Closing Supermarkets

This year four supermarkets in my area have already closed.

It does cause more effort to get groceries at least temporarily, but they are likely to be replaced by a different company's supermarket. The store closest to home closed months ago and went through renovations. It looks like the new supermarket, a gyomu or wholesale type market, will finally open in the next month.

Another supermarket from the same company closed last month and was reopened quickly afterwards as a discount AEON group store, The Big. It seems popular as there was only one other location in the central area and it's cheaper than the previous supermarket was.

Another store closed yesterday - the one where I went for ice cream and the occasional "Costco Fair" items. I'm not sure if it will be replaced by another supermarket.

The good and the bad.

As mentioned, there's inconvenience at not being able to shop as usual. In addition, the other nearby supermarkets that are still open can be more expensive.

The nice thing is, if you catch the right timing, you can get a lot of discounted products.

Without knowing the store was closing and had already started clearing out it's inventory, I recently stopped by for ice cream. Most products were 30% off and the shelves in the dry foods and snack sections were already more than half cleared out.

I wasn't planning on it, but I ended up buying a few things that we normally use at a discount. The refrigerated and frozen foods were not discounted, but for things like instant noodles and canned foods it's a chance to stock up.

Is it just my area, or are supermarkets suffering to stay in business near you too?