Giant Sales Slip No Suprise
May 27th, 2006 by Alex
According to this week’s Business Gazette “sales slipped 2 percent during the first quarter for Giant Food of Landover, according to a [recent SEC filing].” This shouldn’t come as a big suprise, especially for folks who have been in the Maryland area for a while.
While it appears that Giant’s Dutch-owned parent company is attempting to recover from a small Enron-esqe accounting saga, many residents are simply shopping elsewhere these days. At the consumer level, who cares if the parent company is in hot water? As consumers we’re more likely to care about the price of a gallon of milk than the board slashing executive compensation, although the fact that Giant isn’t really American-owned is a bummer. No doubt some citizens ironically express their patriotism by shopping at WalMart instead.
Growing up, I lived about a mile from the nearest Giant. It was the closest grocery store, so my family shopped there a lot. There weren’t as many options back then. There are now 113 Giant Food and Super G supermarkets in Maryland, as well as other fine grocery stores. The fact is, Giant rarely has lower prices. The quality of produce is okay, but not great. Except for sales, the prices at Giant are just not competive with Shoppers, Lauer’s, or Weis. So I don’t shop there. Apparently others aren’t either. No wonder that their sales are slipping. That’s not news. It’s to be expected.
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