How to Make Direct Mail Useless

About four of five months ago a Boston-based New England supermarket chain called Stop & Shop shuttered all six of its stores in New Hampshire. The stores had been open for about five years but they didn’t seem to compete well with some other regional chains and especially with Wal-Mart supercenters. Stop & Shop’s prices were higher—substantially on some items—and key products such as meat and produce weren’t competitive in terms of quality. So they pulled the plug, selling the stores to bare shelves in a matter of days with 50 percent off of the pricing on everything. That finally made it worth going to one of the stores.