Cathlamet Market app on the way out

The money saving app recently adopted by Cathlamet Market Fresh is going away.

When Michael Kirby bought the grocery in Cathlamet, it became an independent store, no longer a part of Kirby Co.

“The company that developed the app for Kirby Co. said we couldn’t use the same app going forward,” Kirby said. “They wanted me to pay to develop a new app. When it was split between eight stores, it was a lot more doable. It doesn’t make sense for us to continue it.”

“We don’t want to go out and raise prices to pay for an app, when the point of the app was to bring value to our customers,” Kirby added.

Starting on Wednesday, August 30, Cathlamet Market Fresh will go back to a more traditional format with Centerplace Market ads. Paper copies will be available at the front of the store, at centerplacemarket.com, or on the grocery’s Facebook page. At some point, Kirby hopes to send them to customers via email.

The savings in the weekly ads will run from Wednesday to Tuesday each week.

The Centerplace Market ad is a format put on by their wholesaler, the place they buy groceries from, Kirby explained.

“They find deals from different manufacturers, and give us savings to run on ads,” he said. “We’ll be able to get products cheaper and put them on our ads and give them to our customers cheaper. What we’ve been doing for years.”

Kirby also wanted customers to know that the store will soon be at a point where they will carry everything listed in an ad.

“I think last week there were 148 coupon items and 30 of them were items we don’t carry in the store,” Kirby said. “It’s a big bummer when someone comes in looking for something because they saw a good deal on a coupon and we don’t carry it.”