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Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

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Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#51

Post by OfSanguineFire »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #17
quitit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One trick I noticed while doing data input for supermarkets (in a different market) is that price rises are always advertised as promotions. Say a supermarket has a $1.10 item and they want to increase that product to $1.50. They'll up the price to $1.50 immediately, and add a "40c off" to the ticket. The consumer sees "promotion" and assumes it's a discount, when it's actually just the same price as usual. Then ~2 w…

Now in Poland every promotion needs to display lowest price for the product in last 30 days l, effectively countering this strategy.

Poland has still been hit by inflation, though. I have taken advantage of having a registered business in order to do a lot of my shopping at the wholesaler Makro, where prices still lag well behind ordinary supermarkets.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#52

Post by Haemm0r »

0xDEF wrote: post #31
helpfulContrib wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austrian inflation and trade with Russia: please explain how this is related? Is it because corporations are being used to put the squeeze on the Austrian people? Sanctions? Because nobody wants to do trade with Austria? In which case, there must surely be examples? I'd love to know a few.

Pro-Russian right-wing parties in Europe are blaming inflation on our sanctions on Russia. If that was the case Hungary and Austria would not be the the countries that are worst affected by inflation.

The situation in Austria is fundamentally different than in Hungary. In Hungary the government kept prices of energy and food down by law for quite some time when everywhere else prices where rising. What they see now is the catch-up effect after those restrictions fell. I actually do not know what is the reason why the Austrian inflation is still that high. Energy prices as are like before covid, but food prices keep climbing. Maybe because the largest retailers Billa and Spar have almost 70% of the total market share they can do what they want (with the clients and the producers) I guess we also have to wait for one or two years that real estate/rent prices start going down for real (real estate prices are almost stagnating now, but rents are still rising). That may have a real impact on inflation.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#53

Post by [deleted] »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #45
midasuni wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supermarkets are colluding to increase prices as all companies are wont to do. There isn’t enough competition to act as downward pressure on prices. This isn’t a monetary thing that YouTube says - the goods a few miles away in Germany aren’t seeing this, despite being in the same currency and no difficulty transporting them. In a free market a competitor would buy from the same supplier the german supermarket does, u…

so naturally the stock prices for these grocery chains should be skyrocketing. please show the stock prices for these companies or I will know fairly definitively that you are just doing stream of consciousness outsider art

[deleted]

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#54

Post by helpfulContrib »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #47
helpfulContrib wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Please explain it without generalizations, and maybe give some examples?

I guess what he meant was that big retailers colluded to increase prices simultaneously together in lock-step for no reason other than greed and profiteering, and simply blamed it on the Russo-Ukrainian war as being the reason for prices exploding.

I believe the OP was referring to Far-right, pro-Russia parties getting their 'come-uppance' by the rest of the world, but I'd really like to know more details about that.

Not that I doubt that big corporations would use the Russia excuse whenever/wherever they can - I mean, who wouldn't - but I'd just like to see the details that tie the inflation to support of Russia a bit more clearly laid out.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#55

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #41
derelicta wrote: post #10

Truly shows how Free Markets are the most efficient

What are the profit margins for Austrian retailers? In the US, all the retailers earn razor thin profit margins (except Home Depot/Lowes), indicating if prices were lower, the businesses would fail, or at best become charities. Edit: for the one Austrian retailer I could find numbers for, they are not pretty. Not sure how the retailer can lower prices without going out of business if they already have sub 1% profit m…

[deleted]

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#56

Post by lotsofpulp »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #45
midasuni wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supermarkets are colluding to increase prices as all companies are wont to do. There isn’t enough competition to act as downward pressure on prices. This isn’t a monetary thing that YouTube says - the goods a few miles away in Germany aren’t seeing this, despite being in the same currency and no difficulty transporting them. In a free market a competitor would buy from the same supplier the german supermarket does, u…

so naturally the stock prices for these grocery chains should be skyrocketing. please show the stock prices for these companies or I will know fairly definitively that you are just doing stream of consciousness outsider art

REWE seems like the only publicly listed grocery retailer in Austria:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REWE_Group

2022 numbers:

https://www.rewe-group.com/en/press-and-media/newsroom/press...

> combined net profit fell by 33.4 per cent, from 755.6 million euros to 503.5 million euros.

> Total revenue up 10.4 per cent, or 8 billion euros, to 84.8 billion euros

So 2022 profit margin of 0.5B/84.8B = 0.5%.

2021 profit margin was 0.75B/76.5B = 1%

That is spectacularly low, even Walmart manages > 1%.

Everyone else seems private so their financials are probably not available:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supermarket_chains_in_...

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#57

Post by OfSanguineFire »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #36
zwarag wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He added foreign stores that sell the partially sell the same things. Sometimes these stores also sell Austrian products which are cheaper in those countries than they are in Austria.

Most famously, Red Bull, which is made in Austria but it's actually cheaper after it gets shipped to Germany than in the country it's made in. Insane. Austrians are being flogged. Germany feels like the only EU country with some sane competition in the retail sector.

Red Bull is not made in Austria, at least not necessarily. The European company is headquartered there, but its business model is largely just owning the IP. The filling of Red Bull cans is outsourced to Rauch, which produces at least some of the product in Switzerland.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#59

Post by iraqmtpizza »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #56
iraqmtpizza wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so naturally the stock prices for these grocery chains should be skyrocketing. please show the stock prices for these companies or I will know fairly definitively that you are just doing stream of consciousness outsider art

REWE seems like the only publicly listed grocery retailer in Austria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REWE_Group 2022 numbers: https://www.rewe-group.com/en/press-and-media/newsroom/press... > combined net profit fell by 33.4 per cent, from 755.6 million euros to 503.5 million euros. > Total revenue up 10.4 per cent, or 8 billion euros, to 84.8 billion euros So 2022 profit margin of 0.5B/84.8B = 0.5%. 2021 profit margi…

wow, Metro AG's stock is doing horribly this year. but they're supposedly raking in tons of cash from Austria?

EDIT: SPAR Group, Inc. is doing very badly as well. I think this theory is highly suspect

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#60

Post by mthoms »

the-dude wrote: post #15

Potatos ( in or outside supermarket, large bags ) have literally doubled in price YoY in NL. I get 5kg instead of 10kg for the same price. Same month, last year.

I'm not sure if it's still happening but... there was a potato shortage during the pandemic. At least here in North America. It had to do with a disease affecting the crops IIRC.
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