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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

#351

Post by Gare »

joquarky wrote: post #253
switch007 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that prices comparison is going to need per gram pricing Not entirely sure what you mean here, but we do have per gram pricing requirements (expressed in £/KG). EDIT: oh you mean that shrinkflation is so bad that £/gram will make more sense. Hah yeah The trouble is that grocers have figured out that if you fool the population in to using a 'loyalty' card, you can make everything a 'promotional price' and avoid the…

It seems like we have all of the tools necessary to take a picture of a segment of store shelf and have the price data extracted from the photo, associated with the item itself, cross referenced, etc, and then show you an overlay with the best deals highlighted.

It's illegal to scrape databases in the EU.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#352

Post by dredmorbius »

standardUser wrote: post #281

I'm not sure how other mastodon servers look, but this one is light years ahead of Twitter in terms of readability. I hope someone eventually writes a tell-all book about exactly what was wrong with that company and its approach to product design.

That's default Mastodon styling "dark mode" and single-pane.

There's also a multi-pane "advanced view", similar to Tweetdeck, I'm told.

The dark mode is preferred by some but is absolute hell to read on an e-ink device. I have an outstanding issue request on that, as the theme cannot be changed if you're not logged in to a given instance.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#353

Post by 6510 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #145
marginallen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are hinting towards the bigger issue here. Yes, this guy has looked through the crack in the matrix, but the fact that inflation is impacting prices all over the western world directly and elsewhere indirectly has nothing to do with pricing shenanigans of the oligopolies. These are issues that not even perfectly regulated and perfectly competitive markets could change, if that were even possible. These are system…

Violating how, by drawing breath in some sacred precinct?

No component of any culture is strange until you compare it to a different culture. Here's a funny:

An Italian millionaire visited my relatives in the Netherlands, while walking around town he went on some rant on how ridiculously fragile everything in the public space was. An example he pointed out the many concrete raised flower beds maintained by the city. Look! He said, walked up to one, started ripping out the plants and throwing them around. Look! Anyone can just do this! You can take the plants home and sell them! Who is to stop me? As if a poor movie settings, A police car drove by behind him that same moment, they stopped, walked up to him from behind, the first thing he noticed was his arms pulled behind his back, click handcuffs on. They turned him around, walked him to the car, put him in the back seat. All without exchanging a word. An hour later he was returned. It proceeded to very loudly proclaim (the way Italians do) that it was the best 75 guilders he spend on his vacation and that this was the best country he had ever visited. The next day he noticed his flower bed was restored and silently pointed at it.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#354

Post by ephbit »

Void_ wrote: post #255
vitro wrote: post #254

I was pondering about an idea for an app that will crowdsource prices of items and their development in the time. You know, to be aware when there is some product discount, but during the discount period, the original price is higher that usual which means customer is being mislead. This practice, although prevalent, is not legal in EU [1] The app would let you track prices for products in individual stores by scanni…

I don’t know about rest of EU, but here in Slovakia, every receipt has a QR code. You can send that number to API for receipt verification - and it returns all line items and prices. If we could get people to scan the receipts (expense tracking for example) we would have massive amount of crowdsourced data. Wish I had time to pursue this idea!

It would be the easiest thing to give customers a csv table of the purchased items *directly* in the QR code on the receipt (instead of just a link to some website, where you can download the table as pdf of what). Then people could load it into their app or software and analyze their own data and shopping behavior.

Of course the retailers will never do this.

As Mario writes, the essential thing with this whole topic is:

> If I were trying to describe it in more flowerly terms: It's asymmetric information war fare. [1]

The way for companies to increase their margins is: remove price transparency so people effectively cannot compare anymore.

It's the same concept everywhere: the higher the complexity of the system, the harder it will be for the individual to optimize for their own benefit. Big entities on the other hand, such as big companies CAN deal with complexity and still optimize for their benefit.

Take away message: people should always be cautious of additional complexity creeping into systems. It usually benefits the big actors, at the expense to the individual.

[1] https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071588108514123

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#356

Post by dionys »

elAhmo wrote: post #267
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #147

I don't understand why people, at least in Vienna, go to alternative stores. There are so many small stores with much better food prices in Vienna. I guess prices need to rise even more until people change their behavior.

Can you share some examples of such stores?

For me: - Birlik which is a turkish store for pretty good bread, vegetables, legumes - Wurstico for meat products - Brunnenmarkt for meat/veggies

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#358

Post by berkes »

ro-_-b wrote: post #260

I lived in Austria and in Germany and it's 100% true, prices in supermarkets are significantly higher in Austria even for products produced in Austria. The reasons IMO are: * less price sensitivity: German people are extremely price sensitive, they discuss and compare prices all the time. In Austria people care way less about this on average. Supermarkets take advantage * higher logistics costs: population density in…

The same in the Netherlands vs Germany. I live on the border. And often German grocery stores have (organic) vegetables, produced in the Netherlands, for much less than these same vegetables cost in the Netherlands.

Part is VAT, which is higher in the Netherlands, but I'm confident most is due to the fact Dutch people will simply pay more than Germans.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#360

Post by Grimburger »

ro-_-b wrote: post #268
ro-_-b wrote: post #260

I lived in Austria and in Germany and it's 100% true, prices in supermarkets are significantly higher in Austria even for products produced in Austria. The reasons IMO are: * less price sensitivity: German people are extremely price sensitive, they discuss and compare prices all the time. In Austria people care way less about this on average. Supermarkets take advantage * higher logistics costs: population density in…

Also important to note: Germany is a car country: most ways to work, gym, etc in the average German city are done by car. Makes it easy to drive the extra mile to the cheapest supermarket. Austria is much better for using public transport or the bike. In this case you won't make the extra way to stop at the cheapest grocery. And in the areas in Austria where people use cars population density is so low that not a lot…

Looked this up in 30 seconds rather than relying on the ever-common HN anecdote with a certain narrative:

Germany has 627 per 1000 capita.

Austria has 572 per 1000.

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

And here's distance traveled by car in each country, again, basically identical:

https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-secto...

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