant box of Triscuit crackers for $5.99 - roughly 1/3 what we'd pay for the same amount of Triscuits at the grocery store. Disappeared from the shelves 2 months ago.
Item: Big box of Carnation dry milk, which I use for instant-coffee mix that I take to work. Today, there was nothing but canned milk.
Item: Friskies cat food, shredded style, which our cats prefer. For a year, BJs has carried only loaf style.

Anybody else noticed this degradation at their box store? Is Costco any better?

We don't have wholesale clubs or Costco here. But it is normal when I go to my regular grocery store (the most popular chain in my area, once Sav-A-Center and now Rouse's), that there will be half a dozen items that they carry but that have not been restocked.

* It has been over a month since I have been able to find any brand of sugarfree applesauce - - which I really don't think is THAT rare of an item in most communities.
* They stopped carrying boil-in-the-bag brown rice (of any brand) completely.
* Orville Redenbacher's 94% fat free butter popcorn is available in JUST the minibags, or in JUST the big bags, but never both and sometimes neither.
* Activia Light Yogurt is usually available in only one or two flavors (never the same ones)
* 93% fat free hamburger is available only about 2/3rds of the time
* on Monday they didn't have chicken breast boneless skinless tenders (though I must admit that usually they do)
* The big boxes of nonfat dry milk are something that I have to stock up on whenever I see it, because they don't have any on the shelves half the time.

The attitude since Katrina (when there was a food shortage here) has been that we are lucky to get anything so take it or leave it and get out.

 

[calmloki]

Y'know, i wasn't believing it when people were saying that the current gubbermint is going to hell in a hand basket - hell being defined as socialism. But in a stunning reflection of the food shortages you are noting, see this article:

Financial crisis: Moscow supermarket shelves increasingly empty in Soviet era reminder - Telegraph

Odd to note that they are blaming the shortages on capitalism...

 

[kumquat]

Not all that recent, though.

 

[Amethyst]

Um...before somebody else gets frisky, please re-read your thread title.


Heck, I never even thought of what the initials might stand for. For certain things, I would never consider anything except the full-length version

Reminds me of the time at work when someone asked me if I knew where the electric pencil sharpener was, and I innocently responded, "No, I generally just use the hand job."

 

[freebird5825]

Um...before somebody else gets frisky, please re-read your thread title.

Heck, I never even thought of what the initials might stand for. For certain things, I would never consider anything except the full-length version

My mind has a permanent address in the gutter.
It was all those years of repression in parochial school.

Ahem...the reason I don't use BJ's Club is because of the multi-unit packaging, like 3 large size mustards or 12 soups shrink wrapped together. I don't have the storage space for that kind of volume.

 

[clifp]

I am dying to know what the thread title was before Wahoo intervened. The current title is already LOL funny.

 

[W2R]

Yes, we have all known what "BJ" stands for since we were in Junior High School, if not before (haven't we?). But who would have thought that all these years later, as serious, responsible, mature adults, we would still be more interested in a joke based on "BJ" than on grocery prices?

 

[clifp]

But who would have thought that all these years later, as serious, responsible, mature adults, we would still be more interested in a joke based on "BJ" than on grocery prices?

I think the David Carradine thread certainly would give one a hint.

 

[kumquat]

Yes, we have all known what "BJ" stands for since we were in Junior High School, if not before (haven't we?). But who would have thought that all these years later, as serious, responsible, mature adults, we would still be more interested in a joke based on "BJ" than on grocery prices?

Well, since I'd never heard of BJ's groceries (or other products) what could I expect.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

Never have seen a BJ's. I do all my everyday type shopping at WalMart just for the better prices. Never buy meat there. As membership clubs go, I prefer Costco. We also have a Sam's but don't frequent it very much. Consumers Report did a rating on all(?) stores in May 2009 issue. #1 Wegman's, #2 Trader Joe's, #3 Publix, #7 Costco, #20 SuperTarget, #37 Kroger, #38 Sams, $42 BJ's, #56 Walmart Supercenter, etc. The ratings were based on responses to 32,500 shopper survery.
Not a very big number for a survey like this. I buy meat at Costco and a lot of their frozen food products but I stay away from things in large quantities like 1000 paper plates, packages of three quart size mustards, etc. Also, Costco's and Sam's don't offer much in the way of "low fat" or "fat free" foods. Seems like they cater more to restaurant businesses for food stuffs. They are rated tops locally for their pharmacy.

 

[Bestwifeever]

We stopped Costco a few years ago when it wasn't cost effective for us anymore; maybe I'll ask DH if he prefers Costco, Sams, or BJs.

 

[REWahoo]

... maybe I'll ask DH if he prefers Costco, Sams, or BJs.

If you have to ask...

 

[freebird5825]

as serious, responsible, mature adults, we would still be more interested in a joke based on "BJ" than on grocery prices?

serious, Strike 1
responsible, Strrrrrike 2
mature adults, STRIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKE 3, yer out!

Heeeheeeeheeeeee

 

[freebird5825]

I am dying to know what the thread title was before Wahoo intervened. The current title is already LOL funny.

Let the bidding begin....

 

[Amethyst]

Yes, we have all known what "BJ" stands for since we were in Junior High School, if not before (haven't we?). But who would have thought that all these years later, as serious, responsible, mature adults, we would still be more interested in a joke based on "BJ" than on grocery prices?

I for one am glad for the comic relief. This is a forum about very serious topics (money, investing, retirement...veering toward unemployment, family quarrels, aging, dread diseases). We need all the laughs we can get. I never heard the abbreviation "BJ" for anything but a store before. In my house, we always use long Latin words for sex acts.

Anyway, whatever you may call the warehouse stores, we figure we save around $2,000/year on grocery items by a strategy that includes them . That's why I get so annoyed when a key item goes missing.