Consider this a public declaration: Bill Artman wants you back.
If you’re a former Giant Eagle customer who has strayed — enticed by the low prices at Walmart, seduced by the bulk packages at Costco, lured online by Amazon — Mr. Artman, the interim CEO of the O’Hara-based grocery chain, vows to rise every morning focusing on ways to win back your affection (and your business).
In his first interview since taking the helm at Giant Eagle in March, Mr. Artman said he wants the company to regain its market share in the region after news broke last month that Walmart had pulled ahead as the top grocery retailer in Greater Pittsburgh.
“We have to get better. It’s that simple,” he said. “Our customers are telling us that they want to shop with us. Our customers are telling us that they're looking for a better value. And I think a couple of the steps that we've taken over the last couple of weeks are an indication that we hear them.”
To let customers know it’s listening, Giant Eagle is bringing back the printed circular this week, after going digital in the Cleveland market in January and in Western Pennsylvania in March.
Customers complained. Mr. Artman said he heard them.
The circulars will arrive in time to announce Giant Eagle’s latest “Price Lock” period, which starts May 4 and runs through Aug. 9. Some 800 items will have their prices discounted and locked during that time, the company said.
The price lock strategy began to take hold in the industry in the early aughts as a way of addressing customers’ concerns about product and commodity inflation. Giant Eagle first tried it in October 2012, locking in prices for about 300 items through the holiday season. With a good customer response, the chain introduced another round in 2013. Its most recent price lock period was during the summer of 2022.
Its return is a nod to the rapid rise in food prices over the past few years — 11.4% inflation in 2022 alone — which the company said are beginning to stabilize.
“Customers are looking for value and they're willing to shop other places and not be specifically one-store loyal,” Mr. Artman said, acknowledging that shoppers are increasingly patronizing multiple stores and filling physical and virtual carts at the same time.
Still, “I want people to think of Giant Eagle first,” he said. “Not just the supermarket, but our GetGo locations, our pharmacy, our online offering.
“In Pittsburgh… the pie is the pie,” he said. “The pieces just got smaller” as competitors entered the market.
But if there’s a market share percentage in the back of Mr. Artman’s mind, he’s won’t share it.
“To lose one customer is too many for me,” he said. “So I want to get back every customer that has left us over the years.”
Locally sourced
In 1985, Mr. Artman, then a teenager at South Park High School, was hired as a bagger at the Bethel Park Giant Eagle. It was his first job.
“To move to cashier was going to be a big deal,” he said.
But he leapfrogged cashier and became night crew manager. “And from there,” he said, “I just rode the different progression of opportunities that were available to me.”
The ride included stops in Pittsburgh, Morgantown, Erie, Akron, and Cleveland; in store management, executive roles, and, most recently, as president of supermarkets.
“I fell in love with the business,” he said. “I fell in love with the company and [was] fortunate enough that it fell in love with me back.”
He lives outside of Akron and drives into Pittsburgh several times a week. Since Giant Eagle no longer has a home office location and corporate functions are virtual, the arrangement suits him fine.
Mr. Artman’s appointment as interim CEO marked a seismic shift at the 93-year-old company, which was founded by five families and had always been led by a member of one of the original families. That changed March 22 when the board of directors parted ways with CEO Laura Shapira Karet.
Since then, the company has launched a review of the business.
“I've spent the last six weeks trying to be a much better listener,” Mr. Artman said, “listening to both our team members as well as our customers, as well as friends and neighbors … who are sharing with me, either what they like about Giant Eagle, or how they would like to shop more at Giant Eagle.”
He likes to say the grocery chain should “think like the customer, not for the customer” and considers minimizing customer frustration, either in the store or online, as a key metric for Giant Eagle’s success.
“We have to make sure that we're providing our stores with the appropriate amount of help to take care of the customer,” he said. That means those who choose a belted register have a cashier and a bagger at their service.
“We don't want self checkout to be the default option because there's no cashier there,” Mr. Artman said.
It may come as a surprise to some shoppers, but there are those who prefer self checkout, Mr. Artman insisted.
It also means leaning into technology — “whether that's utilizing cameras in stores to help identify when we have an out of stock (item) and replenish the shelves faster” or the recent launch of Giant Eagle’s online pet pharmacy.
When asked about the possibility that Giant Eagle is preparing itself for a sale, or about the “interim” in his title, Mr. Artman gave two versions of the same answer: He is focusing on running the business as well as he can.
“We'll see what happens with the title,” he said. “But it's my intention to continue to lead this company for a long time.”
Anya Litvak: alitvak@post-gazette.com
First Published: May 2, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: May 2, 2023, 4:08 p.m.