With sales on the decline once again at Sackville’s Co-Op store, shoppers are being urged to spend more of their grocery dollars locally.
George DeBenedetti, chair of Sackville Co-Op’s local council, said the store has been incurring losses since last November and he is concerned with the downward trend.
“There’s so much competition out there, and so people’s grocery dollars are being spread out more,” said DeBenedetti.
Besides the competition from SuperStore and Sobeys in nearby Amherst and Moncton, there are also many new outlets selling groceries including Walmart, Jean Coutu and Zellers, he pointed out.
He said although membership has been on the rise for the past couple of years and the store is constantly busy, people seem to be divvying up their money in different ways.
“It’s not that there’s fewer shoppers, they’re just buying less.”
In fact, according to numbers collected from the Co-Op in 2009, about 80 per cent of the members spent less than $1,000 at the store last year, with 48 per cent of those spending nothing at all. Only 10 per cent purchased more than $2,000.
DeBenedetti attributes the changes to a shift in shopping habits, with people not only spreading their money around to a number of different stores but also spending less on groceries because busy families and active seniors are eating out more.
He encouraged residents, however, to try and increase their share of their grocery budget at the Sackville Co-Op because the store cannot continue its downhill slide without consequences.
“It’s simply a matter of people making more of a concerted effort . . . people have to be encouraged to shop in town,” he said.
This is not the first time the Co-Op has struggled due to declining sales.
In fact, in the fall of 1999 – after less than two years in operation and facing more than $500,000 in debt – the store was set to close its doors but was given a last-minute reprieve after members came forward to support the local grocery shop.
It took several years and a complete make-over, but the store made a turn-around and was finally operating at a profit by 2008.
DeBenedetti said he’s hopeful that the downhill slide can be reversed and the store can once more get out of the red.
