[Guy:Incognito]

Originally Posted by mylastparadigm

So maybe the idea is impractical for Ben. A lot of those little shops dont even use a scanner at the til. so maybe it cant be done there. fair enough.

but in fairness, you are using an extreme example (with added sympathy for poor ben the shop keeper that has to stay up all night or his business will close and his family will starve... ;-) ) to hammer something that really would apply to major retailers who are not gonna be closed down because of it. infact in your opening paragraph you use the word whole, all, every which just shows you are using hard/extreme examples to back up your arguements. have you anything based on the mean? an average case example? that applies to most stores effected by the idea? thats why i think your examples/arguements are pedantic and i dismiss them easily. come up with something that applies to the mean case and you'll have my attention.

as the mod said and i made clear a few times, this is an idea at a formative stage. it is not perfect. but again, using extremes to invalidate it is easy, and easy to ignore.


so in an answer to your question, ben can rest easy for now. in the long term, increased competition due to the listing on accurate up to date prices online may force him out of business but thats the free market and thats acceptable, right?

It was your idea that every single shop in the country is forced by law to participate. Thats a fairly open and shut case. Whether the idea is at the formative stage or not it falls down right there. It's unworkable. There are hundreds or small shops all around the country, but even if theres only 1 that cant cope with the extra, thats the idea dead. Thats before you even think about the likes of Tesco and the sheer size of the operation for them.

Theres nothing wrong with a voluntary site for whoever wants to participate and thats all it ever should be.

[mylastparadigm]

Originally Posted by Srameen

If Tesco have 20000 items how do you expect daily updates on prices and to take account of what can be hourly offers? Also, do they have to record stock levels - as I often find items I want are out of stock in any one week.

nope, cant expect miracles. do you expect hourly updates?

well, for hourly offers, by the time the shopper has checked the site, sorted the kids, parked the car, assembled their shopping, the hour would be up. pardon me but that question is farcical. did you even think about it? these are exactly the pedantic extreme questions any idiot could ask to hammer an idea. i keep saying it - try focus on the bigger picture.

How did you come up with 10% in your sample above?

read the post again - i did exactly as i explained ffs.

Lets flesh out the points raised - it's a formative idea so that's what you do with such things.

flesh out? all you are doing is asking questions. have you nothing to add??? asking questions like yours is the simplest thing in the world to do. can you suggest any solutions of your own to your questions or is that the extent of your intellect?

Do you have any idea of what size limit would be applied to the stores in this scheme?

its obvious that it would apply best to the four main multiples, regardless of size. this is where most people shop. you want to help most people. you want to help the mean.

What would it cost to keep it updated?

It would have to cost less than it costs the staff to change the prices in the store but im afraid i dont work in the retail sector, so i dont know for certain. i imagine with a little goodwill (or legal obligation) the organisations could email their price lists to the site every day for the cost of attaching a document to an email. how much does that cost? millions im sure. im not sure if tesco has email.

Any store can show a price of 1p for everything, as an advertised price is not binding so how would that be policed?

a bookie does not have to pay out on a bet legally either. if they are *****, they are *****. what can you do? if we are in the realm of creating a law to legally oblige retailers to forward their live price data to a portal, then why not fix that problem as well? i dont know why that is anyway. do you think that it would be good for business to show everything costs 1p?

Come on, people are posing questions and it behoves you to flesh out the idea as a result.

i'm behoved to do f and all. id like to see people make a contribution but adding something constructive. id be curious to see if you could answer any of your own questions. that might be constructive.

asd

[mylastparadigm]

Originally Posted by Guy:Incognito

It was your idea that every single shop in the country is forced by law to participate. Thats a fairly open and shut case. Whether the idea is at the formative stage or not it falls down right there. It's unworkable. There are hundreds or small shops all around the country, but even if theres only 1 that cant cope with the extra, thats the idea dead. Thats before you even think about the likes of Tesco and the sheer size of the operation for them.

Theres nothing wrong with a voluntary site for whoever wants to participate and thats all it ever should be.

so i just changed it! due to the wonderful feed back i recieved! now i think the main multiples will do. am i allowed to do that? am i doomed to run with this idea forever because i get it wrong first time? oh, it was in the OP so its in concrete. you are a funny man.

[Bandana boy]

You need to get less defensive
It was an interesting idea that has been shot down for numerous reasons ranging from Legal to cost to practicality to not having any real benefit.

From my reading you have more than enough data to show the idea is a non starter probably time to move on.

[mylastparadigm]

Originally Posted by Bandana boy

You need to get less defensive
It was an interesting idea that has been shot down for numerous reasons ranging from Legal to cost to practicality to not having any real benefit.

From my reading you have more than enough data to show the idea is a non starter probably time to move on.

legal? yeah, that was always an issue. not news to me.

cost? no one came up with anything there other than to ask the cost. how is that a fatal blow? my estimate of the cost is the price of an email and the 10 seconds it takes to attach a file to said email.

practicality? thats covered in costs above and in my last one or two posts.

no real benefit? eh, that other site with feck all items showed that you could save 10% on a sample shopping trip. eh, i think that counts as a real benefit.

maybe i should insert a snarky comment here but i dont think you will read it because evidently, you haven read anything to here. so fro.

[skinny90]

Originally Posted by mylastparadigm

legal? yeah, that was always an issue. not news to me.

cost? no one came up with anything there other than to ask the cost. how is that a fatal blow? my estimate of the cost is the price of an email and the 10 seconds it takes to attach a file to said email.

practicality? thats covered in costs above and in my last one or two posts.

no real benefit? eh, that other site with feck all items showed that you could save 10% on a sample shopping trip. eh, i think that counts as a real benefit.

maybe i should insert a snarky comment here but i dont think you will read it because evidently, you haven read anything to here. so fro.

It's not as simple as emailing it,unless dunnes tesco have direct access to the system where they upload directly.the cost of developing a system will be pricey...maintenance also,how will the system cope with updates/new products.products that no longer exist.lets just say this was launched and by law the shops had to contribute.
Do you think it would have implications with business's perhaps thinking of setting up in Ireland...and ultimately be a deciding factor not to invest.

[mylastparadigm]

Originally Posted by skinny90

It's not as simple as emailing it,unless dunnes tesco have direct access to the system where they upload directly.the cost of developing a system will be pricey...maintenance also,how will the system cope with updates/new products.products that no longer exist.lets just say this was launched and by law the shops had to contribute.
Do you think it would have implications with business's perhaps thinking of setting up in Ireland...and ultimately be a deciding factor not to invest.

surely each store gets an electronic notice of prices. how else could it be done? carrier pidgeon?

the data is all in the register. so its on a server in the store. the lads print out this file when they are changing prices instore. email this file. done. thats all the obligation the store would have. whatever it costs on the other end to put the data online is unavoidable.

if this idea worked and consumeres used it enmass to get the best prices, competition would be excellent. who needs more retailers then?

[Bandana boy]

Originally Posted by mylastparadigm

legal? yeah, that was always an issue. not news to me.

cost? no one came up with anything there other than to ask the cost. how is that a fatal blow? my estimate of the cost is the price of an email and the 10 seconds it takes to attach a file to said email.

practicality? thats covered in costs above and in my last one or two posts.

no real benefit? eh, that other site with feck all items showed that you could save 10% on a sample shopping trip. eh, i think that counts as a real benefit.

maybe i should insert a snarky comment here but i dont think you will read it because evidently, you haven read anything to here. so fro.

Legal -Pricing is an invitation to treat not a contract, so any advertised price could not be enforced

Cost -this will have a cost ,supermarket retailing is already one of the lowest margin bussinesses out there,the companies will not absorb this but pass it on to the consumer.The actual cost of this would run into the millions for each retailer.The cost to manage it from some goverment body will also run into the millions.THe cost of a website allowing these comparisons from the data being fed in is not simple and will have a cost.

Practicality.How do we price buy one get one free offers how do we price limited availability items.How do we decide which stores are "big" enough to have to comply,with all the exceptions you will need to allow for these fast paced bussiness to survive it makes the data not practical.

No real benefit.Do you believe that the already tiny margins that these companies make will decrease? The market is already very good at driving the behaviour of the suppliers.No benefit has been mentioned in the thread that has not been shot down by the increased costs or indiference of the market to your suggestion.

It was an interesting idea ,but not all ideas are good ideas.
you have got significant feedback of all the problems of your idea, yet your response to these has been chilidsh and defensive.
I see this alot in R&D where an idea needs root and branch rework but the designer is blinded by the rejection of his intial premise.

My post was not attacking you yet look at your response, to accuse me of not having read through the thread, which despite your claims of not being sarky is in my eyes very sarky.
You accuse me of not reading the thread yet your are again ignoring all of the considered responses to your thread.

Are all of the problems with this idea unfixable?
In their current format ,Yes.
The real ingenuity would come from addressing those points and an innovative solution to those would be the real innovation here.

[tomdublin]

Originally Posted by dudara

I just came across this site today - how does this match up with your idea?

http://www.fitthebill.ie/

This website doesn't seem to do anything....weird that someone has actually managed to design it so badly. Industry-funded comparison websites emerge whenever there is real competition in a given sector. The problem is that in Ireland grocery stores don't really compete apart from a few exceptions. There are too many opportunities for unofficial price fixing, too many government regulations that curb competition and a rigged supply chain. Also due in part of a restrictive planning system and huge rents, taxes, charges and overheads the spatial concentration of competing supermarkets is very low so that many consumers have only one or two options realistically available to them.

[Guy:Incognito]

Originally Posted by mylastparadigm

so i just changed it! due to the wonderful feed back i recieved! now i think the main multiples will do. am i allowed to do that? am i doomed to run with this idea forever because i get it wrong first time? oh, it was in the OP so its in concrete. you are a funny man.

Why am I funny? I asked questions and the read is now running to nearly 100 posts because you just skipped over bits and wouldnt answer.

Right so you've changed it. So now we're discriminating against big shops are we? Are they still to be reguired by law to put all their prices online and keep it updated daily or are you changing that too? It's not practical in any case.


It will and should only ever work on a voluntary participation basis and going by the fact its not already running, the shops themselves dont have an interest in doing it.

[Corruptedmorals]

Originally Posted by mylastparadigm

surely each store gets an electronic notice of prices. how else could it be done? carrier pidgeon?

the data is all in the register. so its on a server in the store. the lads print out this file when they are changing prices instore. email this file. done. thats all the obligation the store would have. whatever it costs on the other end to put the data online is unavoidable.

if this idea worked and consumeres used it enmass to get the best prices, competition would be excellent. who needs more retailers then?

The data is sent from head office, each store has citrix as400 (in dunnes case..I'd say tesco uses it also) and they update the batch file. It's a simple 'Batch file sent yes/no' thing. You can't really see in this case what exactly is being updated. That is done in a seperate option, mark ups/price changes/offers, with sheets to print off and go around and change the SEL's from. Supermarkets would not want that data on show because they highlight the old price, the new price, the price difference. Essentially you'd have to tinker with the system to have a seperate set of data that DOES list all of the products at their current prices (updates etc. will only show up changes anyway) without showing any devious price difference. People already despise noticing price differences in their weekly shop- the rip off ireland forum is full of it.

[Srameen]

Originally Posted by skinny90

It's not as simple as emailing it,unless dunnes tesco have direct access to the system where they upload directly.the cost of developing a system will be pricey...maintenance also,how will the system cope with updates/new products.products that no longer exist.lets just say this was launched and by law the shops had to contribute.
Do you think it would have implications with business's perhaps thinking of setting up in Ireland...and ultimately be a deciding factor not to invest.

I agree fully. He admits to not knowing the retail business and doesn't seem to understand databases or IT either.What is proposed would cost huge money.
Development alone would be in the range of 6 to 20 million depending on complexity and frequency of input.

I still wonder who would actually take the time to check their entire grocery list and then shop somewhere other than their usual store. I also see difficulty with regional price diffferences and stock lists among the large store.

[Srameen]

Originally Posted by mylastparadigm

... email this file. done. thats all the obligation the store would have. whatever it costs on the other end to put the data online is unavoidable.

But who would pay the price? The consumer would!

[looksee]

The idea was that this would be a service run by civil servants. At the moment the civil service is being reduced in all kinds of vital areas, but the OP wants the government to divert people to collate supermarket prices?

As has already been said, shoppers find a supermarket that is convenient, suits their lifestyle and provides what they want.

Price is important but not to the extent that I am going to sit at my computer looking up the price of every item I propose to purchase and creating spreadsheets of which I will buy where. The amount I would save would be easily outweighed by the amount I would spend on petrol and the time I would spend going from shop to shop.

Add in the aggravation factor of having to load and unload children in and out of a vehicle multiple times, keep chilled and frozen food cold on this extended shopping trip and use my card multiple times to pay in different places and it is getting harder to see why I would be bothered!

Where I live I have a choice of Tesco, Lidl and Supervalue. I don't need to check a computer to know pretty well what they stock and which has the best value.

[mylastparadigm]

Originally Posted by Srameen

Development alone would be in the range of 6 to 20 million depending on complexity and frequency of input.

really? explain that one would you? Spoiler: you are talking ****e. are you from notrealistan?

revenue get the pos data on an audit on a usb key. i suppose that cost 100 million to set up.