If you walk into an American grocery store (at least in my southern mid-western area) you will find entire aisles of snack foods, mostly chips (corn and potato with some gourmet alternatives thrown in) and aisles of pet foods (bags and cans of varieties from lots of different makers). And soft drinks. If you go into an Asian market in my area, you won't find nearly so much pet food, you'll find a portion of an aisle with the staples, some dry, some canned, dog and cat food. Instead, you'll find entire aisles dedicated to varieties of rice. Large bags of short, medium, and long grain rice, jasmine rice, basmati rice, etc. There is a HUGE produce section. And an entire aisle of rice noodles. And an aisle of sauces. If you visit the Halal market (across the street from the Asian market I visit, lucky for me) you'll find little if any dog and cat food or chips. But you'll find an entire aisle of teas and spices, and another aisle of types of olive oil and ghee. And a whole section of the store, 3+ aisles, of types of rice. The Halal market doesn't have commercial bread delivery, they have a bakery and produce several types of flat breads.

The Asian market has a frozen section, as does the Halal market, but it isn't nearly as large as the American grocery and there are more ingredients frozen there, not completely prepared foods - by this I mean you'll find things that go into dishes, not the dishes themselves. The Asian market has an amazing fish and meat area, far more robust that the meat counter in American groceries. The Halal market has a much smaller meat market and fewer offerings.

The Hispanic grocery I visit is kind of a mix of these - they have a robust and richly arrayed produce section, offering lots of things I have not idea how to fix or eat, from Mexico, Central, and South America. They also have some Asian foods. There is a large bakery producing traditional Mexican breads but the store also has the typical aisles of breads, chips, dog food, and more. The meat and fish sections are generous with "typical" American meats and fish and then some cuts and meats (cows head, goat, etc.) that you would never find in an American-style grocery. The Hispanic groceries operate more like a village square with one-stop shopping for their customers, who can pay many bills there, can buy insurance, can have shoes repaired or polished, can do their banking, can pay for annual car tags (I go there every year to pick up my tags).

American grocery stores feel sterile in many ways. Sometimes they blow the smell of baking bread or frying bacon or chicken into the store to temp shoppers, but otherwise everything is vacuum sealed and without a scent. That can't be said of the other stores I described. If you want every flavor offered of every main brand available, then Albertsons or Kroger or Tom Thumb or HEB or Walmart or Target or WinnDixie (though they're going into chapter 11, apparently), etc. is for you.

There is another type of grocery store, more like Aldi. They have small sections of everything they offer, so you have to look along the aisle carefully to find the sauce or peanut butter or cereal type or spice or canned good you want. The freezer is modestly porportioned but there is usually one brand of each thing you might want that would be considered a food staple. Trader Joes offers a few more things than Aldi, but not much (the companies are related) and there are American stores like SaveALot that function in the same way. These stores tend to carry store brands and they're all good, but cost a lot less than the name brands that pay megabucks to advertise on TV and in print ads and offer discount coupons.

Shoppers who shop only in the big name-brand grocery stores are missing out on savings, and despite the plethora of brands, sizes, and flavors of chips and dogfood, on variety.

My two cents. Not quite as long as Raedwulf's, but driven by years of observation and learning to shop better.