Price Rite - PriceRite Warehouse Clubs

PriceRite Warehouse Clubs

During the 1980s and early 1990s, many American supermarket chains experimented with opening their own warehouse clubs to compete with the new clubs that were invading their trade areas and stealing their business. SuperValu had Max-Club, Meijer had SourceClub, and H-E-B had its Bodega clubs. Meanwhile, Wakefern began PriceRite. Wakefern defined PriceRite as a “mini-club”, and at under 50,000 sq ft (5,000 m2)., promoted it as a convenient alternative to the massive conventional clubs.

The PriceRite logo is the same as a former ShopRite logo, only instead of the graphic of a shopping carriage with circles inside, there was a flatbed cart with square boxes on it to symbolize the wholesale nature of PriceRite. (This saved costs on new sign-frames for the stores, since they all were previously a ShopRite and already had round sign-frames)

PriceRite MiniClubs were opened in buildings that had previously housed ailing or outdated ShopRite stores and had been simply retrofitted with warehouse-type shelving. Thus, they lacked size, and didn't have enough of a following to attract shoppers away from the true warehouse competition (BJ's Wholesale Club, Pace Warehouse Club, and Price Club), which won over the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas.

Wakefern members operated PriceRite mini-clubs, including those in Rockaway Township and Toms River, New Jersey. The last PriceRite club closed in 1994.