L to R: Susanne, Ida, Kendra, Leigh, Brittany, Richard, and Melissa
Suzanne Schmitz is the owner of the Ontario Save-A-Lot store and three others. All of the Save-A-Lot stores in the western New York area are franchised and independently owned. As her first job, Schmitz started working as a cashier at a Save-A-Lot in the Buffalo area and stayed with them until she opened her own store. Schmitz moved up within the organization to district manager of 5 stores. In 2010 Schmitz opened her first of 4 stores, opening the Ontario store in 2014.
Store owners sign an agreement which allows the owners to use the Save-A-Lot name and also commits the owners to purchase the bulk of items sold at Save-A-Lot from the corporation. Most of the items come on one truck, a few times a week. In addition to supplying items for sale, the corporation also helps coordinate the advertising. There are 1,300 stores across 46 states in the United States.
Save-A-Lot supplies about 85% of the items in the store. Store owners buy some meat and produce locally. They purchase items such as Upstate Milk, Heluva Good Cheese, Zweigle’s, and many others locally. Schmitz wants to stress that they do cut meat at this location. There are butchers on site every day. She takes pride in selling the highest quality fresh cut meat at very reasonable prices.
Schmitz is very happy with the sales at the Ontario location. The store is out-performing projected sales but there is still room to grow. This is a very competitive industry where everybody wants to be a discount grocery store. You are seeing more and more private label goods in the conventional grocery stores. They operate on a very low margin, relying on volume to offset higher prices. They are a hard discounter, with very low prices on canned goods and those kinds of staple items. While the store may not have as much variety as a conventional supermarket, they offer low prices on all the items customers buy most, while featuring the full produce and fresh cut meat departments.
Schmitz likes to respond to the local customers, so she tries to honor requests from clients for items that she would not normally stock. Melissa Jozwiak is the store manager and has been with the store since it opened. The store currently has around 15 employees.
The hours of operation are: 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM, Seven Days A Week
Save-A-Lot can be reached by phone at: 315-524-3810
Congratulations to Save-A-Lot as Business of the Month for November.
Ontario Chamber of Commerce is pleased to salute this Ontario Business as the “Business of the Month.” The customized “Business of the Month” announcement sign is posted at their business. They are also featured in The Sun & Record with The Wayne County Mail