While it is only my opinion, I would say we have to have a close look at Drakes pricing as well. Meat, fruit, cheese and other dairy products all up, as well as veg and bread (small loafs) are way overpriced. Far more expensive than other supermarkets, Romeo’s pricing is even worse still. Well yes, they do have the occasional low price on chicken breast filets, wings or Maryland, but hey that too has increased like never before! Come on, and that is just a Romeo’s example: Garlic went from $29; $39 to now $41/kg that is absolute madness (oh yes, I do know that it takes 6 months to grow), but $41/kg, that is just insane! Back to Drakes, did they not claim it would safe costs to have a distribution centre in SA??? I certainly don’t see any of this happening, even though they are saving on transport costs.
And IGAs and independent supermarkets/retailers. Their prices are substantially higher for the same items. Some do sell products cheaper, such as green grocers, through the sale of second grade produce. But, their first grade is generally higher than the big supermarkets.
Limited experience, since we shop only once a fortnight, but the family owned “warehouse” that we use (replaced a failed Super IGA) is way cheaper than competitors, but offers less choice.
Since the arrival of Coles & Woolies the Foodworks and IGA Express have become Convenience stores with the emphasis on take-away food. The Foodworks now has one and a half walls of plastic boxes of meals, salads, desserts, drinks, snacks, and a bank of hotboxes of BBQ chooks, pies etc. Fresh Fruit & Veg have dwindled to 10 tomatoes, 2 lettuce etc.
Our nearest town has one shop - PO, Newsagent, supermarket. Their prices are at least a third higher than the next town, but the 2 hour trip often does not justify chasing the cheaper price.
Using a hot BBQ chicken as a comparison - Coles $12.50 (on special), Foodworks $14, Fish & chip shop $13.10, Our independent shop $8.99, our nearest grocer $15.50.
Just to put all those prices into perspective, Costco sell their roast chickens (and they are much larger than the Colesworth ones) for $6.99. That is cheaper than even your cheapest choice by $5.50. What makes the Costco larger chicken so much a cheaper choice than even the Colesworth conglomerate smaller ones.
Often small business stores buy huge amounts of these Costco chickens to on-sell to customers, I have seen trolley loads exit the Costco shop.
I understand that not everyone can purchase from Costco because of location. It still raises the question of why such huge supermarket chains can price smaller chickens at such large margins above Costco’s. They must source their chickens from the same or similar producers of the raw product e.g, Ingham Chickens.
TO answer the OPs original question: Yes, drake foodland is price gouging or manipulating.
some southern suburbs of SA.
several popular items throughout the store go up in price on pension days. The prices
go back down again during the following week. this is not an isolated indecent. I have caught them
doing it in the deli section, when I bought items during the on pension week. the old price was still displayed yet the sticker price showed a higher price. I questioned this and got it cheaper than the off
week price. I have taken photos of various items over successive weeks to show this.
Keep an eye of the specials, they fluctuate prices on alternating weeks for the same items regardless of demand.
Woolies does that more predictably than tracking petrol cycles. Week 1 ‘it’ is on sale; week 2 ‘it’ is a points booster for rewards members that roughly equals the previous sale price; week 3 and sometimes week 4 ‘it’ is regular price; and back to week 1 sale pricing again.
Do you mean the ‘old price’ was displayed on a sign on the product display but when the scale (or whatever) printed the price it was based on a higher unit price? If that is the case it should be cause for a formal complaint. It appears you could start here.
The ACCC, renowned for avoiding taking up individual complaints, has this statement
Yes that is what I meant, I caught them out on their scam. they ended up giving me the item for a price lower than it was in the off week.
Prices for popular items go up on Wednesday on pension day, then offer the pensioners a 5% discount to make them feel
important, in effect their not getting a discount. then the following week, the same item prices go back down again.
If an item becomes popular, even when there is not shortage of the product, they inflate the price, incrementally. once the item is no longer popular, it goes back down again to its regular price.
ACCC are old toothless tigers. I gave up on them a long time ago.
woolies, they’re evil. sorry for going slightly off topic… rewards are nothing more than prices being inflated to give people the idea they’re getting a
discount when they are not. It’s a form of data mining. like all rewards programs.
2 weeks prior, I went to Woolies and saw asparagus was apparently on special, 1 ticket was displayed with $1.30/bunch, on the front of the display unit a sign seemed to say $1 o, I assumed it meant to be $1.00, I went to the cashier he put through and he wanted to charge $3.60. So I questioned it and said, sorry but three bunches at $1 doesn’t make it $3.60 but $3. That young guy pushed his hand right into my face and counted on his fingers, yelling at me at $1.20 plus $1.20 plus 1.20 makes it $3.60. I said that would be correct if the price was $1.20 each, however, the sign seems to say $1, well if you look at it that way…I could charge you $10/bunch that is what it looks like to me, we made a little mistake there. How I ask you, is this allowed by the manager who was right next to this guy at the cash register, and they still charged me $1.20/bunch, when it was actually also singed out at $1.30. The manager did absolutely nothing but whisper something into that guys ear. This I have to say they both did in front of all the other customers, as if that guy was talking to bl…y idiot. That is Woolworths at Woodcroft in SA.
Went to Romeo’s today to get some red onions amongst other things, looked at the price, looked again, and could not believe what I saw: over $8/kg, excuse me? This is not the only item priced exorbitantly high! What on earth has gotten into them? Seriously, enough is enough. Not only do we have a fiasco regarding Coles and Woolies, but should have a serious look at Drakes / Foodland and Romeo’s. Shoppers are fed up with increased pricing / price-gouging, not only by the big major supermarkets, but certainly all other Supermarkets too.
There is a mistaken belief that the major supermarkets are ‘ripping off’ consumers with their pricing. Consumers who shop at a range of different grocers (food and fruit/vege) find that the major supermarket’s pricing is lower for many items(e.g. unit price for the same product and brand) than their competitors. This is principally due to their ability to negotiate better supply contracts. Independent grocers don’t have the same ability as their sale volumes are significantly less.
Even our own business, if we source direct from suppliers, often the wholesale prices for small volumes purchased are higher than the shelf price in the supermarkets.
Furthermore more, a business which has a large number of stores has a competitive advantage as their fixed operational costs per store are less than businesses with a limited number of stores. The cost advantage comes from whole of business costs being spread over more stores. Larger businesses can also do more functions in house rather than outsourcing (legals, marketing, HR, payroll, accounting/bookkeeping etc), which also provides savings.
These efficiencies and cost advantages can be passed onto the consumer through lower shelf prices. Hence, the larger supermarkets have lower prices than smaller supermarket chains like Drakes / Foodland and Romeo’s.
The disadvantage of lower shelf prices, especially where most consumers chase the cheapest price over other purchase criterion, is smaller players become less competitive and over time can be squeezed out of catchments of large businesses. Being squeezed out usually means closing because they become unprofitable.
There has been talk about breaking up large businesses to increase competition. Unfortunately this is a simplistic view on how competition works. Splitting up businesses may increase the number operating, but invariably will result in price increases for the consumer. This is because the efficiencies and cost advantages are reduced as a result of smaller businesses.
Many businesses have honed their marketing skills to maximise their income. Whether it is gouging in a legal context remains to be seen but regardless can become a semantic argument as prices have and continue to rise.
It can make one wonder when there are price increases coupled with shrinkflation and product culling to focus on the most profitable all happening concurrently.
Some related topics spanning various issues and opinion include
and
Unless you are suggesting government instigated price control the best way to give vendors the message that prices are too high is to not buy the product.
