Wegmans is Too Expensive

Whenever we came home from a weekend trip to visit family in central Virginia we would stop at Wegmans in Manassas to pick up groceries on Sunday afternoon. We would also get subs made to order for dinner. We always liked the fruit selection and it was a great place in general. We haven’t done that for a while. Since then a Wegmans opened in our northern Virginia neighborhood just a couple of miles away. So we finally went there this morning to try it out. All I can say is that we won’t be going back any time soon. The store is located in the Capitol One building. You need to park underground and take a stamped ticket. The first hour is free. We didn’t get any meat and the bill was $140. We did get two ready made dinners because we have a condo meeting this evening and a library program to watch this afternoon so wanted to save time cooking. The chocolate chip cookie box was $15! I didn’t realize it at the time. We usually spend $3.99 for the same thing at Giant. Our favorite Petit Basque cheese was $7.50 for two bites. We passed. We were also confused by the environment as well and they didn’t have the usual brands we like. They didn’t have the French bread we usually get so we mistakenly picked up sourdough. We had four bags of groceries and felt a bit cheated when we walked out. There is a new Lidl opening just down the street this summer.  We may check it out. In the meantime we will go back to Giant where things are cheaper and we are more familiar with the place and it’s close by. I didn’t think we would be in this sort of situation at this time in our lives. It’s very uncomfortable. 

Wegmans Grocery Shopping and Items Per Minute

Whenever we come home from a short trip to Lynchburg we usually stop at Wegmans to pick up something for dinner. It’s located right before the turn off from 129 to 66 and is about an hour from DC. What is most remarkable about the place is that it is always packed - but probably because it is usually on a weekend day. But what catches our eye is the fresh fruit and vegetables. We decided to do our weekly grocery shopping on Sunday that included picking up a ready made dish for supper. The fruit was so inviting we went a bit overboard - cherries, nectarines, oranges, watermelon, grapes, blueberries. On the way out there were so many registers available it was hardly a wait to get everything processed. What I did notice hanging on the wall was a big chart that showed “items per minute” - the number of items scanned at the register at check out. It was a performance measure that had a goal or target of 14. And for some of the days of the week and for the week were individuals named who met that goal. I used to track performance measures in a large heath care organization in the Midwest and then for the infrastructure support services at the Library of Congress. Maybe that’s why Wegmans does so well - everyone knows what is getting measured and the target that defines their success. I’m sure not everyone agrees with that approach, but I found it very interesting. Especially since it was so visible to not only management, but the employees and customers as well. Now all they need is a big graph to show results over time. I always found that most telling.