MSE News: Morrisons to begin price matching Aldi and Lidl

seven-day-weekend

I have to shop at Morrisons to keep my son in a job (he works on the roast chicken counter ). Very occasionally I shop at Aldi. When I lived in Spain I used Lidl all the time as they were much cheaper than the Spanish giant Mercadona.

However, although Lidl/Aldi are cheap they don't actually sell some things and you have to go somewhere else anyway.

I like Morrisons and will continue to shop there, but think this scheme is too complicated.

A._Badger

Ironically (I'm regularly attacked for being anti-Aldi by the rabid Aldiphiles on here) I am absolutely convinced that Aldi is cheaper - and that concerns about its brand quality are misplaced.

A couple of years ago we switched our main shopping from Tesco to Morrisons. Careful comparison showed that Morrisons was cheaper - and free from Tesco's crafty marketing and pricing scams.

Now we have switched again and I'd estimate that only a quarter of our spending is with Morrisons. As we work our way through Aldi's own brand products I'd say they are consistently better than Morrison's (it's very noticeable in a range of areas like bread, cakes and cleaning products) and I can detect no difference in the quality of vegetables and fruit - saying which I'm not very impressed with any supermarket's offerings in this area,.

I still think Aldi offers a downmarket 'shopping experience' and that its layout is a nightmare. Then again,. Morrisons isn't exactly Fortnum & Mason, either!

If Morrisons wants to compete, launching a complicated 'loyalty' scheme is not the way to do it. As the Lidl ad quoted earlier says - why not just go to Lidl instead? It needs to stop playing catch-up with Tesco ( a decade too late) and start cutting its prices.

If it doesn't, like its bread, it'll end-up as toast.

geordie_joe

philatio wrote: »

Ridiculously overcomplicated scheme.

Can't see what's complicated about it.

Perhaps if you say which bit you don't understand someone will explain it in a way you can.

philatio

I never said I didn't understand it.

See the Lidl mickey-taking advert. That demonstrates how over-complicated it is.

geordie_joe

philatio wrote: »

See the Lidl mickey-taking advert. That demonstrates how over-complicated it is.

It doesn't. What it does show is that lidl are so worried about it they have to grossly exaggerate things to try and make it look bad.

Cornucopia

And the elephant in the room is: that the big supermarkets cannot compete like-for-like with Aldi & Lidl. It cannot be done. The huge barns of stores they have are vastly more expensive to run than the small Aldi & Lidl stores.

In addition, A, T & S have delivery services to support, which charge less for delivery than it costs to provide.

That is why price-matching is such a tortuous process - it has to be to dilute the costs that would be involved if the big 4 simply reduced their prices to compete with A & L.

A._Badger

geordie_joe wrote: »

It doesn't. What it does show is that lidl are so worried about it they have to grossly exaggerate things to try and make it look bad.

It may show that to you. To many others it exposes the wild threshing around of a badly wounded supermarket business that is in serious trouble.

geordie_joe

Cornucopia wrote: »

And the elephant in the room is: that the big supermarkets cannot compete like-for-like with Aldi & Lidl.

Of course they can, they just choose not to.

Like most retail outlets in this country they charge what the market will stand and take the profit. They have plenty of room to lower prices when they need to. But why should they when people keep shopping there and paying the higher prices.

Cornucopia wrote: »

It cannot be done.

It can, if it couldn't then every person who claims a supermarket has over priced products is wrong.

You can't say products are over prices and say they can't lower them.

The real question is can aldi and lidl lower their prices?

Cornucopia wrote: »

The huge barns of stores they have are vastly more expensive to run than the small Aldi & Lidl stores.

And they bring in vastly more sales and profit.

Cornucopia wrote: »

In addition, A, T & S have delivery services to support, which charge less for delivery than it costs to provide.

Yes but the stores that do deliveries make more sales and more profit.

Cornucopia wrote: »

That is why price-matching is such a tortuous process - it has to be to dilute the costs that would be involved if the big 4 simply reduced their prices to compete with A & L.

What is tortuous about it, you buy the things you went in to buy, swipe your card, and if the item was cheaper in one of the other stores you get the difference back.

Hardly what I would call tortuous!

A._Badger

Cornucopia wrote: »

And the elephant in the room is: that the big supermarkets cannot compete like-for-like with Aldi & Lidl. It cannot be done. The huge barns of stores they have are vastly more expensive to run than the small Aldi & Lidl stores.

In addition, A, T & S have delivery services to support, which charge less for delivery than it costs to provide.

That is why price-matching is such a tortuous process - it has to be to dilute the costs that would be involved if the big 4 simply reduced their prices to compete with A & L.

1/ The major supermarkets also share management infrastructures that are hopelessly bloated. They are also dependent on shareholders expecting bumper returns.

2/ If home deliveries are loss-making, stop them.

3/ According to reports, a profit margin of c. 4% is common to both sectors.

The logistics argument, rather like the 'changing pattern of shopping behaviour' excuse, is getting a bit tired now. If the fabulously paid supermarket bosses were even half as clever as their salaries suggest, they should have seen this coming. They didn't. They squandered their owners' money on vanity expansion and fashionable, hubristic, nonsense.

What we have here is an object lesson in the failure of highly paid 'professional' management using business school theory and of the investors who were dumb enough to trust them. Including, of course, Warren Buffett - who at least admitted it.

zozza26

For those of you that are regular Morrisons customers, I do find it funny that you some of you think you are getting a good deal here. If you think receving 3000 points etc in a week or twos shopping is good, it really isn't. You may have to shop for upto a month to get a measly 5 pound voucher.

Up until this scheme started they were printing money off vouchers pretty much every week at the till i.e. 4 pound off your next 40 pound shop. This has now stopped making us lose out already. You will have or will notice a lot of your everday items will have also shot up in price or will do over the next weeks. This again makes us lose out. The points you now get at the till are not a bonus you are worse off!

Anyway, its personal choice at the end of the day but me and my family have being put off and its a shame after 20 years customer loyalty