I read this title as "reduce collision in a Canadian grocery store" and thought this was an app for parking.
Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
51–60 of 252 posts
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#52Top three grocery companies in Norway, which have almost the entire grocery market here between them, just got fined[1] for price collusion. They'd signal rising prices for a category by rising the price on certain products within that category, was one accusation. Extensive use of price scouts aided in this. Initially the fine was much larger, but ended up at about 450M USD total between the three. For comparison, t…
I am almost convinced this is happening here in Austria too. I have to be open to the possibility it’s just my imagination but damn it feels too suspicious at times. Haven’t seen anything in the news, however.
There's a whole thread here on Austria: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071396799790275
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#53Oh man, we really need this for telecom too. And even more important than their collusion is their political corruption, so the government protects them from competition and funnels endless billions in taxpayer money to them.
You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many p…
You know the collusion is bad when a government enterprise can be two times cheaper.
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The profit margin figure cited for grocers is the margin on their "main business" — i.e. revenue on grocery goods sold minus cost of grocery goods from suppliers. But this ignores other ways grocers make money (at much higher margin) — e.g. by charging their suppliers for shelf space/positioning.
It also ignores that they often own the suppliers. "Woops, our supplies raised the price, so we need to too."
George Weston Limited, the top-level entity that owns Loblaws and all subsidiaries has an even lower margin, at 2.9%. This should account for the entire umbrella of ownership, I believe.
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#55Doesn't making this data available also provide it to the grocers? Is it still "collusion" if they all just start raising their prices to public benchmarks on any items where they're low? They're not "working with each other" now. They're just "analyzing the publicly available data to remain competitive."
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Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#56canada's attitude toward competition is different than that of the US though. our agricultural products (dairy, wheat, maple syrup, and to a lesser extent retail beer and alcohols) are controlled by state monopolies who set prices. the reason food is so expensive is because of fuel costs from the last few years, which were further not-helped by both an increase in federal taxes on fuel and the semi-official policy of…
People generally get the govts they deserve. Canadians are no different. i.e blame Canadians not their overlords.
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains. As you point out the margins are super tight in food retail, it is impossible for it to be the cause of inflation. From the point of view of the average man however, the grocery store is exactly where he is facing inflation daily! This makes it the ideal scapegoat. The average…
> I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains In Canada, the grocery stores were caught colluding. Recently. Is it still a "boogeyman" when they were caught in a 15 year long collusion scheme?
Recently??
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#58Why on earth are people and government stooges suddenly targeting grocery stores for collusion and price gouging? If there is an industry with a lower profit margin, I'm not aware of it.
I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains. As you point out the margins are super tight in food retail, it is impossible for it to be the cause of inflation. From the point of view of the average man however, the grocery store is exactly where he is facing inflation daily! This makes it the ideal scapegoat. The average…
>The average man will never ever realize that the monetary mass surged during covid while real world production slowed down.
To add insult to injury, the average Canadian will still brags how effective the COV lockdowns were compared to rest of the world especially big brother USA.
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it is an elaborate psyop to shift the blame of inflation away from the government and toward a boogeyman, the "evil" grocery chains. As you point out the margins are super tight in food retail, it is impossible for it to be the cause of inflation. From the point of view of the average man however, the grocery store is exactly where he is facing inflation daily! This makes it the ideal scapegoat. The average…
Isn't it funny how large companies always get greedy at exactly the same time governments print a lot of money?
Or when there is a govt scandal terrorists strike...
Re: Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many p…
>There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Source? Looking at sasktel's website and rogers' website, this claim does not pass the sniff test. Their "basic" plan is $60/month (BYOD) for 15GB of data, whereas rogers gives you 75GB for $65. Even if you don't use 15GB of data and tha…
A few years out of date, but the competition bureau has this review from 2019 comparing pricing between provinces: https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/how-we-foster-competiti...
My takeaway from that is that Sasktel/MTS were much cheaper for a comparable plan, but the average revenue per user is near-identical - so the effect is mostly just that Sasktel/MTS users got more data with their plans. (Which tracks to me, if you halved the revenue of a provincial-scale carrier, they'd be a huge money loser regardless of how many executive salaries got cut or efficiencies got discovered.)