Criminal Supermarkets

Supermarkets justifying record profits because of the many employees they have is bullshit. 

Supermarkets are "criminal."

It's not just me saying it, it's more or less official now. This post has had to be updated before it was even scheduled. The original post was everything below from the heading "Profit(eering)" to the "And Now - UPDATED:" heading further down. The post has also gone from "scheduled" to "for immediate release" status. 

I urge you to share this everywhere, share it often, and discuss it widely if you want food justice for Australians. (And Americans - unless your goverment stops a few "strategic mergers" from taking place, you'll be in this effective duopoly situation soon too - share the hell out of it everywhere!) Please read all the way down to the "Call To Action" and take action. Australians need the supermarkets to be reined in and punished. 

Profit (and profiteering)

They do know, don't they, that profit is what's left AFTER all outgoings have been paid, and therefore blaming employee payrolls is total bullshit? They HAVE record profits. AFTER having paid all outgoings. All outgoings includes wages last time I looked it up.

That means they've paid all their employees fairly - HAVEN'T . THEY? - and then they STILL have this mountain of money left over. The wages aren't paid for out of the profit, they're paid before they declare the profit. Either that, or they're lying right in our faces and hoping none of us has ever done maths.

And saying people are just trying save - when those people are still earning the same or more than last year but are having to choose the cheaper generic versions - that seems to me to say that it's more likely that the price on the original thing they wanted HAS gone up. Really. They could afford it last year and the years before, their budgets are still broadly the same; - but this year that nice ham is out of their price range. In plain terms, that nice ham has almost doubled in real price. 

What Can We Do?

Take the stores back. If you see anyone flogging a pack of mince - no. No, you didn't see anything. If they'd kept their staffing levels up to the point where it made their profits merely reasonable rather than rapacious and greedy, they could have a staff member standing alongside every customer and checking their baskets out for them to prevent this. 

In fact, they could have re-installed much cheaper and simpler things called "staffed checkouts" - as they had 20 years ago. Because you know what? Back then "stock shrinkage" was far lower than it is now with self-checkout. It's been a stupid, profit-motivated, unremitting and stinking stuff-up that the supermarkets made and we (the customers) have been paying for ever since. 

So, if you have a docket from last year, find the items you bought back then on the shelves today and write the old price on their price stickers with a fine felt tip marker. Be careful not to mess up the barcode though, because we don't want to cause any hassle. Also don't cover their price, just add the old price you paid and the date you paid that price. We just want other shoppers to see the price increases and decide for themselves if they want to buy that item there or perhaps just find another store where the two label amounts are closer together... 

Or print yourself a bunch of labels and take them with you to put near label holders - alongside the current price label, not covering it. Again, it's just nice to let other customers know how it's apparently us that need to change our budgets because of the rampant price gouges, rather than that the supermarkets make less profit so we can afford that item.

Print some nice notes or posters explaining that this doubling of some prices in less than four years is not acceptable, and put them near the worst rip-off items in the store. Nothing rude, just facts. Other people need to know, so that they can decide if they want to be ripped off or treated fairly. 

Get creative. Drive home that we are tired of being bent over for our wallets. And maybe someone that sees one of your posters will also start taking action. And the ripples will spread.

Retrospect

This whole situation happened because way back when, when someone decided that Australia didn't need competition in the supermarket sector, the "free market will take care of it." And so chains like IGA, ALDI, Costco, and a whole swag of other potential competitors weren't really welcomed into the market in Australia despite the healthy competition they'd have generated, back when it could have made a difference.

America - for once - is following us down the chute as they try to prevent a similar duopoly situation occurring there. You can see how our stupidity and docility in allowing a duopoly to get so stongly established and so deeply embedded has emboldened the same behaviour in other countries. It's time we showed them the other side of the coin. And 

But bear in mind - no matter where it is, a duopoly is exactly the same thing as a monopoly with two trading names. It was shown in interviews and questions that our two supermarkets actually do tacitly fix prices between them, develop the same anti-competitive practices between them to keep other players out, and work the same - let's call them what they are, scams - on their victi-... their customers. When more than two similar corporate bodies collude and collaborate between them to fix prices and scam their customers, the term is "a Cartel." We have those in Australia and all over the planet, too. But that's for another article.

In none of those scenarios are the customer's interests considered. Only our wallets.

So Keep The Bastards Honest, get activated and irritated, and let them know we won't take their thievery for much longer. Every store manager has a name and an address, write them a nice letter explaining why you think they should be working for the sake of their customers more than their shareholders. Oh and of course those upstream people also have names and addresses - write them a nice letter too. But do write letters, posters, labels, stickers. (Oh, and I forgot to mention that they have email addresses too...)

And Now - UPDATED:

The latest senate enquiry into the conduct of the supermarket duopoly robbing Australian consumers to within an inch of their lives has labelled their behaviour as "criminal." Colour me unsurprised because this is what I've been saying for over a decade already.  I'll hand you the lede now:

"A senate inquiry into supermarket pricing has heard that people are turning to dumpster diving and stealing to combat the cost of living.

The first of three hearings, held in Hobart on Thursday, also saw the conduct of Coles and Woolworths labelled “criminal”." -- https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/consumer/2024/03/07/supermarket-inquiry 

People are scrounging from dumpsters items that the supermarkets would rather throw away (showing very clearly that their profits are wayyyyy too high, otherwise they'd at leats make an effort to sales-price these items and make some money from them) and some are turning to petty crime. 

What I may not have seen stressed enough in articles about this deplorable greed and rapaciousness the supermarkets are displaying is: if you saw someone steal an item at the self-checkout - NO! No, you did not see anything at all. Their actions didn't cause the supermarkets to record record billion-dollar profits, should indeed have caused the supermarkets some losses, and yet - lo! - for they STILL make record profits despite throwing out a significant proportion of perfectly within-code products, despite stock shrinkage being on the rise.

They Are Making Far More Than A Fair Profit, They Are Profiteering At YOUR Expense!

Remind everyone - once more, with feeling - Keep The Bastards Honest. Especially remind your local MPs and Ministers that every store manager has a name and an address, every CEO and COO and CFO too. Ask your Minister to write to them on your behalf, perhaps, or to forward your concerns via a new item of legislation being tabled or some such governmental magic. Because - and you should feel free to let those government persons know this - you will definitely support them in the next local election, by-election, and State or Federal election, and you just don't know if that would be the case if they didn't act... 

Call To Action

I know - I'm a tiny insignificant blogger writing on a tiny insignificant blog and yelling at the clouds. But even such a tiny voice can be magnified if it's taken up by many. And right now we need not only Senate enquiries and ACCC looking into the actions of supermarkets, we need EVERYONE  to get activated, be informed, read about it so that they too can make their feelings known. Share this post (https://bit.ly/store-rage) so that many others will see it. Ask them in turn to share it too. Just please get the word out there - our supermarkets are just the tip of the iceberg, fuel companies, energy companies, real estate and landlords - they're all chowing down hard on the record profits they've been building up to, and consequently reducing our lives to just being cash machines for them. It's time at least one country stood up for older more human values again. Help the change along

As always, stay awesome and

KEEP THE BASTARDS HONEST!

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