Grocery pricing in the ACT on the new Government site.

Coles and Woolies are a duopoly. They can charge what they want at any time. Thus, they can drive small independent stores out of business by keeping prices low for a time.

Ever wondered what happened to the old corner store and why petrol stations are now selling more and more consumables.

Once the independents have gone, watch the price fixing and rises.

Coles and Woolies are not a duopoly and they cannot charge what they want at any time. Please do not misuse terms that have specific economic meanings.

They are two companies that have a very large share in a monopolistically competitive market. This share allows them to influence prices and (and I put this hypothetically) engage in the behaviour you have described.

If you actually have a source to back up your claims I will be more than happy to read and analyse it. Beyond that I will neither suggest that you are correct, incorrect, or somewhere in between.

I will say that I do not believe that food provision has a high barrier to entry, however I am happy to be shown to be incorrect in that regard.

As for the corner store, it’s still there. Where do you live?

There is often a ploy by supermarkets to make the bigger/larger packages of goods actually more expensive than the smaller packs

I noticed this happening with butter last year. The price of a 500g block of butter was more than twice the price of a 250g block, sometimes by as much as 20%. People seemed to catch on after a while – there’d be no 250g blocks left but a shelf full of the larger blocks.

Aldi’s ‘cents per 100g/ml’ approach is law in Germany and makes it very easy to compare similar products with different prices and different quantities. Which do you buy – the 210g pack of corn chips at $1.89 or the 230g pack at $2.15? Having a sticker that says ’90c per 100g’ and ’93c per 100g’ makes it much easier to decide, especially for stuff like beetroot that (allegedly) all comes from the same factory in the first place.

Don’t even get me started on canned products that only have to report gross weight. John West Tuna Slices in Oil 185g and Sirena Tuna in Oil 185g. Same price, same size – but one contains 60% tuna while the other contains 81%.

And as the report said, a lack of competition is often due to local planning problems, which also isn’t the perview of the Federal Government.

tylersmayhem said :

I think this website is just another example of the KRudd government not keeping it’s election promises.

How so Big Dave?

Well, we had a promise in the lead up to the election that KRudd would make groceries cheaper. So we had an enquiry which found that the three main contributing factors to grocery prices were the drought, international economy and pricing pressures and the lack of competition. And guess what, all three are well outside of government control and therefore KRudd can wash his hands and say “well, nothing more we can do” in much the same manner he did after the petrol price enquiry. (Deja vu anyone?)

So they set up a website to inform the public and increase competition.

They say you should never hold an enquiry unless you know in advance what the outcome will be, and the grocery price enquiry could have come up with the same conclusions by asking half a dozen peasants at the Queanbeyan woolies.

Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud of our petty bureaucrat of a PM.

ED – sure, compare the price for 6×800ml or 4×1100ml? want a calculator]

No. 6×8 and 4×11 should be quite easily calculated in the head. One then has to divide the price by the total to get a price per 100mL. One can then make a decision for themselves as to whether any price improvement is worth the particular packaging.

However I realise I am a jerk that is good with numbers and that many probably can’t do this, can but with great difficulty making it not . My fiancee is one example (she has the creativity genes), so I do this for us both. I’d be shocked however if a mobile phone of today does not have a calculator as a feature.

Do they still teach times tables in schools?

And the consumer continues to get screwed by the duopoly of Woolworths and Coles.

Please explain how Woolworths and Coles are screwing the consumer when they are consistently cheaper than the independents? I notice that IGA is now winging that it is not fair that the independents are being shown as poor value by comparison.

And if you are so concerned about the prices the producers are getting, send them a cheque – at least that way they will get the extra money.

I think this website is just another example of the KRudd government not keeping it’s election promises.

How so Big Dave?

smokey4 said :

Agree with Thumper – a waste of time.

If you wish to save money buy Fruit, veg, meat etc at “farmers markets” like the new one opening at Snow town. Down in Vic these along with Aldi are giving the big supermarkets a run.

mother natures is good for fruit and veg, as is the greengrocer in chisholm shops. we break up our spend at the supermarket so that we get best value. and considering the new sausage creations coming out of the butcher at kambah village (as well as his foray into jerky), we managed to feed 2 adults and 3 kids (twins are now on solids) really well.

Agree with Thumper – a waste of time.

If you wish to save money buy Fruit, veg, meat etc at “farmers markets” like the new one opening at Snow town. Down in Vic these along with Aldi are giving the big supermarkets a run.

Jonathon Reynolds said :

I challenge anyone next time they are out shopping shopping to work out what the cheapest way to buy Vegemite is without a calculator handy. There is a plethora of jars (and a tube) all with odd sizes that it comes in.

There is often a ploy by supermarkets to make the bigger/larger packages of goods actually more expensive than the smaller packs. This plays on the psychology that bulk packaging should nominally reflect better value for money.

We need legislated unit pricing.

I have never seen that and I often pedantically work out the value of going bigger however I’ll take your word for it.

I do note that you as the almighty wise johnboy decree that people are too stupid for their own good and thus the Government must step in. What would we ever do without johnboy and the Federal Government…

I for one can’t wait until the wonderful day when our wise betters do all of our thinking for us.

As for the topic at hand, I think Thumper summed it up perfectly. Grocery Watch and Fuel Watch make Hollowmen look like a documentary.

‘Public Choice theory’ and ‘spin over substance’ are all the tools one needs to understand the actions of Government.