Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites • Hacker News Board

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#381

Post by Sai_ » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 2:46 PM UTC

KeplerBoy wrote: post #197

As an Austrian dev and consumer who has closely followed this throughout the year: it's soo frustrating to see how we're ripped off for no good reason, but nothing changes and nobody cares. Hats off to Mario for sticking with the topic and not losing his mind over this infuriating madness.

We recently had an Indian LinkedIn nutrition influencer literally reading the listed nutrition information on the back of a Bournvita* (a malt chocolate which you mix into milk) - dude got DMCA-ed and nearly sued. These companies get really worked up when you start affecting their bottomline.

*Might have been some other similar milk ~addictive~ (meant to say “additive” but the original version also works) for kids.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#382

Post by vjerancrnjak » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #326

KeplerBoy wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nice little scheme that incentivizes saving CO2. There's a CO2 tax on gas and other fossil fuels, part of this tax revenue is then, once a year, distributed back to taxpayers. The idea is that people who don't consume a lot of fossil fuel earn money through this scheme, while those who user above average pay more than what they get back. Of course this is not well communicated from the gov and random cash appe…

That's also going to increase the price of goods due to the CO2 tax on goods production and distribution. But with the klima distribution it evens out. People who consume more will lose and people who consume less will win.

KlimaBonus is made in such a way that people who consume more get more.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#383

Post by em-bee » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #376

em-bee wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

first of all, i agree with you. THERE IS NO CARTEL. there is no need to shout. the cartel is not the problem. aldi from germany successfully entered the market in austria with their hofer chain, and lidl is a german supermarket chain too. but i also do not agree with you that it would be trivial to sell food anywhere. brand protection laws here (i found a source for germany, but i believe that this should be EU wide,…

>no bargaining power Your bargaining power is that there are a dozen other food suppliers and tens of thousands of other common food items you could sell instead. No store is going to cry and go bankrupt because they can't sell Ding Dongs. Also, there are chains of hardware stores, chains of coffee shops, chains of everything which have additional bargaining power. And if the selling price is so high then everyone is…

Too bad. There is no shortage of food brands.

i think aldi is known for not selling otherwise well known brands. but from my memory hofer in austria is selling way more common brands than aldi in germany.

the discounters are known for selling brand products under a different label. i guess the brands go along with that because that way their brands higher prices elsewhere are not undercut because consumers don't recognize that it is the same product. in fact at least in the past brands dictated the retail price for their products, and discounters created house brands because of that.

that's why you don't see many otherwise well known brands in their shops. but from my memory hofer in austria is selling way more common brands under their original label than aldi in germany. (i could not find much data on this though, so this is a very subjective impression. i also haven't been shopping in germany for decades. according to wikipedia, aldi (south) has common brand products from 11 companies, whereas hofer has 10% of their 1000 products with common brands. and many of those are austrian brands. ok, i just found an article where aldi south also claims 90% own brands, but i guess in both cases that's not an exact number, so that's not very helpful)

so it seems austrians have a stronger local brand loyalty.

compare the house brands between aldi and hofer: https://www.aldi-sued.de/de/produkte/eigenmarken.html https://www.hofer.at/de/sortiment/hofer-eigenmarken.html

here you can see hofer boasting with their austrian products: https://www.hofer.at/de/ueber-hofer/qualitaet.html

why are there so many brands that are not shared by both?

i guess because austrians want products sourced in austria.

this is also true in business. austrian companies prefer to only do business with other austrian companies. when i suggested that i was looking for customers in austria i was told that having a company registered in austria was a prerequisite to be even considered.

this is probably because austrians see themselves as the underdog against germany, so they are very protective of their own and don't want to become dependent on other countries, especially not germany so they don't want german companies dominating the austrian market.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#384

Post by orangepurple » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #368

orangepurple wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stock prices have nothing really to do with the company itself. Stock is issued by companies, but the value of a stock is proportional to the expected future hype value of the stock. Given sufficient hype, more people will buy in to it after you buy it, and the unit price of the limited stock issue goes up. Stock picking is simply gambling for retail investors which have zero say in how a company is run.

According to the conspiracy theory, investors would see HUGE profit margins and they wouldn't rebalance their portfolio to get in on that? Why does the conspiracy theory rely on all investors being completely immune to earnings and allergic to profits? Why are earnings reports such a massive deal normally but in the grocery business nobody cares? Or why would investors assume that the huge earnings are very temporary…

Stocks crash on bad earnings reports because the future attractiveness of the stock has diminished. This reduces the likelihood that a future investor will buy your hot potato above the unit price they bought in.

Stocks are fundamentally divorced from economic reality EXCEPT when a company ceases trading and several other rare administrative actions.

Predicting future hype is all that matters. Or time spent fractionally invested in all broader casino hype trains, e.g. VTI

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#385

Post by iraqmtpizza » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #379

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't say that you didn't imply it until after I brought it up. In fact, you never would have said that unless and until I raised the issue. So I accept your apology.

Maybe look at who you just replied to there?

He didn't say that he didn't imply it until after I brought it up. In fact, he never would have said that unless and until I raised the issue. So I accept his apology.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#386

Post by iraqmtpizza » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #383

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no bargaining power Your bargaining power is that there are a dozen other food suppliers and tens of thousands of other common food items you could sell instead. No store is going to cry and go bankrupt because they can't sell Ding Dongs. Also, there are chains of hardware stores, chains of coffee shops, chains of everything which have additional bargaining power. And if the selling price is so high then everyone is…

Too bad. There is no shortage of food brands. i think aldi is known for not selling otherwise well known brands. but from my memory hofer in austria is selling way more common brands than aldi in germany. the discounters are known for selling brand products under a different label. i guess the brands go along with that because that way their brands higher prices elsewhere are not undercut because consumers don't reco…

Some people claim that there's a cartel to blame But I know, it's my own damn fault

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#387

Post by iraqmtpizza » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

orangepurple wrote: post #384

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the conspiracy theory, investors would see HUGE profit margins and they wouldn't rebalance their portfolio to get in on that? Why does the conspiracy theory rely on all investors being completely immune to earnings and allergic to profits? Why are earnings reports such a massive deal normally but in the grocery business nobody cares? Or why would investors assume that the huge earnings are very temporary…

Stocks crash on bad earnings reports because the future attractiveness of the stock has diminished. This reduces the likelihood that a future investor will buy your hot potato above the unit price they bought in. Stocks are fundamentally divorced from economic reality EXCEPT when a company ceases trading and several other rare administrative actions. Predicting future hype is all that matters. Or time spent fractiona…

Why in the motherfuck would it be a bad earnings report when, according to this conspiracy theory, gross margins on food would have gone from 1% to 43%? Conservatively that would lead to a ten thousand percent increase in the stock price. Yet instead the stocks of Metro AG and SPAR Group, Inc. are down 25 or more percent YTD.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#388

Post by berkes » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

fesc wrote: post #374

berkes wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But on the other hand it seems that produce is of higher quality in NL on average than in DE.

How does that explain a price difference? It's the exact same dutch products that are sold in Germany.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#389

Post by em-bee » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #386

em-bee wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad. There is no shortage of food brands. i think aldi is known for not selling otherwise well known brands. but from my memory hofer in austria is selling way more common brands than aldi in germany. the discounters are known for selling brand products under a different label. i guess the brands go along with that because that way their brands higher prices elsewhere are not undercut because consumers don't reco…

Some people claim that there's a cartel to blame But I know, it's my own damn fault

it's not a cartel but big businesses acting in their own interest. if you think you can do something about that i'll eagerly await your new shop.

Re: Tracking Austrian grocery prices by scraping store sites

#390

Post by orangepurple » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 5:44 PM UTC

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #387

orangepurple wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks crash on bad earnings reports because the future attractiveness of the stock has diminished. This reduces the likelihood that a future investor will buy your hot potato above the unit price they bought in. Stocks are fundamentally divorced from economic reality EXCEPT when a company ceases trading and several other rare administrative actions. Predicting future hype is all that matters. Or time spent fractiona…

Why in the motherfuck would it be a bad earnings report when, according to this conspiracy theory, gross margins on food would have gone from 1% to 43%? Conservatively that would lead to a ten thousand percent increase in the stock price. Yet instead the stocks of Metro AG and SPAR Group, Inc. are down 25 or more percent YTD.

What is your point? I'm saying that stock markets are driven by perceived future value rather than some economic reality.