Why has the author criticised Penney’s strategy change?

Some of my fondest memories as a kid were the days when my mom would arrive home from an all-afternoon grocery-shopping trip. The blue Country Squire station wagon with the fake wood on the sides would pull into the driveway, full of produce, staples and snacks from the three or four different grocery stores she’d visited. Feeding a family of seven, my mom was an expert at determining which stores had sale prices, which had in-store coupons and which had specials on the eightpacks of Coke or Pepsi. (We went through a ton of those.) Sometimes she’d arrive with a rare carton of Dr Pepper. It was hardly ever on sale –
those were special days.
I couldn’t wait to dig through each of the brown paper sacks. Every once in a while I’d find a new product, or something she wouldn’t typically buy. When I found one of these surprises, like a jar of dryroasted peanuts, I’d ask, ‘Wow. Peanuts. Cool. Why’d you get these?’
‘It was on sale – and I had a coupon for it’, she’d proudly proclaim. ‘I saved seventy-five cents.’