All hail the abolition of the grocery order.....and prices will.....

HighWire

.....Rise.

Has anyone else noticed that prices seem to be going up rather than down since the order was abolished. Plus I think Tesco and Dunnes are in cahoots.
Have you seen this type of thing:-
Tesco - Wine X - €7.71
Dunnes - Wine X - €7.71
Supervalu - Wine X - €8.00

Its not just wine, they are on loads of things.

So much for the grocery order, might even say its price fixing.
You could argue they are just matching, but pull the other one.

jellybean520

I couldn't agree more and I've also noticed this.

Price fixing is against the competition laws and they should be liable for heavy fines.

I just heard today that BA and Virgin have been fined hundreds of millions for their cosy cartel in fixing fuel surcharges.

The monopolies commission needs to become more active in all of this.

Jip

I very much doubt they're in cahoots. What does happen is that each of the major stores have staff going around their competitors comparing a set number of goods. They then either match their prices or come under just a shade so as to prevent advertisements saying "look, brand x is cheaper here than there".
All perfectly legal.

rubadub

Look at beer, it has gone down. Some bottles are HALF the price they were 15 years ago!, 24 bottles for €17-20 is common now, that is as low as 70cent a bottle. Twice that is €1.40 or £1.10 in punts. It was very rare to get a long neck of "advertised" beer for that price 15 years ago.

And I have heard 2 offie owners complaining to me about supermarkets underselling beers.

galah

was booze actually covered by the order? Just wondering...

rubadub

galah wrote:

was booze actually covered by the order? Just wondering...

Definitely, plenty is below cost.

Oryx

Jip wrote:

I very much doubt they're in cahoots. What does happen is that each of the major stores have staff going around their competitors comparing a set number of goods. They then either match their prices or come under just a shade so as to prevent advertisements saying "look, brand x is cheaper here than there".
All perfectly legal.

Theyve been doing this for donkeys years. They used to try and be covert, but in recent years theyre upfront, the supermarkets know each others 'scouts'. Its good business on their part to match a competitor. Its not price fixing, more price matching.

Edit: the arrival of Lidl and Aldi has had the biggest effect in terms of lowering prices and making the mainstream supermarkets compete, not the groceries order.

dahamsta

I disagree completely with the abolition of the groceries order. If it had to be abolished, the practice of below-cost selling should have been outlawed elsewhere, it's completely anti-competitive and an outright killer of indigenous business. GOV.IE is doing little enough for indigineous business as it is.

adam

Drapper

i know a rather senoir person in Lidl and he confiremd that they get calls from government and other retailsers to fix prices or increase prices daily! tesco, dunnes and musgrave gruop are in cahoots! but ze germans will not be cohersed!

Spyral

I recall when looking to source a d40 digital camera that the price was the same all over dublin.. 3 different shops but the same price seems dodgy..

parsi

There is more to life than cheap beer....

Other prices haven't exactly come rocketing down. Despite langer Hobbs and his nappy campaign nappy prices are much the same with the same occasional offers.

I haven't seen our shopping bill come down by the monstrous amounts that were supposedly just waiting for the order's abolition.

Once again the folk caught codded and believed the story that the Supermarkets really wanted to reduce prices but couldn't because of the big bad Government. What tosh !

Jip

Drapper wrote:

i know a rather senoir person in Lidl and he confiremd that they get calls from government and other retailsers to fix prices or increase prices daily! tesco, dunnes and musgrave gruop are in cahoots! but ze germans will not be cohersed!

Pure bull. Why would Dunnes want to set their prices the same as Tesco or vice versa, then there'd be no incentive for you to chose one over the other. All have loss leaders to entice customers to come to their chain over the other.

Do you really think the government would phone someone from Lidl and demand that they lower or fix their prices ? Pure crap TBH as Lidl don't even sell the branded items that Dunnes, Tesco or Supervalu would so how can they fix a price on an item that they don't have in common ?

mickoneill30

HighWire wrote:

.....Rise.

Tesco - Wine X - €7.71
Dunnes - Wine X - €7.71
Supervalu - Wine X - €8.00

Yeah a bottle of McGuigan wine (it comes from about 200 miles from Sydney) which I used to get for AU$9.99 (€6.24) in Sydney generally costs me €7.50 in Dunnes.

Rip off b******s :rolleyes:

What about Aldi & Lidl? Ever price the wine there. Not the same brands but they have some good stuff cheap.

Drapper

Jip wrote:

Pure bull. Why would Dunnes want to set their prices the same as Tesco or vice versa, then there'd be no incentive for you to chose one over the other. All have loss leaders to entice customers to come to their chain over the other.

Do you really think the government would phone someone from Lidl and demand that they lower or fix their prices ? Pure crap TBH as Lidl don't even sell the branded items that Dunnes, Tesco or Supervalu would so how can they fix a price on an item that they don't have in common ?

So the former green leader mr seargant (junior minister for food) never calls Lidl to increase the payments to suppliers? Also, the IFA like to call and rant every few days too! the poor farmers and the poor growers in north Dublin!

Products in common :- All Veg, Milk, Bread shall I go on ??

Listen mate I know it for a fact they call! take it from me . PS. Musgrave Group has a lot to answer for in this country ripping people off and think we are fools!

Oryx

mickoneill30 wrote:

Yeah a bottle of McGuigan wine (it comes from about 200 miles from Sydney) which I used to get for AU$9.99 (€6.24) in Sydney generally costs me €7.50 in Dunnes.

Rip off b******s :rolleyes:

That sounds ok to me if they have to fly the stuff halfway around the world?

Jip

Drapper wrote:

So the former green leader mr seargant (junior minister for food) never calls Lidl to increase the payments to suppliers? Also, the IFA like to call and rant every few days too! the poor farmers and the poor growers in north Dublin!

Products in common :- All Veg, Milk, Bread shall I go on ??

Listen mate I know it for a fact they call! take it from me . PS. Musgrave Group has a lot to answer for in this country ripping people off and think we are fools!

and this has to do with price fixing and cartels how, mate :rolleyes:

mickoneill30

KtK wrote:

That sounds ok to me if they have to fly the stuff halfway around the world?

That's why I had the rolls eyes icon.

Oryx

mickoneill30 wrote:

That's why I had the rolls eyes icon.

I read it twice and couldnt figure if that meant sarcasm or emphasis. I went with emphasis.:D

MOH

KtK wrote:

I read it twice and couldnt figure if that meant sarcasm or emphasis. I went with emphasis.:D

Emphasm.

mickoneill30

What's sarcasm then? If you roll your eyes in real life when you're saying something you're not emphasising it. Try it in your next meeting when you're making a point. (this icon means I'm attemptingto be humerous, but not very well).

rubadub

Drapper wrote:

Musgrave Group has a lot to answer for in this country ripping people off and think we are fools!

I imagine Musgraves have no doubt that their customers are fools. I would not do weekly shopping in a shop that buys from musgraves. I remember going into the cash & carry before and a lot of prices were far higher than supermarkets.

Other prices haven't exactly come rocketing down

I have found plenty of products are very cheap compared to say 15 years ago, and prices abroad. If you are going for branded products it can be very high. If you know how to read labels you can detect a lot of things. e.g. tescos have 3 ranges, value, "tesco" and finest. A lot of the value and "tesco" stuff have the same nutritional values and I expect are the exact same thing. You can also discover who makes stuff for them, e.g. look at the nutritional values on supermarket beans and compare to branded ones.

e.g. sugar, tesco sugar costs more than tesco value sugar. I seriously doubt there is anything different about them. Same goes for stuff like flour, juices, oil etc. Then there is stuff that is not that good quality but far cheaper than the equivalent years ago, 2litres of value soft drinks is 35cent, I think bread is the same price.

I think people living on "the bread line", can get a weekly shop for far less these days. They do charge a bit for "premium" stuff, most just wasnt around years ago, it is a fairly recent thing. They would be idiots not to charge as much as they can get away with.