Deflation coming to a supermarket near you?

Generali

Inflation = a continuous and persistent tendency for the price level to rise
Deflation = a continuous and persistent tendency for the price level to fall
Disinflation = a temporary interruption to inflation where the price level falls for a short time

HTH.

Generali: fighting muddle since half past four.

purch

Hyper-inflation = Something you say to get attention

Mega-Inflation = What happens to your head if you write a blog and a bunch of morons then repeat your rubbish over and over

Constantly repeated-Inflation = Petrol prices in Devon

Thrugelmir

tomterm8 wrote: »

What the thread title should say is 'Price cuts' or 'Price war'.

The change is going to be permanent. Merely reflects the squeeze on household budgets. UK supermarkets have been highly profitable for years. Once they squuzed the life out of the "old corner shops" and dominated the market.

Competition is healthy.

tomterm8

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The change is going to be permanent. Merely reflects the squeeze on household budgets. UK supermarkets have been highly profitable for years. Once they squuzed the life out of the "old corner shops" and dominated the market.

Competition is healthy.

To be fair, I've heard talk about price cuts, price wars, massive reductions in price at supermarkets since before I was old enough to have money to buy anything there.

But my grocery shop bill has gone up every year anyway.

Weird, that. It's almost like this is a marketing gimmick.

( Anyway, even if the price of a average basket of groceries actually fell, you'd just be talking about one sector. Not the entire economy. Price's have been falling in computing and technology for *years*, but it's just one sector. The price falls would have to be massive for a price war to cause actual deflation which is a fall in price levels over the entire economy).

grizzly1911

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Isn't the "one type of pasta" Aldi's downfall though at the same time?

We want choice. I've not used Aldi, but I've used Lidl on occasion and yes, some products are good value for money. However, I often found things out of stock. I certainly couldn't do a full shop there... though if I'd wanted some sock warmers and a bike frame to go on the back of the car I'd have been thrilled by the jumble sale type arrangement taking over the middle of the store.

I think Aldi and Lidl have their place. However, you always need the bigger supermarket to get everything else that you can't get in Aldi and Lidl.

I

What this lot say.

daveyjp wrote: »

That's what we thought until an Aldi opened the same distance away as Morrisons. My visits to morrisons in almost 6 months have been to the cashpoint and bottle bank. We have found no need to use them for groceries.

wotsthat wrote: »

An aisle full of pasta isn't really offering a choice when 90% of it are differences in branding rather than product. Aldi have a few pastas and they're all OK.

Yes they have some random offers but apparently they sell really well.

onlyroz wrote: »

Agree. I can get the vast majority of the staples from Aldi, and my local butcher, and find myself buying less and less from Mr T. You don't need 20 types of pasta and 10 brands of baked beans. And you shouldn't need a calculator to figure out which brand of cheese is the cheapest.

Lidl and Aldi are subtly different in their approach.

I agree with you that in in the few times I have been in Lidl I would have found it difficult to consider to do a routine weekly shop in the store. They appear to rotate own brand with brands so one week you may get a good deal versus a M,T,S,A the following you may not. There doesn't seem to be any consistency.

I also agree that their special deal items are quite random.

Aldi by comparison is much more consistent. You will always have their own brand on offer alongside a limited number of random special offer brand items. Their own brand items are of generally high quality. Some items are down to taste rather than quality as such.

You can certainly do a family shop there without issue. Yes you may have to top up a luxury item - recently I needed some crystalline ginger for instance or some specific item for a special occasion.

You get out of the habit of all that choice. It actually becomes a bit cloying when you visit one of the big four "Extras".

A number of the special offers, non food, tend to be cyclical. If you shop there enough you become aware of what is likely to crop up. Most stuff is fair value.


I don't think Morrisons will win taking on Aldi, they are too far behind the curve.

Interesting that Aldi/Lidl are growing rapidly despite having no internet presence.


Which is worst Morrisons or CoOp?

antrobus

grizzly1911 wrote: »

...Interesting that Aldi/Lidl are growing rapidly despite having no internet presence....

Morrisons is slated for being late with its online offering, Tesco has made a success of it's online business, and yet it's losing market share, and the fastest growing grocers are all 100% offline. Including the fastest growing grocer of all. Which is Farmfoods. A Scottish success story!

grizzly1911 wrote: »

...Which is worst Morrisons or CoOp?

Err......

eamon

I don't think the management at Morrisons (and probably the others) understand the business model adapted by Aldi & Lidl. 10k of different items compared to Morrisons 45k plus. The difference in store size also matters. Somewhere along the lines Morrisons lost their usp and I suspect their takeover of Safeway is the ultimate reason and they have not recovered. As an observation Morrisons do tech really poorly. Many other posters have slated their self service tills as particularly rubbish I concur.

I used to do all my shopping in Morrisons, deserted them for Tesco and in the last few years left them for Lidl. Aside from the value for money I do like the sparesness and I suppose the utilitarian feel of their shopping experience.

Thrugelmir

tomterm8 wrote: »

But my grocery shop bill has gone up every year anyway.

Costs are rising. Wet weather will do little for home grown produce this harvest.

grizzly1911

antrobus wrote: »

Including the fastest growing grocer of all. Which is Farmfoods. A Scottish success story!

God knows how with Ten from Len adverts. At least Ricky Tomlinson was passable.


I used to think it was an Iceland offshoot.

antrobus wrote: »

Err......

If people think Morrisons have lost the way I don't think CoOp have had one for decades.

michaels

I think the problem for Morrisons is that with no loyalty scheme they do not know (and thus know how to manipulate) their customers. The reason they have no loyally scheme is they could not afford the IT having over leveraged with the Safeway takeover.

The takeover was also a problem - our local Safeway had just gone all upmarket with lots of deli space when it was taken over by a 'price conscious' Northern retailler - hardly a coherent customer base and since them they seem to have been trying to appeal to both sets of customers simultaneously.

Back to not knowing the customer means they try and get people instore using end of aisle deep discount loss leaders btu they end up with people like us who mostly shop elsewhere but also shop their specials - hardly the route to profitability.