Supermarket abuse of pricing?
- Thread starter NickK
- Start date
Well farm shops are making big margins, I said direct, not from a farm shop which is another retailer.
A bit like saying well the local corner shop charges more so its all good.
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Soldato
One thing that annoys me with Aldi (not so much Lidl) are the mixed cases. Sometimes i have to rummage through four cases to get the flavour/type I need.
I love Aldi’s own Alpen bars. Seas of apple and raisin. None of the caramel one. What happens is the staff just put another case on the cases just with the apple and raisin. Aldi can’t see on their system which flavours etc sell best as share the same barcode.
I love Aldi’s own Alpen bars. Seas of apple and raisin. None of the caramel one. What happens is the staff just put another case on the cases just with the apple and raisin. Aldi can’t see on their system which flavours etc sell best as share the same barcode.
One thing? Just the one? You sure?
//Loads of suppliers sell to multiple stores, it's why things like this happen.
Couple outraged to find Aldi label on their Waitrose vegetables
'No disrespect to Aldi or their customers but if I wanted their products I'd go to one of their stores.'
metro.co.uk
Soldato
There was another story where someone bought some Aldi Hula Hoops and inside some of the packs were actual HH https://twitter.com/aldiuk/status/850997796446642176?lang=daOne thing? Just the one? You sure?
//Loads of suppliers sell to multiple stores, it's why things like this happen.
Couple outraged to find Aldi label on their Waitrose vegetables
'No disrespect to Aldi or their customers but if I wanted their products I'd go to one of their stores.'
Can you imagine if it was the other way round? You would be pretty p****d off
Some years ago, I opened a case of pies and inside was another supermarket’s. Even though the outer case had my employer on it.
Myself and a few others had free pies!
Another time I was topping up the milk and saw a few of another supermarket’s bottles in there. Again free milk for about 12 colleagues
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Soldato
Sorry, posted wrong thread
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Soldato
All that and more when I worked at Morrisons. I am surprised more people don't realise that many own brand products are made by the big producers.
Soldato
All Weetabix is made by Weetabix in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire. My late friend's dad worked there. The recipe is slightly different. Wish they decide to make their mini Weetabix with the chocolate chips for supermarket own labels.
In the warehouse there are boxes - individual packs and the outer cases for all the supermarket brands plus the Weetabix brand itself.
But it doesn't mean the big producer packages up an identical product for other companies.
The difference today with the past is the complexity and real-time changing nature of the schemes.Once upon a time it was stick-in-the-book stamps but today it's like trying to hold mercuty in your hands, and the downside is the prices get massively inflated.Jesus you guys complain about anything.... This has been the norm for at least ten years. More like 20.
Join the crappy points reward schemes, buy the offers if relevant, eat the boooogs.
I have adopted the same solution. I simply don't shop at Tesco to avoid their price gouging.
Soldato
Have relatives live in France. There’s no thing as special promotions in the supermarkets there.
When they visit their daughter here, they go to a large Asian supermarket and bulk buy things like tinned pulses, rice etc. Plus when supermarkets had cans and of 24 Coke Zero for £5, buy about 8 packs.
Bottled water is cheap in France - pay about €4 for 48 litres (24x2l) as the water is hard and horrible to drink. Use bottled water for making coffee
When they visit their daughter here, they go to a large Asian supermarket and bulk buy things like tinned pulses, rice etc. Plus when supermarkets had cans and of 24 Coke Zero for £5, buy about 8 packs.
Bottled water is cheap in France - pay about €4 for 48 litres (24x2l) as the water is hard and horrible to drink. Use bottled water for making coffee
They only checked a sample of products, also accounting can make a profit as small or big as you want it. Is this 1-4% profit after all costs, or the differential between purchase price and retail price?
There defenitly is more than a 4% margin on the latter, whether its intermediate distributors sucking it all out as profit or the supermarket, but when I worked in manufacturing we only used distributors for the small shops, we sold directly to supermarkets and the margin was nowhere near 4% it wasnt single figures.
Some examples cost for unit for the SKU to get out of the door 6p per packet. Cost on supermarket shelf 26p per packet. Where has the 20p gone if its only 4%?
I also do keep in touch with people so some have idea of current figures as well, again 4% is not even in the right ball park.
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there is also a lot of hidden costs in a supermarket that outsiders might not know of, even tho i still think they are bending us over, an example is the cost of running a RDC, the costs in these things are silly to run, the one i work isnt even owned by them its leased, at a cost of around half a million a month for the site, yes its huge..
Managers - various levels
cleverical staff
order pickers in non p
order pickers in chill
order pickers of produce
loaders
cleaners
+agency staff
various staff for other misc jobs like clothing / transhipments ect / staff who move stuff around warehouse to bays from its picking lanes
all of transport side
managers
clerical
drivers
+ agency
rental of all MHE equipment plus onsite engineerings with there own workshop woring 6 days a week
full time garage with 24hr staff for wagon repairs
fuel costs
huge automatic wagon and trailer wash
water usage
gas
electric which is HUGE because of the batterys for all MHE so at least 120 or maybe more batterys on charger at all times
office supplies
cost of the whole picking network and watches used for picking - I.T costs get expensive
SICK PAY!! - the company got so sick of the same ones abusing it to its max every year that they made it part of this years pay deal to reduce it right down, over the whole depot in 3 years it was well over a million - yup a lot of people work here and a lot seriously abused the sick
during peak times electric prices for supermarkets go INSANE, im talking from like 5pm till 8pm they can / or did go like 10x the price, they even started turning the battery bay of between them hours to save money because the costs was so high, but that often came back to bite them in the ass when its busy and everybodys got flat batterys on there MHE and there is no charged ones ( still use lead acid )
Managers - various levels
cleverical staff
order pickers in non p
order pickers in chill
order pickers of produce
loaders
cleaners
+agency staff
various staff for other misc jobs like clothing / transhipments ect / staff who move stuff around warehouse to bays from its picking lanes
all of transport side
managers
clerical
drivers
+ agency
rental of all MHE equipment plus onsite engineerings with there own workshop woring 6 days a week
full time garage with 24hr staff for wagon repairs
fuel costs
huge automatic wagon and trailer wash
water usage
gas
electric which is HUGE because of the batterys for all MHE so at least 120 or maybe more batterys on charger at all times
office supplies
cost of the whole picking network and watches used for picking - I.T costs get expensive
SICK PAY!! - the company got so sick of the same ones abusing it to its max every year that they made it part of this years pay deal to reduce it right down, over the whole depot in 3 years it was well over a million - yup a lot of people work here and a lot seriously abused the sick
during peak times electric prices for supermarkets go INSANE, im talking from like 5pm till 8pm they can / or did go like 10x the price, they even started turning the battery bay of between them hours to save money because the costs was so high, but that often came back to bite them in the ass when its busy and everybodys got flat batterys on there MHE and there is no charged ones ( still use lead acid )
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I know there is costs, but if they filling that gap, thats a ton of bloat, bear in mind those costs are spread across many many products, the staff e.g. wouldnt be employed just to sell this one product, and likewise warehouse space isnt just for this product so those are costs are split across all sorts of products, manufacturers also have staffing costs including sick pay, warehouse costs, transport costs, of course also electric, and so forth.
Wouldnt surprise me if its a combination of bloat and fancy accounting. Its easy to not take care of bloat when you sell an essential product as can just bump up the price to compensate. You also forgot to mention the fraud at self checkouts and slackness when dealing with shoplifters, retailers just dont seem efficient at all. Its all recoverable via bumping prices.
Wouldnt surprise me if its a combination of bloat and fancy accounting. Its easy to not take care of bloat when you sell an essential product as can just bump up the price to compensate. You also forgot to mention the fraud at self checkouts and slackness when dealing with shoplifters, retailers just dont seem efficient at all. Its all recoverable via bumping prices.
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Yeah it is surprising how many costs there are you wouldn't think of though not limited to retail/distribution but even small things like keys needing replacements, pest control, general facilities management like blocked drains, we've got a plasterboard wall which has taken a beating over the years from pallets being pushed against it and needs a metal plate put up, bunch of us are coming up on needing a first aid course refresher which IIRC is about £200 each and so on.
Got to be honest in my experience if people are abusing sick pay in numbers it is probably because it isn't a great place to work - you always get a small number who'll abuse it anywhere. The only exception to that really is when you get a bunch of long timers set in their ways who react to changes made necessary by progress by maxing out their sickness absences to be as disruptive as possible in a slow quit.
Question is, would all this waste in supermarkets be there e.g. if like manufacturers they had cost pressures, so e.g. if they were forced to sell at a fixed price for X number of years, and to survive they had to get efficient.
Why would you assign people to observe self checkouts if was no enforcement, an example of waste. Paying someone to do something that has no meaningful benefit other than data collection.
Why would you assign people to observe self checkouts if was no enforcement, an example of waste. Paying someone to do something that has no meaningful benefit other than data collection.
Soldato
lolwut
That‘s ******** I’m afraid, Intermarche operate an identical scheme to Tesco with discounts available to loyalty cardholders only.
Look at their annual accounts, they are a listed company, it’s literally a matter of public record. The 1-4% margin is after the costs of running their business. If their gross margin was 4%, they couldn’t even afford for the product to be picked up from the manufacturer and moved to the store.
No accountants can’t ‘make the profit look smaller’ and in fact that’s the exact opposite of what they would want. They are a listed company, low profits mean a lower share price and ****** off shareholders because they get smaller returns, puts the company at risk of takeover, lower pay and bonuses for those running it and puts them at risk of being ousted by the shareholders.
Their profit margins are consistently low, year on year because food retail is a highly competitive beast, that’s the nature of the sector they operate in. It’s why over the years they have tried to diversify into sectors which are more profitable such as banking, mobile phones and garden centres.
It’s very easy to criticise from the outside but opinions are just that, they are rarely based on fact these days. If you think you can do a better job of cutting bloat at Tesco, I’m sure they will be all ears.
Have you ever used a self service checkout? If you did, you’d quickly realise why they need someone supervising them. For example weight errors, security tags, customer mistakes, items not scanning, vouchers not working, mis-priced products, machine errors, self scan compliance checks and even replacing the receipt roll when it runs out. It’s also why one person can supervise 8-10 self checkouts because it’s a much lower workload than them running it through the checkout themselves.
It’s comments like that and ‘fancy accounting’ which just utterly destroy the credibility of your posts in this thread.
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