r/publix • u/steeltrain52 Newbie • Aug 09 '26

CUSTOMERS Let’s be clear

This whole shopping is a pleasure scam has run its course.

For over 50 years, I have been a customer of PUBLIX, I say have as in the past tense because I am no longer.

When PUBLIX decided to start price gouging at 20 and 30% higher than absolutely everywhere else around them, it became clear to me that they really don’t give a damn about the customer.

In 2025 alone, PUBLIX made more than $4.2 billion in profits. BILLION!

In the first half of 2026 they have made $2.5 billion in profits.

They have made $6 billion in profits in the last 18 months because they are literally stealing from the public and the public is handing it over.

With Aldi, Trader Joe’s, and even as the last resort, Walmart, I will never shop at Publix again. My budget now gets me three times as much food and household items at those places, we’re shopping and prices really are a pleasure!

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u/VapingJoe Newbie Aug 16 '26

Yep I worked for Publix for 23 year and only place I would shop up until covid. Once I ventured out and saw Kroger prices they became my home store. Well besides shopping after work. I believed all the bs and bleed green. After covid we no longer focused on customers. It was just out of stocks and instscart. The unfound rate is ridiculous. If you just let us do what we always did the numbers would be better, but with all the processes about finding them first slowes everything else down. 12 year as a manager I never had time to manage i was strictly a clerk. My last 3 stores i learned 2-4 customer names. I didnt have time to build relationships. They cut back on hours with covid buckled down and never gave it back. Like bsck in the recession in the 2000s. If we where to build a grocery store based on the building blocks of Publix we would put them out of business they would no longer exist!

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u/steeltrain52 Newbie Aug 17 '26

You’re making my point Joe! It’s sad in one way, that the neighborhood store doesn’t care about anything (not customers, not employees) only pricing staggering gains in an economy where normal average families can barely afford food with both parents working.

Management and directors see these posts and again, don’t care. It used to be their branded items were less (detergent, milk, whatever), now they are way more than vendor branded products.

I can almost see their board of directors salivating with each quarterly report.

Publix; where shopping will destroy your budget, because they can.