I was thinking the other day as I found these chocolate nuts on sale for fifty cents at a supermarket. Unless I am reading it wrong it mentions that the product’s expiry date was last year. While granted they say a lot of food products are actually perfectly edible after the expiry date it made me think if having products like these in a store would substantially drop your reputation in terms of the quality you offer.
It reminded me of a story I read of a grocery store where they decided to take a chance and simply sell some produce that weren’t of the highest quality at a lower price. What ended up happening for them is that their customers started to go to other places which was a huge financial hit for them. Afterwards they started to only carry quality produce and the customer base began to develop again.
That’s kind of interesting too as some stores do offer the lower quality items and are very successful at it. I guess it come down to really understanding your demographic. Some people are willing to pay like one dollar for a single apple as an example as long as it is “perfect” I guess you can say. But in this specific case it was dumped in a specific section that clearly looks like the products are discounted for a reason. Would that make a difference though in terms of a company’s image for you? It makes me wonder how the bigger companies will do when they start to have things like ugly fruit sections.