If you regularly use the deal lists for smaller grocery stores on Southern Savers, you’ll notice that there are not new ads for a few stores today.  Food City and Sprouts are a couple that we know of so far that haven’t released new ads, Ingles released only a one page ad.

Before you start to panic (or continue for some) here are a few possible reasons:

• Smaller stores don’t have the national contracts with brands the way Kroger, Publix and the other large chains do.  They are lower on the supply chain and will take a little longer to restock.
• Most stores are not issuing rain checks, so by not having a weekly ad they have less frustrated shoppers who can’t buy the deals.
• Sale flyers are generally made weeks ahead of time, go look at Bi-Lo’s “Bracket Busting Deals” this week for an example.  With stock out in sections of the store it is possible they decided to hold the ads for a future week.

Will we see larger stores drop their ads?

In talking with a few different contacts at some of the bigger chains I don’t think that is likely.  They have sales lined up multiple cycles in advance, and many of those are paid for by brands.  Stores lose money if they choose to not run and advertise those sales.

Note: Publix has paused the green and purple flyers for now to help with supply and because brands didn’t want to appear that they were encouraging you to shop.  I expect we see those brought back in 2-3 weeks.  It helped that the most recent flyers all mentioned NCAA promotions around basketball and were going to appear very outdated.

What We Might See

I don’t want to speculate much, but I will say there is a possibility some brands may ask to pull farther out promotions if the lockdown continues.  For their own advertising budget, to help with keeping supply, or because their factories have been affected.  It’s impossible for anyone to know exactly.

What I Do Know

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