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| Monday to Saturday 8 am to 7 pm Sunday 10 am to 3 pm (406) 462-5444 winifredgrocery @yahoo.com |
March 24th, 2011
Dear Winifred community members,
How time flies! It’s been a year and a half since we took the reins at Winifred Grocery, and we have
learned more than we could have imagined during that time. We sometimes wondered if we bit off more
than we could chew, but we deeply appreciate your support and patronage that saw us through that
transition and gave us the confidence to keep up the fight. We are constantly reminded how wonderful the
Winifred community has always been and always will be.
When we purchased the store, we faced a big decision. Would we take the path of many other small town
stores around the country and move toward being a high-priced convenience store with limited inventory;
or, rather, would we aim to maintain Winifred Grocery as a place where the Winifred community could do all
of their grocery shopping with competitive prices and an expansive inventory?
We decided that Winifred deserved to have a “real” grocery store, and we have gone full speed ahead in
our efforts to expand the product offering and shelf space.
This was a risky move and made it important that we continue to increase our sales in order to keep the
store in business. But in much the same way that we like to brag that Winifred is the best small town in the
state, we want to be the best small town grocery store in the state.
With the continued support of our community, we think these efforts will ultimately be a great success.
As part of our ongoing efforts to make Winifred Grocery the best store it can be, we just completed a huge
project to evaluate all of our grocery prices (several thousand items). What we found was quite
impressive. About 70% of our prices were already at or below (and often far below) the prices on the same
products at Albertsons. Of course, we didn’t want to settle for just 70%, so when we identified products
that were priced higher than Albertsons, we permanently lowered those prices as well.
With these price changes we just put into effect, virtually all of our grocery items now have prices as low or
lower than Albertsons.
We are also starting a regular program of sales to make sure that Albertsons never has a leg up on us
when it comes to prices. In this way, we hope that we can earn a larger share of the Winifred community
grocery shopping dollar.
We are also happy to announce that we have recently been approved as an authorized SNAP retailer.
Effective very soon, we will welcome SNAP card payments for qualified grocery items.
In this package, we have included several write-ups that we hope will be helpful and will answer a lot of the
questions you may have about the store. We hope you get a chance to read through them when you have
some free time.
We have also included a survey that we really hope you can fill out and return to us in the self-addressed
and stamped envelope we have enclosed. We know that most everyone in Winifred is incredibly nice and
polite and hate to feel like they are complaining, but this one time, we really want (and need) everyone to
be as brutally honest and critical as possible. In order for us to create the best store we can, we
desperately need to know everyone’s true thoughts about what we might be able to improve upon. So
please fill out that survey and give us the most critical opinions you can muster. We promise that we won’t
take it personally—we will only use it to make Winifred Grocery the best store it can be.
Thanks again for your support and patronage, and here’s to hoping for a wonderful 2011 for the entire
Winifred community!
Best regards,
Winifred Grocery
www.winifredgrocery.com
winifredgrocery@yahoo.com
Dear Winifred community members,
How time flies! It’s been a year and a half since we took the reins at Winifred Grocery, and we have
learned more than we could have imagined during that time. We sometimes wondered if we bit off more
than we could chew, but we deeply appreciate your support and patronage that saw us through that
transition and gave us the confidence to keep up the fight. We are constantly reminded how wonderful the
Winifred community has always been and always will be.
When we purchased the store, we faced a big decision. Would we take the path of many other small town
stores around the country and move toward being a high-priced convenience store with limited inventory;
or, rather, would we aim to maintain Winifred Grocery as a place where the Winifred community could do all
of their grocery shopping with competitive prices and an expansive inventory?
We decided that Winifred deserved to have a “real” grocery store, and we have gone full speed ahead in
our efforts to expand the product offering and shelf space.
This was a risky move and made it important that we continue to increase our sales in order to keep the
store in business. But in much the same way that we like to brag that Winifred is the best small town in the
state, we want to be the best small town grocery store in the state.
With the continued support of our community, we think these efforts will ultimately be a great success.
As part of our ongoing efforts to make Winifred Grocery the best store it can be, we just completed a huge
project to evaluate all of our grocery prices (several thousand items). What we found was quite
impressive. About 70% of our prices were already at or below (and often far below) the prices on the same
products at Albertsons. Of course, we didn’t want to settle for just 70%, so when we identified products
that were priced higher than Albertsons, we permanently lowered those prices as well.
With these price changes we just put into effect, virtually all of our grocery items now have prices as low or
lower than Albertsons.
We are also starting a regular program of sales to make sure that Albertsons never has a leg up on us
when it comes to prices. In this way, we hope that we can earn a larger share of the Winifred community
grocery shopping dollar.
We are also happy to announce that we have recently been approved as an authorized SNAP retailer.
Effective very soon, we will welcome SNAP card payments for qualified grocery items.
In this package, we have included several write-ups that we hope will be helpful and will answer a lot of the
questions you may have about the store. We hope you get a chance to read through them when you have
some free time.
We have also included a survey that we really hope you can fill out and return to us in the self-addressed
and stamped envelope we have enclosed. We know that most everyone in Winifred is incredibly nice and
polite and hate to feel like they are complaining, but this one time, we really want (and need) everyone to
be as brutally honest and critical as possible. In order for us to create the best store we can, we
desperately need to know everyone’s true thoughts about what we might be able to improve upon. So
please fill out that survey and give us the most critical opinions you can muster. We promise that we won’t
take it personally—we will only use it to make Winifred Grocery the best store it can be.
Thanks again for your support and patronage, and here’s to hoping for a wonderful 2011 for the entire
Winifred community!
Best regards,
Winifred Grocery
www.winifredgrocery.com
winifredgrocery@yahoo.com