Anne Bruce
Safeway is initiating a revolution in its pricing strategy, preparing to mark down prices across the board with a permanent price cuts mechanism.
The every day low pricing tactic will run in tandem with its deep cut approach known as Gonzales.
Prices have already been lowered on 1,000 lines across all categories in all stores, and Safeway plans to have reassessed thousands of lines by the end of the year.
Safeway commercial manager Tim Lawrence said the "price cuts" concept, which was introduced on 150 lines at the start of May, is similar to that of Asda's Roll-back promotion.
He said: "We know customers respond well to price cuts and promotions from looking at sales of our deep cut items.
"We will be identifying areas where we believe prices could be keener from a customer point of view."
Category buyers will advise how much it is possible to shave prices in view of the fact that higher sales volumes on discounted items will result in cost savings, he said.
And all items will be marked down from the prevalent Safeway national price set through its national pricing policy.
Safeway's more expensive convenience style stores will also offer price cuts using a separate pricing scale which brings prices into line with the main chain.
Lawrence said: "We measure ourselves on the price of a typical basket, and we already consider ourselves cheaper than Tesco and on a par with Morrisons and Asda.
"These price cuts will drive us a bit lower in the market. We will also continue to monitor all prices ­ we won't publicise every price cut, only those which are appropriate."
Price cuts will be advertised by publicity in store and Safeway will continue to use its WOW leaflets to promote its deep price cuts.

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