Cincinnati, Ohio here. No we havent seen anything of that sorts yet. A few new stores have even opened up. We have a few Costcos, a jungle Jims, and several SAMS stores here. Also we are surroned by Farms and major interstates and a waterway. What I am starting to see is long lines downtown at the free food stores and the federal and state goverments welfare offices, lots of people are hurting here in Cincinnati. Winter is getting ready to set in here and things look bad for the homeless and and poor people in the city. The local goverment is corrupt and our trying to build street cars instead of opening up some jobs for the ones who need it...

Bad times and a Hard winter are coming here in Cincinnati.

Columbus Ohio checking in and I have noticed that my local Kroger seemed to have a lot of empty shelf space. I didn't think much of it at the time.

Missouri Checking in here, this has been going on in our state since last christmas, our Wlmarts didnt even order new decorating items fo rchristmas, they simply put out th eleft overs from the year before, and now, shelves are empty all over the store. They just did big remodels in all the Walmarts I frequent, one of the things they did was to widen the isles so that three carts could all pass at the same time.
I didnt think anything about it, except that it was way more convenient than the congested isles they used to have. Then I realized, more space between the isles, less shelves they have to fil....hmmmmm

Originally posted by Circle

Originally posted by amatrine
Anyone else seeing this?

T

My my how you are suffering you poor old American Thang!! My God, your Country per head of population, has been consuming more resources than any other Nation on Earth. 25 obscene per cent to be exact. Try living in Ethiopia or Bangladesh and see how its like to survive. They have nothing.

I am not saying we are worse than another nations? Where did that come from ? I am showing what is going on now and trying to see if this is going on anywhere else.

I don't know what's scarier......the fact that some of you are experiencing this or the fact that some of you are supporting the fascist, monopolistic, tyrannical company called Wal Mart!

I'm in SoCal. I'm not experiencing any of this. But I also shop at Costco and local mom and pop grocery stores.

Still lots of food here.

But I have notice the sales and discounts are far less than they use to be. Using the store 'savings card', I use to get 20-25 dollars off my cart of groceries each time I went. Now it is only 7-8 dollar savings on the same foods in the same amounts.

I'm a Kentucky resident, and when we went to our local Whole Foods, I noticed a couple of shelves were empty of the store's own brand of spices. They've been moving things around, so I assumed they were just cleaning the shelves or something. Last week when we went back, the empty shelves were filled with the spices.

I don't buy too much at Kroger, but we went in last week to buy a few items. I was surprised that there was only one 5 pound bag of bread flour on the shelf.

I can't tell you about Wal-Mart because it's very rare that I go there.

There's an international grocery store in town that we've been going to for about 13 years. My husband and I were both shocked to see how bare their shelves were. I presume business must not be good for them right now and so they're ordering less.



[edit on 5-10-2009 by cornblossom]

I am free to shop where I want. At least for now.

Now I went to Wallmart looking for a quilt , the one they had at Annes linnens was $100. The same one at wallmart was $60. I compare shop at home.

I just go where they best prices are. We are a one income family. Must be nice to have the luxury to go where you want to. We do not have that luxury.

My old bedspread was ripped to shreads and feathers all over my room, and had to be replaced. I was looking for the cheapest way to replace it, yet find one that was not going to fall apart in a month.

Freedom of choice also means free to shop where you want.

O do not shop for food at wallmart, it is actually more expensive there. Frys here has the best deals there.

Back when I was able to work to, we shopped safeway,. but can not afford them anymore.

Anyway way mute point that I am even explaining myself. We need to stop judging others on everything from where they shop to what they drive.

When times are hard, and the only place you can buy a load of bread ( being hypothetical) is wallart, are you going to starve instead ?

A poster earlier hit the nail on the head: It's not the Albertson's, Krogers, Targets or Wal-Marts of the world that are having the short-term credit issues. It's the suppliers.

I've been hearing about this for some time and I believe it's getting worse. The regular supplier of, say, Kroger fish. I'm making this up, but it illustrates a point (and protects the person who told me the real story). Let's say that supplier has relationships with five different fishing fleets. They take a percentage guaranteed each week of the total catch, package it by weight and type and sell it in bulk to Krogers.

That supplier's risk is banking on just how much Kroger will buy. If it buys them out, terrific! If slightly under, the supplier takes a small hit but not enough to really feel much pain. If orders are really under, the supplier panics, and is forced to sell its fish at extreme discount to other stores. This happens once or twice a year, it's a write-offable loss. If it happens a lot - then the real problems begin.

You see, since the supplier uses short-term credit, it's going to do anything it can to pay the bank off. So the pain then rolls down hill. The supplier then takes its time to pay the fishermen, perhaps even delaying payment more than 90 days. If this happens enough, then the fishing fleet can't buy the fuel it needs to trow for more fish because their credit is even shakier.

Suddenly, we have a supply problem. Even when Krogers is willing to buy, if the fishing fleet is unable to go out or out of business, there may be a delay as the supplier renegotiates with new fishing fleets, or even worse, Kroger has to negotiate with a new supplier because the other broker went out of business.

This all bleeds into delays - and empty shelves.

Seattle here and I haven't seen shortages yet but I don't shop at
satan mart. From the looks of y'all's posts, just maybe satan mart has bitten off more than it can chew and is in trouble?
What I have noticed though is new weird brand names, smaller sizes and more expensive prices!

VERY interesting you are noticing this! I started noticing slightly less stocked shelves about 6 months ago. I thought it was just me being paranoid and "looking" for ominous signs thus was noticing things that were actually normal.

It wasn't empty shelves everywhere but a few here and there and just less of many things, especially in hunting/fishing/ camping departments (of course that could be in line with the lack of ammo, etc, people buying "survival" stuff)

It is becoming increasingly noticeable here in Michigan but that could be due to people having ALOT less money to spend thus stores are buying less. Either way, YES it is happening, for whatever reason.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by I_am_Spartacus]