Supermarket abuse of pricing?

Doesnt surprise me, have seen videos of people shoplifting right in the open and staff just stand there, including security. Just walking into store, emptying a self then walking out.

Opposite to what I see in America where you get manhandled instead.

Self checkouts must be having people doing fraud, its just too tempting for human nature.

The policies generally are observe, record, keep customers and colleagues safe - more and more retailers are rolling out body worn cameras though in an instance of shoplifting that does have the potential to escalate a situation if staff enable their camera especially if lower intelligence shoplifters don't realise they are live streamed.
 
I might be overanalyzing things but I've noticed a massive increase in yellow stickers over the last month or two. Not sure if supermarkets are getting stuck with unsold stock due to their price rises or whether this is some form of underhanded nonsense to get us consumers to buy more stuff but it's certainly been more noticeable!
Sometimes if we have loads of the same item with the same date in 3-4 days time, we reduce it. When we had that hot weather, we had loads of stuff people eat in the colder months - cottage pie, puddings that are served hot, stewing steak etc. We reduced them less than the handset recommended and 99% got sold. If we followed the policy we would only sold about half.

We do similar things with salads items in the winter.

Peak times in the year for reductions - summer (people are away on holiday), between Christmas and New Year (on ‘normal’ food such as mince, those ready to cook in oven chicken meals etc) as people still eating Christmas food/visiting family.
 
The more this thread goes on, the more I feel it’s probably focusing on the wrong area of exploitative pricing.

This is not a defence of supermarkets but for core produce, the market is so competitive, supermarkets exploit their huge buying power over the much smaller farmers and pay them next to nothing for what they produce.

If the farmers had it their way, ‘core produce’ (vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, dairy) would be significantly more expensive than it is now.

There’s a reason why produce is significantly more expensive in ‘farm shops’. The farmer and retailer are taking a substantially larger margin on the product, we are talking orders of magnitude higher.

Sure the outcome on the farmer of supermarkets is not ideal, but for the millions of consumers, supermarkets have played a huge role in keeping prices down because it’s so competitive.

Like I said, it’s not a defence of supermarkets, there are looser like farmers but it is the reality of the market and how it operates at the moment.

What’s the solution? I don’t know to fix the issue for farmers, millions of customers loose. There is no perfect solution.
 
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The more this thread goes on, the more I feel it’s probably focusing on the wrong area of exploitative pricing.

This is not a defence of supermarkets but for core produce, the market is so competitive, supermarkets exploit their huge buying power over the much smaller farmers and pay them next to nothing for what they produce.

If the farmers had it their way, ‘core produce’ (vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, dairy) would be significantly more expensive than it is now.

There’s a reason why produce is significantly more expensive in ‘farm shops’. The farmer and retailer are taking a substantially larger margin on the product, we are talking orders of magnitude higher.

Sure the outcome on the farmer of supermarkets is not ideal, but for the millions of consumers, supermarkets have played a huge role in keeping prices down because it’s so competitive.

Like I said, it’s not a defence of supermarkets, there are looser like farmers but it is the reality of the market and how it operates at the moment.

What’s the solution? I don’t know to fix the issue for farmers, millions of customers loose. There is no perfect solution.
Funny enough the places can buy potatoes, eggs etc. from direct are cheaper than supermarkets whenever I seen or used them, at least when driving there to pick up, are more expensive to deliver. This to me makes a mockery of the claimed small margins, as we have farmers saying they not paid enough, supermarkets saying they got tight margins, yet its cheaper to buy direct.
 
This to me makes a mockery of the claimed small margins
Love the reluctance to believe the facts to keep the moan going. I think it's been mentioned, the supermarkets ar not making huge profits, it's that simple.

I would imagine you can get most fruit cheaper too, but then try and buy a jar of chutney from a farm shop, I would imagine it's rather different?
 
Farm shops may be cheaper for you, they certainly are not for me, they are typically 30-50% more expensive. Likewise they are only really accessible for people in rural areas. If you have to spend time and money traveling to said farm shop, that needs to be knocked off any savings you may make.

A similar point also applies to the ‘I shop in 5 supermarkets all over town’ crew because it’s £3.80 cheaper while ignoring the £5 in fuel they burnt doing so and the 3 additional hours it takes which they could have worked at minimum wage and gained £30.
 
Some people need to discover that supermarkets own brand stuff is just as good as brand, or, in the case of ALL Heinz stuff - much better!

People who say “it must be Heinz” probably have never tried other brands. Their baked beans sauce has an awful aftertaste and never seen many bean skin cases in others. Their ketchup is too vinegary. Their soups are unpleasant.
 
Farm shops may be cheaper for you, they certainly are not for me, they are typically 30-50% more expensive. Likewise they are only really accessible for people in rural areas. If you have to spend time and money traveling to said farm shop, that needs to be knocked off any savings you may make.

A similar point also applies to the ‘I shop in 5 supermarkets all over town’ crew because it’s £3.80 cheaper while ignoring the £5 in fuel they burnt doing so and the 3 additional hours it takes which they could have worked at minimum wage and gained £30.
I overheard a customer saying that they get some biscuits from another supermarket as they are 5p cheaper than at my work. This supermarket is 5 miles away and usually in stop/start traffic as roadworks around the store for months.

If your bottle of spirits is £5-10 cheaper or beer is on a better multi buy than your usual supermarket- ok.
 
A similar point also applies to the ‘I shop in 5 supermarkets all over town’ crew because it’s £3.80 cheaper while ignoring the £5 in fuel they burnt doing so and the 3 additional hours it takes which they could have worked at minimum wage and gained £30.

Mate does this. Does my head in.

It’s all about the money saved in terms of pure spending that he can see. He’ll gladly shop for an extra hour to save 5p on a single apple.
 
A similar point also applies to the ‘I shop in 5 supermarkets all over town’ crew because it’s £3.80 cheaper while ignoring the £5 in fuel they burnt doing so and the 3 additional hours it takes which they could have worked at minimum wage and gained £30.
It's a strong sign of lack of fulfilment in their actual life and something to latch onto for some sense of accomplishment, they've probably got deeper unresolved issues. While for us it's a joke and a waste of time, the feeling of self worth your mate is getting probably means a lot to them.

Or they could just be an idiot :D
 
We're 'lucky' in that when we go to Aldi, it's only about 200 meters from Tesco, so we do both. We also pass a farm with attached shop on the way there :D
To be honest the rising prices have given us the push to go a bit more basic in our shopping, so a lot less processed crap, and we feel healthier for it.
 
The worst part is the delusion that the likes of Aldi and Lidl are substantially cheaper. Yes that is the case if you buy Kellogg’s on Tesco and own brand in Aldi like in their adverts. But if you buy core produce and own brand in both stores (E.g. an actual like for like shop), the prices are basically the same.
 
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The worst part is the delusion that the likes of Aldi and Lidl are substantially cheaper. Yes that is the case if you buy Kellogg’s on Tesco and own brand in Aldi like in their adverts. But if you buy core produce and own brand in both stores (E.g. an actual like for like shop), the prices are basically the same.
nope .. they are cheaper ..well for me at least i buy meat and salad ..even with a tesco card ..or morrisons staff/more card they are £30-50+ cheaper love aldi for meat lidl for salad/veg ..and aldi don't do eu crappy meat you know the ones with all the antibiotics in them ..
 
nope .. they are cheaper ..well for me at least i buy meat and salad ..even with a tesco card ..or morrisons staff/more card they are £30-50+ cheaper love aldi for meat lidl for salad/veg ..and aldi don't do eu crappy meat you know the ones with all the antibiotics in them ..
Yep, the majority of our groceries are not branded, and moving from Tesco own-brand to Lidl has seen us saving around 30-40% for the same shop.
 
Farm shops can be cheaper than main stores as there is no transport or storage cost to add to the cost price.

Aldi are able to leverage their size by going to brands such as Mcvitie's for a purely hypothetical example, say we won't sell Penguins in our stores but we will sell an identical product called a Seal bar if you'd like to make that for us? In this way, purely hypothetically, you could be getting a well-known brand but for less cost. That might also be true for breakfast cereals etc. ;)
 
Farm shops can be cheaper than main stores as there is no transport or storage cost to add to the cost price.

Aldi are able to leverage their size by going to brands such as Mcvitie's for a purely hypothetical example, say we won't sell Penguins in our stores but we will sell an identical product called a Seal bar if you'd like to make that for us? In this way, purely hypothetically, you could be getting a well-known brand but for less cost. That might also be true for breakfast cereals etc. ;)
very true yrs ago when i worked for burtons food ..we made 8 different kinds of liquorice all sorts .. and sold them to m&s and other places .. even nestles came to us to make the bursting bugs to start .. then it was moved to poland as it was cheaper ...
 
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