Soldato
No that's the banks #interestrates
Supermarket abuse of pricing?
- Thread starter NickK
- Start date
No that's the banks #interestrates
Wow it's almost like someone approached this with rational thought.
If supermarkets are making supernormal profits, why are their margins between 0% and 4%. 4% wouldn't be even close to keep a lot of businesses sustainable over the long term, you generally need to re-invest a lot of money back into the business to renew your capital assets otherwise the business will just shrink and die even if it is profitable.
The one thing Tesco could do better is put the price breakdowns on to their offer prices, they have recently been pulled up for it and frankly its a minor gripe. I'm no mathematician but even I can quickly work out which is better without having to resort to a calculator. 98% of their customers literally have a calculator in their pocket if they can't do the math (which is a concern in its own right).
As for club card, those offers you see are usually because of discounts that have been agreed with the manufacturer of those products (branded food - a lot of it is on highly processed food that is best avoided anyway) and they usually make near zero profit on them, or they are loss leaders to try and get you in the door (fruit/veg and meat). So what if they restrict those to their 'loyal' customers that register with them?
No one seems to be complaining that you have to register and pay to enter a Costco store.... how is that any different? Don't like it shop at Aldi and Lidl..... oh wait Lidl also do the same thing as Tesco via their app...
lol!!!
You laugh but at the end of the day, they are a private business and if you don't like it, shop somewhere else. I wouldn't be surprised if they could link purchases back to individual people via their payment card anyway. Most probably pay with the same payment card every time so you are probably not giving much extra away by using a loyalty card and probably explains why their 'value' has been eroded slowly over the years.
The customer tracking point is unavoidable these days and literally everyone is at it, even your bank is sending 'marketing/offers/cashback' based on your spending habits. It's not even like the technology to track customer and what they buy using facial recognition hasn't existed for years. full customer tracking, no points card required, it's a matter of when not if.
Soldato
I think rationalising WHY everything about supermarket shopping is worse from the corporate perspective is a bit valueless for us as consumers. We should make more noise about it all, frankly.
There's a lot of online chatter about the 'en[poop]ification' of the internet: we're past the land-grab stage and into the profit-grabbing phase. But we also have the en[poop]ification of real life experiences too.
In my nearest Tesco, there are no till staff in the evenings, so it's a full trolley of shopping on the self-serve, which takes forever. They will no longer remove security tags in booze until you've paid, but you still need to wait for them to come over and authorise you being over-18 before you can pay.
Aldi are now insisting on checking your carrier bags to make sure you're not stealing anything! It means you can't set your bags up in your trolley ahead of them starting scanning (a problem unique to Aldi with their speedy checkout policy).
You get your face scanned/filmed at Sainsbury's on the self serve that they force you to use by understaffing tills.
You have to have your data mined to pay the proper prices in Tesco/Sainsbury's.
And all the while you're paying 50%+ more than a couple of years ago for this increasingly terrible experience.
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Soldato
After a two-month review into “historically high levels” of food inflation, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on 19 July that high food prices are not the fault of supermarkets, per JustFood.
I agree with everything about self-service checkouts. In fact with everything about the impacted customer experience in supermarkets but it is a choice you the customer is making. You want high-end touchy-feely amazing customer experience? Go to Waitrose or M&S (
). You want the prices to be as low as Aldi or Lidl but you don't want to actually go there? Then accept low staff levels and self-service checkouts.
(Aldi are an interesting case study about tills actually. Sainsburys for example might have 30000 separate SKU in a large store. That means the till system has to look up a barcode from 30000 items. Aldi aim to have less than 2000 items which has a measurably reduced lookup time for an item by the till which when multiplied over the millions of baskets per week has a direct impact on labour costs.)
The simple truth is that the UK customer expects incredibly low prices, perfect quality and great customer service. Incredibly you cannot have all three.
I agree with everything about self-service checkouts. In fact with everything about the impacted customer experience in supermarkets but it is a choice you the customer is making. You want high-end touchy-feely amazing customer experience? Go to Waitrose or M&S (
). You want the prices to be as low as Aldi or Lidl but you don't want to actually go there? Then accept low staff levels and self-service checkouts.(Aldi are an interesting case study about tills actually. Sainsburys for example might have 30000 separate SKU in a large store. That means the till system has to look up a barcode from 30000 items. Aldi aim to have less than 2000 items which has a measurably reduced lookup time for an item by the till which when multiplied over the millions of baskets per week has a direct impact on labour costs.)
The simple truth is that the UK customer expects incredibly low prices, perfect quality and great customer service. Incredibly you cannot have all three.
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Soldato
If you choose to provide your real name and address and email to get a ClubCard/Nectar card then yes, they can "mine your data". Don't give it to them.
True story: when Nectar first launched, over 50000 people used the name "Mickey Mouse" on their registration forms
True story: when Nectar first launched, over 50000 people used the name "Mickey Mouse" on their registration forms
What profit? Last year Tesco made 1.1p profit in every pound they took. If you started a business and your business plan was to make 1.1% net profit, you'd literally be laughed out of the bank. Even if you took the pre-adjusted profit (I can't be bothered to read the accounts to work out what the adjustments were), its still less than 2.5%.
That profit margin is less than fair IMO, its extremely very low and barley sustainable for the business.
They don't have any staff on because it costs too much money - see above comment regarding profit margins. People steal the booze if you take the tags off before they pay, that much is self evidence, hence the policy.
Shock horror, customers lie about how many bags they take and Aldi are legally obliged to charge for them thanks to legislation. Aldi's policy is actually that you put everything back into your trolly as is and you take it over to the counter and you pack it yourself after you have completed the checkout process. That's why the area after the check out has that giant work surface for you to pack your shopping on.
Customers steal stuff and cameras act as a deterrent.
In exchange for a 1% discount on your entire shop. Back in reality those offers are mostly loss leaders of short term offers supported my the manufacturer in exchange for prominent placement on end of isle shelves. The majority of the time the product is not available for the discounted price. They already mine your purchasing patterns anyway and they can probably link any purchases you make back to your payment card, they just don't know who the card belongs to.
Which isn't the fault of the supermarkets - see above comment about profit margins.
Soldato
I literally said "I think rationalising WHY everything about supermarket shopping is worse from the corporate perspective is a bit valueless for us as consumers."
And you've just come back and rationalised why from a corporate perspective.
[When I mentioned profit, it was in reference to the internet point I was making, not supermarkets]
Man of Honour
That's not what they're checking for, they're checking people haven't been filling their bags on the way round and not putting it on the belt to be scanned. Nothing to do with charging for carrier bags.
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Soldato
It might be valueless to consumers; or alternatively consumers could try to understand why prices are so high lately and why service is so poor. Perhaps you could explain from a consumer's perspective how to improve service and reduce prices yet still stay in business?
It’s being rationalised from a corporate perspective because the business actually needs to be sustainable otherwise it dies and everyone then loses.
The same thing applies to the internet, the ‘free’ model just isn’t sustainable.
A handful internet companies make good money, a not insignificant amount of internet companies make next to no money or they are burning through cash/investors money.
The almost unlimited supply of VC money pouring into internet companies has been firmly shut off. Many of them are desperately trying to work out ways to monetise their user base further and cut costs to balance the books. There is a reason that photo bucket is now a paid for service, the likes of Twitter is not unique in the fact its a money pit, it’s the norm.
The ‘free’ model of the internet is not going to be sustainable over the long term because static ads just don’t pay enough money to keep the services going and auto playing video ads are almost universally despised by users. The latter leads to users running add blockers which leads to more adds to try to raise more money to keep the lights on.
Now internet business are having to make changes which impact their users (of which many have been taking the proverbial for years). They are clamping down account sharing, ad blockers and VPN usage (to access the service at a cheaper price). They are putting previously ‘free’ features behind a paywall (E.g. API access) or even introducing ads into paid tiers to try to keep the lights on.
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Soldato
They are all communists who will never bother to read financial statements or understand anything, all companies make massive profit etc.
A handful of companies make good returns, the majority of all companies in existence return nothing, and likely go bankrupt or are bought out.
Soldato
We have been told to remove security tags off booze, razor blades etc once the customer has paid.
As seen at another store, guy buys two bottles of JD, pays cash whilst cashier removes tags. Then presses cancel payment when put just £20 in. The £20 spits out. Cashier gives the un tagged bottles. Customer walks out not paying.
As seen at another store, guy buys two bottles of JD, pays cash whilst cashier removes tags. Then presses cancel payment when put just £20 in. The £20 spits out. Cashier gives the un tagged bottles. Customer walks out not paying.
Soldato
I only use Aldi. Daily or two daily shop, one carrier bag and four pints of milk on the back of my bicycle.
It is always a pleasant experience, I know most of the checkout staff to say hello too and waiting is never usually more than five minutes.
It is always a pleasant experience, I know most of the checkout staff to say hello too and waiting is never usually more than five minutes.
Soldato
I'm not sure if anyone else can try and explain this. If they paid cash right at the beginning... how have they not paid? Who is pressing cancel payment? It's not on the card reader as the customer has apparently handed over cash already. Why would you put £20 in? Where does £20 spit out from? IF somehow they didn't pay cash at the beginning, like you said they already had, why would the cashier hand the bottles over if payment hasn't been taken?
I'm very confused.
I think he's talking about self checkouts.
Soldato
Ahh, okay. Yes, that makes sense then. Thanks. I guess it threw me because she said cashier.