Over the last few years I have become increasingly frustrated by the attitude of NZ’s major supermarkets to transport issues.
Right now Progressives and Foodstuffs are spending big money on free parking, fuel discounts etc for people who drive to their stores. Meanwhile, those people who arrive by any other transport mode get absolutely nothing. Nada, zilch, etc. Even worse, you know that the cost of parking and fuel discount vouchers are being partly picked up by people who don’t drive.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not looking for any particular favours; all I want is for the supermarkets to stop using my money to subsidise the economically, socially, and environmentally damaging travel choices of drivers. If they can’t do that then yes, I am looking for some favours.
Here’s an email exchange I recently had with someone at Pak n Save, let’s call him “Stickman”, on the related issue of home delivery – which went along these lines:
Stuart: Is Pak n Save planning to introduce an online shopping/home delivery service anytime soon? I live in Parnell, don’t own a car, and can’t easily get to a PnS store by public transport so I end up shopping at Countdown more than I would like. If you offered online shopping/home delivery then I would definitely use it.
Stickman: The PAK’nSAVE mantra is to bring you the lowest food prices in NZ. This is achieved by improving operating cost efficiencies so we can pass savings on to our customers. The (stick)man-power that would need to go into maintaining a database of all of our products online would ultimately result in a higher average cost of groceries for our customers.For this reason, we don’t currently offer an online shopping service. While the service would be handy, ultimately we think it’s more important to keep our prices as low as possible and we hope you agree :).
Are Pak n Save for real? Can they seriously preach about needing “operating cost efficiencies” to keep prices as low as possible, while at the same time passing on the costs of free parking and stupid fuel discount vouchers to all users, irrespective of how they travel? Are cost-inefficiencies and higher prices OK so long as they flow from drivers to non-drivers? Indeed, Pak n Save seems to be saying exactly that. As you might imagine my response to this was reasonably curt; paraphrasing as follows:
Stuart: Thanks for your reply. I don’t agree with your position for two reasons. First, Pak n Save can charge for home delivery (in various ways) to recoup the costs from users, rather than pass them onto other shoppers. Countdown, for example, charge a $15 home delivery fee (which reduces the more you buy). Pak and Save could also try charging higher prices for online items, so as to internalise the online processing costs you mention. I’m sure there are other business models through which Pak n Save could recoup the costs of online shopping from users. The second, more important, reason is this: Pak n Save already cross-subsidises people who drive, by providing free car-parking and fuel discount vouchers. Thus, the company is already taking on higher costs on behalf of drivers that must be covered by people who use other transport modes (such as walking, public transport) to access your stores. So your stated commitment to keeping prices as low as possible (by not cross-subsidising online shopping) does not seem to wash given the way that drivers are treated. From where I’m sitting it seems hypocritical, especially given that the value (in terms of opportunity cost) of car-parking is not insignificant.
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Have you looked at getting in a weekly Ooooby box for fruit/veges? This would at least reduce the amount of stuff you need from the supermarket.
Thanks Christopher – yes we have looked at Ooooby boxes and they’re a viable option. At the moment we buy our fresh produce at another store (there’s a real good/cheap one on Khyber Pass Road). For anyone who has not heard of Ooooby, here’s the link: http://ooooby.ning.com/
Boycotting the major supermarkets is not only going to be difficult it is going to be expensive. For example a 5kG bag of rice at Lim Chour ( my closest market ) is 33% more expensive than Pak n Save. Milk is more expensive. I combine food shopping with other car trips where I have no other realistic option.
It is definitely more difficult, but not always more expensive. Especially for fruit and vegetables – the store I mentioned above on Kyhber Pass is about 50% cheaper than Pak n Save at Royal Oak. Ooooby boxes (also mentioned above) are a lot cheaper than supermarkets. And because their margins on fresh fruit and veges and higher than general merchandise, by getting those elsewhere you’re hitting them where it really hurts. As for rice, my local Chinese supermarket is cheaper than Pak n Save? Maybe you’re in the wrong part of town …
But anyway – I’m not realistically saying you can avoid supermarkets altogether: Boycotting is an aspiration, much like the “zero waste” movement. I’m simply encouraging non-drivers to avoid shopping their because they’re getting a rubbish deal at the moment.
I do online shopping in London at Waitrose, it’s fantastic. Once they were significantly late, so they gave me a complimentary bottle of champagne.
Can you imagine Pak n Save doing THAT!?
There is a similar argument to suggest that the fuel discount vouchers also discrimate against the poorer sections of society and subsidise the wealthy – those who can afford to spend over $250 in one hit on groceries are rewarded with a fuel subsidy at the expense of those who do smaller shops, as, at the end of the day, the fuel discount schemes are internalised into shelf prices.
On the brighter side, at least there is some choice for the non-car owner. For Progressive, this is a point of difference in a very competitive section of the retail landscape and when fuel prices head higher, it will make their home delivery options relatively more attractive to both consumers and the supermarket. More on-line shoppers will make the home delivery model more profitable for the supermarket and should grow market share – that is what will make Pak n Save sit up and take notice.
Your criticisems of carparking subsidies could be applyed to many businesses outside of supermarkets. For example most malls and hardware stores.
Who takes the hit with fuel vouchers. i would guess that the petrol stations carry a fair wack given that there is one who will give 4c per liter off regardless where the voucher came from.
Yes car-parking subsidies are a general problem. The reason supermarkets are in my sights is because 1) they also offer fuel discount vouchers and 2) most people visit them reasonably regularly.
I thought it was called PaRk and Save, wasn’t it?
Also, Countdown on Quay St is the unfrendliest place to walk in, if you don’t get killed by a car before.
Park n Save is more apt, yes.
CountDown on Quay Street is a shocker. I emailed them too, suggesting that if they were prepared to charge for home delivery then they should also start charging for their 100 or so car-parks on the bottom deck. Needless to say this has not happened. CountDown also lease free parking for staff in the ObScene apartments next door. Once again, how about paying for people’s public transport instead?
Seems that our major supermarkets are being managed by a bunch of petrol-heads. Well, all we can do (as a group of people interested in better transport and a better world) is to take our (not insignificant) disposable income elsewhere. Therein lies the beauty of capitalism …
That Quay St supermarket building is another great effort from Redwood of the nearby Scene apartment fame. And it is appalling, especially at street level. Total vehicle priority; minimal, indirect, and lethal pedestrian provision, ground level grilled car storage, multiple and irrational vehicle crossings. Not to mention just ugly and uselessly low rise for the site. Suburban model in the heart of CBD. Doh!
I wonder what proportion of customers are local apartment dwellers and therefore don’t drive there yet are totally treated as second class?
Redwood has a shocking record of the worst urban design outcomes with their projects, they seem especially ignorant of any idea of a human existing outside of a car. So nothing new there. But the thing that gets me is; where were the regulators on this? The Council? Charmless venal developers propose vile building shock. Yes, and they will again, that’s what planning departments are for, to tell the pricks that they can’t do that to our city, our lives, and tell them exactly what’s wrong with their plans and to come back with a better attempt.
I hope things have improved in this area.
And AT could help by removing the free left turn into Quay that has squeezed the footpath on a blind corner to a width of about 1 person.
A lot of people walk to Countdown Quay – far more than who drive I’d suggest. Despite the numbers CountDown persists with providing free parking to the “privileged few.” Things have not improved in this area unfortunately – except that New World Metro on Queen is now open, so I manage to avoid it altogether.
Thankfully it’s a cheaply built structure than can be replaced with something better unlike the (ob)scenes.
What is with this ‘claim the footpath’ approach when developing new buildings? Are you allowed to take over the footpath and turn it into a defacto road? I notice the Stanley St tenis centre carpark has continued the tread of the doing this and wonder if the council cares about this sort of takeover.
You seem to deliberately misunderstand the concept of marketing philosophy.
Countdown are what they themselves call a full service operation.
Pak and Save are a budget operation and they are correct in saying they would incur significant extra cost in running an online operation. That would have to be added to the accounts of the online shoppers.
If you want a full service airline in NZ you use Air NZ.
If you want a budget airline you use Jetstar and pay all the extras.
But surely online shopping should be the cheapest way for supermarkets to sell goods. Think about it:
1) No expensive real estate
2) Far fewer expensive buildings to construct and maintain
3) Far fewer staff to pay
Sure you have delivery costs but it seems that people are willing to pay extra for that anyway and over time as more people use online shopping I reckon the costs of delivery would be less than the savings from all of the above. I just think Pak N Save are narrow-minded, and the individual owner-operator model for Foodstuffs doesn’t really assist in developing a more centralised sales/distribution system.
Completely agree Mr Anderson.
Errrrmmmmmm … that’s a bizarre comment. No actually – I did not deliberately misunderstand “the concept of marketing philosophy,” or whatever that means. If I misunderstood something it’s because I’m uninformed, so please feel free to enlighten me – rather than insult me.
Some inconvenient truths you might want to work into your “philosophy”:
1. CountDown’s home delivery option comes at a cost ($15). That’s not “full-service” – it’s simply user pays.
2. Air NZ now offers several seat ticket options: A) seat+carry-on; B) seat+carry-on+meal, and C) seat+checked bag+meal. Again that’s not “full-service”, it’s just options that you pay for.
3. If Pak n Save are a budget supermarket, why bundle in the costs of car-parking and fuel discount vouchers? Why not strip them out of their cost-structure?
So what I’m saying is:
1. If Pak n Save or Countdown want to be a “budget” supermarket that’s fine: But be consistent and drop the free parking/fuel discount bollocks.
2. Alternatively, if either want to be a “full-service” supermarket that’s also fine: But be consistent and don’t just subsidise drivers while charging for home delivery.
Do you understand?
“Right now Progressives and Foodstuffs are spending big money on free parking”
It’s parking that pulls in the big weekly shoppers buying in bulk. These shoppers mean the supermarkets are able to take advantage of economies of scale, build a bigger supermarket, sell at lower prices, and stock a wider range. People who aren’t driving also benefit from the lower prices and wider range. It isn’t the basket shopper subsidising the SUV shopper’s free parking, but the other way around. If it wasn’t for the parking then you’d be buying from a local “Arkwright” store and it’d cost you a bomb.
Problem with that argument is explaining why things are often cheaper or no more expensive at my local Nosh store compared to either the very poor Countdown or the better stocked but more expensive New World?
Nosh Ponsonby has no cheap booze to cross subsidise with its grocery, and way less parking to pay for. These might help explain this.
Off topic but the Nosh Ponsoby site is owned by us, the Council, as it was bought to turn into a park. This strikes me as a very poor idea, I would much rather see this low rise poor building replaced by a mixed use retail/residential building. Something to stand up to the massing of the adjacent Edwardian shops. And the same goes for all the rest of the empty and underused sites on Ponsonby Rd. This is an urban precinct that could do with intensifying not disapating. There are better places for parks than this road which calls out for intensifying.
Sell or develope this valuable bit of real estate and use the funds to improve public space elsewhere
That’s an interesting idea Obi and I something I did consider. Let’s consider how Supermarkets might work around that in a way that was more reasonable:
1. Rather than offering free parking for all users, which not offer validated parking – i.e. if shoppers spend more than a certain amount they get free parking. Indeed this is how CountDown’s online shopping works, the more you buy the cheaper the delivery becomes (because you’re right, things like parking and home delivery are mainly fixed costs).
2. Why not just offer a bulk buy discount to all customers? If there truly are economies of scale why not encourage all users to buy more by, say, giving a 2.5% when you spend over $100? One of the benefits of this is that it targets the big-spenders directly, by whatever transport mode they arrive by?
Supermarkets don’t have your ideological drivers. They just want to push through the maximum number of shoppers and have those shoppers spend as much money as possible. They have an interest in a system that is easy to understand, doesn’t slow the shopping process down, and has low administrative overhead.
Yes I’m sure that true (not ideological), but by only serving one group, the majority, they end up reinforcing that one model.
Still, you would hope that would open up space for niche competitors. Nosh, Farrow Fresh, and indeed their own Metro brands. We shall see.
Obi, I think it’s less about ideology and more about the “status quo bias.” The potential cost savings from a really efficient home delivery system are potentially huge, as pointed out by Nic below. No high cost retail land, no car-parking, no need for tills/operators/cash-handling/paper receipts etc etc.
Just a big warehouse stocked with food, some delivery trucks, and a nice website. Voila.
People have been trying to develop the model you describe for probably the last 30 years. For all that effort they probably have about 0.1% of the domestic grocery market. Maybe less. Either everyone who has tried to develop this idea, both in NZ and overseas, is incompetent. Or other factors are at play that over-ride your concern for efficiency. Like perhaps people just like shopping? If you’ve found a market opportunity that delivers efficiency benefits and people will love it if only it were implemented without mistakes, then go for it. You’ll be the next Sam Walton. In the mean time, supermarkets are generally pretty well run places*, and I’m happy to trust that the people who run them know what people like. Such as free parking.
*Well run means that you can buy a wide range of food from all around the world; with the exception of a few seasonal items things are never out of stock; they’re open most of the time; they’re conveniently situated; and the things they sell are affordable.
Obi, as I said below, Amazon are trying to make it work (first in major cities in the US, of course). Austhalian supermarkets are experimenting with walk-in virtual shopping – you go to a wall and scan virtual items, which are then delivered to you. There’s a lot of room to develop here. The technologies are now mature, and the market now understands the concepts; it couldn’t happen 10 years ago, but it can happen now, if the retailers don’t raise cost barriers to uptake.
I for one never buy groceries with a car, and have not done so for many years now, I would argue that I spend no less than someone turning up with their car and doing a massive shop in one go, the difference is I make multiple trips, for instance when walking home from work. So the argument that the ‘bulk buyers’ are helping keep prices down doesn’t wash with me, because aside from families who are buying more to feed more people I doubt I’m spending any less than an equivalent person my age who turns up in their car. More than likely I’m actually a higher value customer because those with cars probably head out to the suburbs and buy in bulk at Costco or Walmart.
I personally find it amusing that you get fuel discount vouchers at Countdown Metro (and presumably also New World Metro?), despite both being walk-in.
LOL – good point. How about some shoelace discount vouchers instead?
Nah, stick to fuel – coffee vouchers!
Coffee discounts are a stroke of genius.
You saw it here first 😉
If any of the supermarket chains were serious about delivery they could establish non-retail home delivery bases at well located industrial parks. That could make delivery a lot cheaper than retail: no huge retail store on expensive high exposure land, no acres of parking surrounding it, no peak capacity with forty checkouts that only get used a few days a year. Just two or three distribution sites in the city.
Also they would need no counter staff or checkout operators, no shelf stockers arranging products to maximise exposure of loss leaders… all that can be done on a website.
You simply have a workforce of packers preparing deliveries all day while fleet of delivery vans take them out on runs to various neighbourhoods. I little logistics and operations management and it would be miles more efficient than the status quo.
Exactly.
Amazon are moving into general grocery retail. If they can make it work for them, it will be huge.
Maybe we should contact Amazon and see if/when they’re interested in having a depot over here. Offer them a bit of local knowledge for free.
Have to see how it goes first, obviously.
Wholefoods in the US offer free delivery when you spend over $100 in store, it’s a nice system as it means you can go in buy everything you want, pay for it and then they’ll come past your home later in the day with everything you purchased. There’s nothing stopping you taking the few small items you may want straight away with you leaving them to bring the heavy stuff to you.
The Supermarkets are even dipping their toes into the petrol market.
Last week in Wellington I noticed that both P and S Kilburnie and New World Miramar have their on branded gas stations right across the street.
Vertical integration?
Pak’n’Save in Auckland have had on site petrol stations for a few years now, considering the margins are razor thin I query the logic in this. It more than likely is cross-subsidised by groceries as a hook to get people to shop there.
I think the supermarkets’ position on petrol as a means of attracting customers, and carparking as a means of allowing customers to travel there and to take their goods home, will become increasingly untenable over time. I’m pessimistic about whether they’ll change things because of this boycott, unless a lot more noise is made.
At the end of the day these vouchers are next to worthless, 4c a litre is probably going to save the average person $1-2 (30-40litres), anyone who goes out of their way to shop where they can get this is spending more by using extra petrol than they are saving. The biggest scams are the instore promotions at petrol stations where they advertise that you’ll save 4c a litre if you spend $4 on some chocolate bars. Who falls for these tricks?
I’ve thought the same. The ‘spend $4 instore’ is okay if you’re buying more than 100 litres, though!
I only really use a voucher to fill up if I happen to have one on hand. If I don’t have one I don’t really stress about it as it only saves me like a $1.50.
my favourite supermarket in Railway Metro New World at the train station in Wellington. Not cheap, but so convenient. I can grab those top up groceries right at the railway station before I jump on the train home.
Also like home delivery, countdown keeps emailing me vouchers for free home delivery, and you can filter groceries by whats on sale, so it works out to be a fairly cheap option.
Before we criticise them to harshly, it’s worth asking how much parking they’re actually required to have. The former admin here made a frequent point of showing how regulations made these compulsory, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the parking provisions of many (though not necessarily all) supermarkets were at least in part driven by outside requirements.
I also notice that by providing parking at ground level under a raised supermarket they keep their costs relatively low while providing parking And a lot of demand still exists, particularly in the absence of delivery or shopping patterns that facilitate more frequent purchasing. Most aisles in a supermarket are still aimed at the trolleyload, and thus the inconvenience of frequent shopping is greater than it needs to be. Smaller outlets in NZ are mostly glorified convenience stores, lacking in range or quality – they sell a limited number of generic brands at high prices to maximise returns.
Don’t get me wrong, where they’ve pushed heavily into their own capital to build outside these requirements, they deserve condemnation. But there are a number of factors at play producing these costly outcomes, and they all deserve examination.
Ugh. Typos. I also like the comment above mine. While it’s rather hard to change existing buildings, we should be looking at more integrated usage in future design. Monocle’s <a href="http://www.heystudio.es/files/gimgs/88_02railway.jpg"idea of the perfect railway station looks rather wonderful.
The Quay Street Countdown is perfectly located for a supermarket at ground level with apartments on the 3-4 levels above, there’s really no excuse for any parking to be built there either as with the new Britomart parking building next door there’s a surplus of parking in the area.
I’m quite interested in whether the planned upgrade of Quay Street will extend down to Countdown and whether it will involve the removal of the slip lane there, it’s certainly something the council should be doing now and thankfully one of their overarching plans is the removal of all slip lanes in the central city.
“maintaining a database of all of our products online would ultimately result in a higher average cost”
They already have and maintain a database of all their products, i.e. bar code pricing. This could be automatically transfered online.
The parking for the supermarket in 277 Broadway is only free if you spend over a certain value.
Surely it’s in the supermarkets’ interest to discourage pedestrian access and the theft of supermarket trolleys?
The one thing that is more environmentally damaging than driving a car to the supermarket, is to have the supermarket drive a diesel truck to your house. Seriously, those home deliveries are very energy intensive, and polluting as well.
This would be true Geoff, only if the supermarket was dumb enough to organise delivery one home at a time, warehouse to front-door going back to the warehouse for the next load each time. Maybe that happens with the current low volumes. Once the thing is up and running and well used, there would be lots of ‘trip chaining’ – each truck would fill up with many shoppers’ requested goods and make one trip from warehouse to multiple homes and back again. Then instead of one vehicle trip per shopper there’d be one trip for many shoppers.
The truck that drops off my groceries usually has at least 8-12 delieveries after me. The 2 guys are working flat out to get the dliveries don in a small time window.
So I would say them bringing me my groceries would be less energy intensive than all of the individual households driving to the supermarket, parking, shopping and then returning home.
I was involved in the original home delivery project, ordering the stock for the truck deliveries. The home deliveries are not from your nearest supermarket, but rather come from a small number of stores around Auckland. People who drive to the supermarket, don’t usually have far to go, as they only go to their nearest store.
A truck driving 30-40km to the delivery area (return distance), then driving perhaps another 40km making ten deliveries, equates to 7 or 8km with a diesel truck per home. If those people drove, it would likely be less distance travelled, and with much lower fuel consumption of a car, as opposed to a truck (and fewer harmful particulates from petrol engines as opposed to diesel engines).
That obviously makes a difference. I imagine that if the volume gets high enough then home delivery would be better overall than everyone going to the supermarket on their own. Under current market conditions in NZ, seems like your original comment might be closer to the mark and that the potential environmental benefits of home delivery are nowhere near being realised.
I remember many years ago when Amazon were first getting started attending a seminar (this was in London) by some logistics/transport prof from Israel where he was puncturing the myth of the ‘weightless economy’ that was being touted in the dot-com boom. All that stuff being individually packaged and delivered to your door was way worse than going to a bookstore. iTunes etc. have changed that particular calculation but nothing you can do to make groceries weightless… so the argument remains, unless the volume gets high enough for effective logistics management and trip-chaining on the supply side, so it remains hard to tell which option is least-bad (they’re both bad) between driving to a supermarket and having the supermarket driven to you.
Better to walk or cycle.
My experience with this sort of thing comes from being a pizza delivery driver in high school. It’s not like we drove out to take each order individually all over town, but rather we would schedule runs of three or four at a time going to the same area. In that way, from a fuel and time perspective delivery was roughly three to four times more efficient than having the customers individually drive to the shop.
With supermarkets I can only imagine they take dozens of orders at a time, and likewise schedule them in runs designed to minimise travel distance and time.
We shop once a month at P&S Royal Oak and I would gladly use P&S online shopping if they offered it. I don’t use Countdown’s online service as they are more expensive across the board even before taking in to account the delivery cost.
Plus, as anyone who’s been the Royal Oak store knows, it’s pretty much one big car-park. As it’s in the middle of a residential area, I imagine that space would be much better used as a kind of plaza/open air shopping precinct, rather than an archaic covered mall, sprawling supermarket and all the parking that comes with it.
Now take a step back here. You seriously want to boycott supermarkets because of fuel vouchers?
May I point out they are one out of several discounts, loyaltyschemes and promostions a supermarket offer. Its not supposed to be for everyone. You are also subsidising direct commercials, lead in prices, FlyBuys, Onecard and a range of other stuff. Personally i dont enjoy seeing Countdown sposor rugby clubs or Masterchef. Doesnt give anything to me does it.
Nah lets understand that the supermarkets provides the offers they belive will bring in the most customers. Fuel is a heavy expense for most families and the kiwi lifestyle (not mine) is made up of driving. Discounting fuelvouchers is thus just anoter way of marketing thats designed to increse marketshare and be part of their arsenal of promotions.
Remember you have to be realistic and make sense to generate a debate. Boycotting supermarkets because they offer fuelvouchers isnt realisitic. Nor does it make sense.
More importantly the model of delivery has been tried in quite a few countries. It works well in two of them. Singapore and HongKong. Both because of the mass of customers but also because their grocery shopping is less in weight and volume and because the delivery service can be done using foresign cheap labour that deliver to maids and nannies staying in the house during office hours. Maids that are also on the same cheap labour contract.
Deliveries to peoples houses carries a glitch. No one is at home when all the couriercompanies have time to make the deliveries. Your usual trademe parcel can be put outside your door. Your food doesnt do well being left outside for a few hours.
And no, everytime they have tried to have deliveries at times when people are at home, the model has proven to expensive.
The companies that do succeed, several in London and the US tend to be the high end boutique shops. They have a clientel thats prepared to pay for home delivery and doesnt moan about a ten dollar surcharge.
Personally I have done online grocery shopping since 1997. (I used to live in a country way more IT advanced than NZ before i accepted my present position here in Auckland.) Online grocery shopping has always cost me more than if i had walked or cabbed to the store. I was happy to pay that extra to receive the service.
Problem with this is, the eggs are broken pretty often, wrong products and reclaiming, stock etc etc. Its not as easy as it sounds.
One interesting thing to see is what the price differences are at the two metro supermarkets. We have brought a few things from there recently on the way home and each time have noticed that the meat has been quite cheap e.g. normally we would pay $6-$8 for some chicken at our local P&S yet twice we have brought the same amount of meat at each of the stores for $3-$4.
Hey Stu!, check this out, we’ve heard your call over in Ponsonby, you’ve got a few months to move, either that or do your shopping by Link Bus. *Warning unlikely to be P+S prices or plain products.
The easiest solution would be in areas that have the contactless smartcards (metrocard, snapper etc) to load a credit straight onto the card from the supermarket.
Perhaps to make it easier the metro PT systems could provide a few machines, to redeem you scan a barcode printed from the supermarket, then wave your smartcard on the computer.
Would be a good PR thing for supermarkets (particularly ones close to PT).
Any one remember a few years ago a local NZ supermarket was selling imported Fish and Talley and Sealords banged on and jumped up and down about New Zealand jobs being put at risk? It is now the howls of the hypocrits when Aussie Business wants to ensure other Aussie businesses succeed by instigating a buy local campaign. Get over yourselves and realise that you are not the centre of the universe. You have sold out your country long ago and now have to pay the price. If you do not shop at an Aussie owned supermarket, where will you shop?
Can we assume that comprehension is not your strong point, Mr Curl?
Hi Stu
I am thinking about doing some research around this topic (potential dissertation for economics) and it would be great to have a conversation with someone who feels so strongly about this topic.
Having worked for both Countdown and New World, I feel it’s worth adding that Countdown is a unionized employer; pays significantly higher wages, and in general treats their shop staff extremely well. New Worlds on the other hand, being independant businesses, have strongly resisted collective labour; pay substantially lower wages; and encourage bullying and abuse in the workplace in order to drive profits.
Countdown may be an Australian brand, but its business practices treat NZ workers with far greater respect than Foodstuffs. From a worker’s point of view, the Aussie-owned brand is far better for NZ workers than our own employers.
If you care about already rich NZ business owners, shop at New World. If you care about service workers, shop at Countdown.
Good news to all! Chinese & Indian supermarkets hv always been 10% cheaper than PaknSave & 30-40% cheaper vs Countdown. Asians work very hard to give shoppers best value for money. A saving of $15-18k per year over Countdown for an average household. We need to be more proactive & flexible in shopping habits.
The last few years of the pandemic, has told us, the biggest player supermarkets Foodstuffs can’t be trusted no longer with their pricing! Ever since the pandemic the prices of items has increased and used the pandemic as an opportunity to increase prices so they could gain massive profits. Everyday working people are struggling at a time where inflation is too high and it’s time we shake up the industry and bring real competition to the table for once for all! The most striking thing about Foodstuffs is amount of stores located around the country, which is driving up the prices since they dominate heavily over any other competition. With Foodstuffs owning and controlling Pak N Save, New World, On the Spot and Four Square with combined near estimate of 550 stores nation-wide vs Woolworths (Countdown, Super Value and Fresh Choice) 250 stores.
Noticeably lately, Four Square would have seen appear on the Telly (TV), ‘What will it be today’ campaign, being advertised and on the news outlets advertising. Along with it, they’ve been expanding their franchises heavily across Auckland from pandemic and currently still expanding with Hobsonville being the newest franchise opened this year. Seems like they plan to create more franchises in Auckland which would bring their total amount of stores nationwide higher. They have about 250 stores nationwide currently and continue to be expanding nationwide. Wouldn’t you find it suspicious about their activities? Is it time for Four Square to be split out of Foodstuffs? I say yes!
Problem with breaking up Four Square is that they don’t occupy big stores with likes of their big players such as Pak N Save and New World. If they had big stores, it would definitely bring real completion to the big players! How do we get them big stores? One simple solution is ‘Land Acquisition’, forcibly making private properties give up their land for important projects such as expanding size of supermarkets or building new one, someway as you do for building transport infrastructure. At the moment, the land might be there for the supermarket providers, size of the land isn’t big enough for Four Square cause of no law to allows supermarkets to acquisition land since it’s not considered essential project. If the franchises of Four Square don’t have enough money to expand their size, central government needs to fund once-off to Four Square, to enable them to construct bigger stores and bring real completion!
If Four Square was our third supermarket player, it would definitely bring price down! Better than going for golden plated idea!
A boycott would work. If a message went out to boycott a certain brand supermarket on a certain day there would be mayhem. A large amount of perishable goods would be lost. This would absolutely rattle the brands. Other supermarkets NOT being boycotted would have to staff up etc. The call could be random for maximum effect. Most brands are placed together so minimum disruption for the customer. Prices would PLUMMET! We could use the internet to get back at them!