Hacker News Reader

Comment by CSMastermind | Hacker News Reader

It looks like Wegmans, my favorite grocery store, isn't included in their data at all?

I searched for at least 2 counties I know have one and it wasn't included in their results.

That seems like a pretty big over sight given their presence in 9 states and almost 200 locations.

They did have the Pittsburgh based Giant Eagle but lacked many of the smaller chains in the area like Sparkle Markets: https://www.sparklemarkets.com/

Very cool project though. Wonder if there's any chance they'll open source their data.

View on HN

Wegmans is probably too regional for the point they are trying to make. We used to be the Hudson news of central Pennsylvania and it was exciting watching Wegmans move into our region. They were as great partner.

The exclusion of it seems to undermine their point?

They use a questionable method they use for their "Top Five Grocers by U.S. market share." which seems to be using fiscal year end sales for Walmart even though they sell more than food but only counting Whole Foods revenue for Amazon even though it obviously sells food through its main website.

If you correct for very obvious problems with the data source in their marketshare picture like limiting Walmart/Sam's Club to food sales and including Amazon's online food sales Walmart has about 18% of the market in the US and Amazon has about 11%.

It's weird that they use store count sourced through OpenStreetMap most of the article than in the graphic just kind of switch to a totally different source based on revenue?

But using that questionable method Wegman's would be the 13th largest chain right behind Trader Joe's which they do list and well above many of the chains in their dataset.

I have to imagine it's not an intentional exclusion just poor data collection?

Also why is Giant Eagle colored the same color as Ahold Delhaize on the map?

> Also why is Giant Eagle colored the same color as Ahold Delhaize on the map?

I had thought it was because Ahold Delhaize owned Giant, and they do. However, it turns out Giant Eagle is an entirely separate company, which makes the color pick even more confusing to me.

I see what you are saying. The article has and agenda and they are using it. Traders Joe’s is also nationwide but lacks the density in most areas.

I thinks Wegman’s focused on the Interstate 81 corridor for expansion.

> The exclusion of it seems to undermine their point?

I’m shocked, shocked, that a newspaper would exclude information that would undermine the editorial point it was making!

This is sort of what I was thinking. I remember when Ahold bought out that family. That left Weis Markets as our last family owned regional chain.

Similar to Meijer in Michigan/Ohio/Indiana

Meijer is less common than Walmart in most areas it operates, and much of rural northern Michigan doesn't rate a superstore (vs the smaller grocery stores that SpartanNash operates).

Wegmans is the best. They do show it in their home - Rochester, NY area.

Livingston County, NY, just south of Rochester, reported “too little data”, so perhaps their metrics are misreported in general for Wegmans to have shown up in their analysis.

They got the addresses from OpenStreetMap, so the data is party open already.

They didn't necessarily omit those chains either, their criteria was "most common owner by area", and depending on how you decide the minimum size for an area, they could just naturally fall out.

I'm not talking about the map but the search by county feature on the page which shows many stores with significantly lower marketshare than Wegmans by any metric you want to use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com