Are supermarkets extorting customers now?

londonTiger

When supermarkets came about they were a great way to reduce your shopping bill. You could go to a supermarket and do all your shop in one place, you'd benefit from bulk buying. In comparison if you went to the grocers, butchers, bakers etc it would be more expensive because each small outlet had more overheads per £ of goods sold.

However lately I noticed that the independant shops are actually more cheaper than supermarkets. I'm wondering whether the supermarkets caught onto the fact that we're too busy to visit indepndant shops and have been "institutionalised" to buy from supermarkets as it's easier for us. So slowly supermarkets have ramped up the prices and we were none the wiser.

DCFC79

Or maybe the fact prices have risen is due to the costs of overheads, cost of running the distribution centres.

spike7451

Yes,I believe they are.The CoOp in my town is,on average,about at least 20p more expensive on an item than the CoOp over in Bangor,six miles away,and vastly more expensive than the likes of Tesco ect.I now prefer to price shop online before doing the rounds of them.
I also find that as far as meat is concerned,my local butchers is cheaper than the likes of Tesco,plus it's fresher,less food miles being locally sourced,and you can see what you're buying as the meat's not wrapped in plastic & sweating away..

ukjoel

Fruit is the worst.
Tesco and Coop both are doing strawberries half price at £2 (down from £4) a punnet but local fruit shop charges £1 for same size.

Its the same with rasberries also at half price according to both supermarkets but twice the price of the local fruit shop.

I still do the supermarket shop but spend £50 a week instead of the £100 I used to. The other £30 goes to local butcher and fruit shop and £20 saved in my pocket.

Also now I am lucky enough to have the storage space I do bulk buy when there are very strong deals to be had at the supermarkets. Happy to pick up 3 years worth of stock if I can.

Pollycat

Rotoo wrote: »

Supermarkets are hardly worth visiting anymore. See my thread about the idiots working the Tesco cafe on Sunday. Too stupid to even go and buy eggs!

Do you plan to have an unjustified (imho as well as some other posters who've replied on your other thread) rant on every thread about supermarkets?

You are very rude to call people working for a living 'chimps' and 'idiots'.

fluffnutter

londonTiger wrote: »

When supermarkets came about they were a great way to reduce your shopping bill. You could go to a supermarket and do all your shop in one place, you'd benefit from bulk buying. In comparison if you went to the grocers, butchers, bakers etc it would be more expensive because each small outlet had more overheads per £ of goods sold.

However lately I noticed that the independant shops are actually more cheaper than supermarkets. I'm wondering whether the supermarkets caught onto the fact that we're too busy to visit indepndant shops and have been "institutionalised" to buy from supermarkets as it's easier for us. So slowly supermarkets have ramped up the prices and we were none the wiser.

Quite possibly but they're running a business. They're not obliged to let you know you could buy cheaper elsewhere! It's the shopper's responsibility to source the cheapest (if that's what they want to do), not the supermarkets'.

Hardly 'extortion' then, is it?

Alternatively perhaps supermarkets are finally starting to charge an honest price for something instead of kicking out food as cheaply as possible just to win some 'supermarket war'. The rise of supermarkets and their endless competitive cost-cutting might be good for the consumer but what do you think it's done to our farming community? It's shagged it senseless. When they decide to do a BOGOF on strawberries, guess what? They simply give the supplier half the agreed price. It's shocking the stranglehold supermarkets have on our entire food industry and it's about time we realised that decent food costs money to produce.

oscarward

spike7451 wrote: »

Yes,I believe they are.The CoOp in my town is,on average,about at least 20p more expensive on an item than the CoOp over in Banor,six miles away,and vastlnsive y more expensive than the likes of Tesco ect.I now prefer to price shop online before doing the rounds of them.
QUOTE]

It comes down to convenience, my nearest coop is 5-10% more expensive than the next nearest coop 1 mile away.

Which itself is 10% more expensive than a morrisons 1.5 miles away.

If I run out of a tin of tomatoes do I drive to morrisons and pay 31p or nip in to the local coop 400 yds away and pay 56p?

sekrapa

For the past several months, I have been getting all my fruit and veg from a local small shop rather than the supermarket. I have gotten to know the owner well, and the prices are cheaper or the same as the supermarket, but the quality is certainly better. Always friendly and helpful, even given me fruit that was going to throw away for me to make a smoothie or juice. I would not go back to the supermarket again for fresh produce.