Supermarkets cartel

will.i.amnt

Long story short, popped into Tesco to find my favourite beer had increased to £2.19.

"not to worry, ill get it from Sainsburys". Nope, now £2.19 there too.

Waitrose?

Yup, £2.19.

Now, I know for a fact that none of these charged £2.19 on Friday last week, so its highly coincidental that they have all implemented the exact same price at more or less the exact same time.

Cartel?

As a sidenote, Asda pricing has remained static although its a variant of the same brand.

Apologies for any spelling issues, this site is horrific when posting from a mobile.

DCFC79

Have you not thought that costs at the brewery (eg cost of ingredients, overheads etc) have been passed onto the 3 supermarkets who then pass it onto the customers.

will.i.amnt

DCFC79 wrote: »

Have you not thought that costs at the brewery (eg cost of ingredients, overheads etc) have been passed onto the 3 supermarkets who then pass it onto the customers.

Well, duh.

The kicker is that Waitrose (for example) are well known for having a higher profit margin than the others yet strangely have set their prices the same.

On a broader theme, its obvious how these majors manage a "price promise" when they collude with their competitors and match each others prices...

Azari

There is no doubt that they effectively operate as a cartel, although not in everything at once.

In many cases, where pricing is concerned, you cannot know, for certain, that increases are not caused by an increase in cost from the supplier.

However, occasionally, all is lad bare by third parties.

I had always thought it odd that, generally, supermarkets do not seem to compete on the price of milk. Every supermarket charged exactly the same price for 1 pint of standard milk. (Skimmed/semi/normal.)

I naively thought this must be because they had all pared there profits to the bone on this everyday essential.

I discovered that this was not the case and that they are making a stonking great profit on milk when I had occasion to use some of the Arab run supermarkets for speciality ingredients. These places charged way less for milk (long dated) than the supermarkets and continue to do so.

Of course, this doesn't not mean the supermarkets are doing anything illegal. Provided they do not make covert agreements to fix prices they are all right. Simply following the lead of one of the others to make sure you are not charging more than they do, is pretty much a part of competitive trading.

will.i.amnt

It still stinks

Interestingly, the variant that Asda sells costs exactly the same at trade, yet Asda have always sold at ~15% less than the others and have yet to increase their price

Its a pity i'm not a fan of filtered beer...

In any case, Ill be importing my beer from now on, as, ridiculously, itll be cheaper to pay UPS international freightbthan it will to pay uk sulupwrmaeket prices.

edit: try as i may, i cant correct these errors on a mobile device. MSE really need to sort out their software, its awful.

keyser666

Obviously hasn't occured to you the voucher schemes in operation from the supermarkets that give money back if shopping is cheaper for example, this has been abused for a couple of years, so no point in them offering it cheaper when people can get further money back on the difference in prices, makes business sense to have them at the same price as competitors

SpammyTheSpammer

One shop's "Price Match Promise" is another shop's Cartel....

Much the same with Petrol Stations, two near me, both sell petrol at exactly the same price. Make of that what you will.

shaun_from_Africa

will.i.amnt wrote: »

In any case, Ill be importing my beer from now on, as, ridiculously, itll be cheaper to pay UPS international freightbthan it will to pay uk sulupwrmaeket prices.

Will it still be cheaper once you have paid the required excise duty?

will.i.amnt

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Will it still be cheaper once you have paid the required excise duty?

Nothing more to pay in free market Europe

shaun_from_Africa

will.i.amnt wrote: »

Nothing more to pay in free market Europe

Only if you bring it back yourself.
If you have tobacco or alcohol products delivered to you in the UK then you are still required to pay excise duty even if they were purchased from another EU country.

Gilbert2

Supermarket fuel is the same.

Morrisons told me they just alter the price to whatever ASDA sets it at.

Do Morrisons employ anybody who is responsible for setting their fuel prices?

Because all he needs to do is drive past an ASDA. And I bet he will be on about 80k!