Market Basket Customers to Arthur S: Take Your Cash and Go

By Tony Schinella

A customer group that has attempted to hand in petitions to the current Market Basket management team is raising money to purchase advertising to get its points across to the controlling interest of the company.

The Save Artie T & Market Basket Facebook group, one of a few customer groups that have sprung up since Arthur S. Demoulas fired his cousin, Arthur T. Demoulas, from the position of CEO, is raising thousands of dollars for the campaign on GoFundMe.com.

As of 2 p.m. EDT, the group had raised twice as much as it needed, $6,440, for its first full-page ad it wants to place in The Lowell Sun.

“We tried handing our petitions to them last Friday – they wouldn’t even look at our fellow customer who went down there to give it to them – they wouldn’t acknowledge her,” said Lynn Cunningham in an email to Patch. “We have a lot of people who are behind the cause – the reason the stores are not busy is because of us – and we vow not to go back till Artie T is back – we would rather see Market Basket close than give our money to new people running the business.”

Cunningham said she and other customers were tired of being ignored by the management team and media outlets covering the Market Basket story since it was the customers who rely on the chain that really matter. The ad idea was proposed to counter an ad by the store chain published promoting its upcoming job fair for current employees and the public.

“We are getting OUR voice out there,” she noted. “(The board of directors are) not the only ones who can take out an AD!”

The customer group has also issued the following statement to the Market Basket board of directors:

July 30, 2014

Open Letter to Market Basket Board of Directors from your Customers;

It is time for a bit of clarification into what is happening with your company that you as the board of directors do not seem to comprehend.

This letter is to help clear that issue up. The media and you seem to be laboring under the delusion that this is strictly an issue with your employees.

Clearly you are missing the bigger picture. Your CUSTOMERS are also disgusted with your behavior. I speak with confidence on behalf of your customers when I say that we will not return to shopping in your stores until Artie T. Demoulas is reinstated as CEO of Market Basket stores across New England.

You may wonder how long we can hold out for, missing out on our lower prices and our fresh meats and Deli sandwiches, But I Can assure you, our resolve is just as strong if not stronger then your employees. See, without us, Market Basket wouldn’t exist. WE keep YOU in business. Funny how that works...

First rule of any business is “the Customer is always right”. Hear us now....

WE WILL NOT SHOP AT MARKET BASKET TILL ARTIE T. IS BACK AS CEO.

Did you happen to miss the Receipt’s from your competitors taped to almost all of your stores doors?!?!?!

You can threaten your employees all you want to, and refuse to see the truth. But believe me those rose colored glasses will break if you continue to bleed cash the way you are on a daily basis. You can belittle, torment, scare and fire every employee in that company. But you have NOTHING without us.

What disappoints us the most is the fact that you refuse to hear us. You refused petitions from your own customers. We keep you living in the lap of luxury.

Artie S. Do the right thing. Sell your Shares to your cousin Artie T, if you don’t...you will lose everything. Is it really worth it? Take your cash and go.

Make sure to take Felicia and Jim with you on your way, they have already destroyed two companies, are you really ready to watch what your father helped build collapse because of this and run the Demoulas name through the mud? Because that is what YOU ALL are doing right now.

I just have a question for you, Felicia and Jim. Sales are down well over 90% in some stores. The lack of business isn’t caused by an obliterated produce department. It isn’t caused by the meat department that is starting to empty out. The holes left from out of codes in the dairy aisle are not the scapegoat here.

Grocery aisles that are on their last legs are also not the reason for the loss of revenue. Here’s a little secret, you two brilliant co-CEOs.

The customer is to thank for this immediate and earth-shattering decline in sales.

The boycott was a movement organized by the customer, for the good of the company and employees.

Not the other way around. So my question is this: With profits and customer counts being on record as lower than ever before, how do you justify using that non-existent customer as a bargaining chip In threatening your employees to go back to work?

We will all be anxiously awaiting an answer on that one, O’Neill and Associates.

Felicia and Jim, despite all of the resources at your disposal, you continuously make the wrong decision.

Your orchestrated statements only have a negative impact on what you are trying to accomplish here. Your employees are not afraid of losing their jobs, because you will not fire 25,000 people. They are not worried about scaring customers away, because we have let them know that we are behind them 110%.

They will not heed your warnings and threats, because they are groundless.

You two continue to use the stores, the vendors and lastly the customers, as pawns in your losing chess game against your employees.

All along, we all have outplayed you. We have out strategized you. Since you both are so out of touch this may be news to you, but we have you in checkmate.

The direction we are heading in is unchanging. Arthur T. Demoulas is going to be the head of the Market Basket Company once again.

Felicia and Jim, your conjoined failures are of epic proportions. There isn’t anything that you can do now to save your king from annihilation.

We will not cave to your Juvenile threats nor will your employees. We would rather see the company go under completely, and then see you earn another dime of OUR hard earned cash. I would rather drive across town to Hannaford’s or Shaw’s then spend my money in another Market Basket until Artie T is reinstated.

DO YOU HEAR US NOW?????

Your Former Customers.