Posts: 57
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Joined: Dec 2011
Safeway is one of the biggest rippoffs!Either people here have alot of money or they are all on foodstamps because no one complains about the highway robbery that is being performed everyday by these stores inclusive of Keaau Foodland. Mrs Smith pies t safeway usually run about 5.79 or so a box. One day I saw a sale on these pies. Apple etc. They raised the price to over ten bucks then put a tag saying sale 8 bucks or so as a price. Local folk really do not see this stuff happening but I do. Or they do this. They practically double price of an item and have a sale saying buy one get one free! People ee this and say WOW good deal I get one free! Just a way of safeway to get you to buy two at their normal price! Why do we put up with this and allow these thieves to purge our pockets? It is a licence to allow them to continue.Foodland in Keaau is another example. A bottle of vo5 shampoo normally sells in a proper price of about 1.09 to 1.79. In this store $4.79!Ok I understand the concept of business is to make profit, BUT, how much? They buy this shampoo from distributors for about a qurter to 50 cents and profit from you 400%???
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Many people here know what a "good price" on something is in the grocery stores. Anyone who has shopped here for any length of time knows when something is in fact a very good buy. Yes.... many times Safeway does push their prices into outer space on some items and then say that it's a sale price. And if your a smart consumer of food....you'll know this isn't true...and common sense dictates that you go somewhere else to buy...or you don't buy at all. When we go to safeway...we only buy items that we need that are indeed a good price. Otherwise we go elsewhere or we do without...until some store brings the items price back down to earth.
Posts: 378
Threads: 7
Joined: Oct 2011
Common sense goes a lot further than complaining. Safeway can have some good bargains if you sign up for their discount card. I like some of their bakery bread. Their fruit flown in is verrry high. Buy local. Very easy. Always something in season. Beats being angry all the time.
Posts: 274
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Joined: Jun 2010
If your crunching a budget you have to selectively shop when living here. My wife gets the ads in the mail on Tuesday/Wednesday and plots her shopping based on that. All 3 major stores are in close vicinity so it's easy to go to each and grab their specials. Lately my wife has been saying that safeway is good for meat prices (with the rewards card). Also you have to learn to buy things when they are on sale and save them up, for example this week she found some london broil on sale and bought what we would eat in 3 or 4 weeks and in the freezer it goes - next week it might be chicken.
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Joined: Nov 2010
Safeway is good for milk, sometimes bread and booze, and little else unless it's on special sale. You always need their card to get a decent price. For everything else, KTA usually has lower prices. Avoid the produce at Safeway; occasionally they have decent sales, but most of it is either plastic or overpriced. They sell lemons for $2.29 each, while KTA sells them for $2.29/pound (the exact same ones, mainland Sunkist; for some reason no one sells regular, non-Meyer lemons at the farmer's market). For some things, Target is good - they have King Arthur flour (the good stuff) $5/bag, the same price as the regular Gold Medal flour.
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Joined: Mar 2009
After a while you just know what store is good for what. Foodland is very high on shampoos, paper goods like toilet paper, cleaning supplies and frozen foods. It's got to be they don't get good deals from certain suppliers. Their store brand (same as Malama of course) is Best and it's usually very good and reasonable. I like Safeway only for certain items - tend to do my major shopping there bc I know the brands - and they tend to have pretty good prices on frozen foods, compared to Foodland, say, but as condoman said, upping a price only to lower it for a sale is transparently bad business. I refuse to take part in Safeway's new program where you have to go online to get bargains. Don't make me work for low prices - lower your frickin' prices and I'll spend more there. And those lemon prices, really - how ridiculous. I just make sure I go to multiple stores, pick up certain things I know are priced well there, and pick up multiples of things w/good sale prices when I see them.
Posts: 378
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Joined: Oct 2011
I can't figure out who buys those lemons and limes. They are usually free. Even if you don't have trees, you must know someone who does. I've tought about this since they opened the new store. Who buys them? Do they throw them out? What?
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I tried to sell my lemons and limes to them for $1.25Lb. They are organically grown and I sell to the health food stores on a irregular basis. They said they have their mainland suppliers for those items and they are obligated to buy only from them.
Posts: 55
Threads: 7
Joined: Aug 2010
why would someone complain about having to go online to add the specials to their safeway card. obviously if they are on here blogging they have time go to the page and do it.
There are three types of Safeway specials online.
1) is Club Card savings. You get them whether you go online or not. The online option is for people who like to see the specials and make a shopping list. The online site creates a list out of everything you tag and will email it to you or you can print it. Some people may like this feature.
2) Personalized prices.
This is where they give you a break on items you buy frequently that is lower than the sale price. You do have to go online and find these, but it doesn't take long, and they can be worth it, because it is stuff you actually buy that has been noted by your purchases using your club card number.
3) Third-party coupons
This is not even Safeway, so why would the store just lower to this price. This is the new version of manufacturer coupons, only instead of clipping them you click on them and the expiration dates are automatically tracked, and the computer at the register automatically applies the savings.
If you are a coupon hunter, you should like this feature, unless you like sitting down and clipping coupons and having a wallet full of them. If you aren't into coupons, you can ignore it.
Safeway still gives paper coupons with your sales receipt, and it pays to look at them, as last week I got one for $10 off on a purchase over $10.
"And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody, outside of a small circle of friends ~ Phil Ochs