Woolworths $11.74/kg coffee

mycuppa

I know I should behave more responsibly as a sponsor, but my blood boils when blatant loss-leading designed to kill healthy competition is dressed-up as "saving money for the consumer".

$11.74 for 1kg of beans or ground coffee at Woolworths. I don't really care what brand it is.

Gee - they got away with it on milk, they combined with their other monopolist to control the liquor distribution, doing it to bread and now they are giving coffee a go - all the staples are being lined up for pot-shots.

Sad thing is that 80% of the population get sucked into the scheme.

I've just used tin-snips on my Everyday We Will Kill Another Manufacturer Card.

No more buying petrol from Caltex/Woolworths or Coles/Shell.

Wife is under strict instructions to drive to Aldi for those items we can't source from the local traders.

Sounds extreme, but the whole retail sector is just being killed by forces with deep pockets driving insane discounts and then ripping you off blind on the Pink Lady apples and Pakenham Pears.

When 2 companies own the retail customer - they have too much market power.

RichardM

While I completely agree with the premise of your post, I think the end result of what they are doing will actually drive consumers the opposite way. Cut throat fruit/vegetables have left the quality very lacklustre, and forced me back to my local fruit/vege shop. The cutting down of non-homebrand style products has meant certain products that I like to buy (good quality soy sauce for example) have forced me to the asian shop. I think those who buy beans at a supermarket care not about freshness or taste, so will just buy the cheapest they can, and to be honest, I'm assuming it's not even loss leading with those beans - I'm assuming it's just a selective use of rebating from the suppliers to get a lower price on the shelf.

mycuppa

Yes RM - I completely agree with you. It has a momentary affect only - like a week or 3. They get a massive spike in sales so that some execs can get their bonus for the month/quarter and then the reality sets in, but when they have up to 5,000 SKU's, they can rotate the red dot all over the place. More concerning for me is the mindset of the greater majority - conditioning to a minimum of 50% discount before they open their wallets. It's well reported across many industries and a recent experience with a dodgy group Day Sale company re-confirmed the mentality. People complain about increasing retail prices, but the psychic of the new world consumer is never look at the market price, just the level of discount - the new world of determining value. I also agree is it unlikely loss-leading, or I should say it is co-opted loss leading - there will be some of the brand's skin in the game for sure.

RichardM

on 1311847700:

More concerning for me is the mindset of the greater majority - conditioning to a minimum of 50% discount before they open their wallets. It's well reported across many industries and a recent experience with a dodgy group Day Sale company re-confirmed the mentality.

Many years ago, I used to work at a large well known department store, and the managers would put "shelf talkers" on things they wanted to move more on (a "shelf talker" being a large tag stating the price with a slogan like "LOW PRICES EVERYDAY"). Some had discounts, some did not. Those items, without doubt would start moving, and we would get customers coming up saying "how long will this be on sale for?", when it wasn't even on sale. Variety is the spice of life, and hopefully as the supermarkets tick off more and more people, some of the smaller stores will actually do better out of it. Price is not everything, and I have some faith in humanity that people are smarter than to think they are the winners.

Dry_bean.

I understand your frustration guys, sadly the fact of life is that might is right. We have three local supermarket shopping options in our area, Foodland, IGA and Woolworths, Woolies offer the best shopping experience by a country mile. We don't seek out discounts, what we look for is to be able to buy everything in the one place and Woolworths meets our needs and the quality is superior to the other two. As an example, we live 100km from the Clare valley wine growing region, we can always buy wines from the region much cheaper at Woolworths than we can from the cellar door, when the regular discounts kick in the price difference is significant, time to stock up. My wife and I have been in business for most of our working lives and know full well the anguish of being undercut by competitors, unfortunately you can only swim against the current for so long before your overwhelmed. The smartest thing we did was sell up and spend the last years of our working lives employed by a large mining company. I feel for you, business is tough nowadays.  

Lacehim

Just because it's "on special" doesn't mean it's a bargain or that you need or want it. Personally I'm sick of the buy 3 for the price of 2, or 2 cartons for coke for $32 style promos.  I just want a decent price everyday, knowing that the local farmers are also making enough to make it worthwhile growing our veg and looking after the cattle.  We don't need to fill our cupboards full of food like the shops are never going to open again!!! On WIN (that probably 9 for you city folk) tonight they had a woman telling us how to shop.  What an idiot she was.  Her idea was go go buy half a cow at $400 a pop to save money, or a whole carton of chooks rather than one when you need it.  That theory is great for non perisable items, bog roll, chemicals etc, but you have to freeze that much meat!  What happens if your freezer breaks down... a big impromtu BBQ????  What's your next power bill going to be like?  Personally I hate frozen meat it's never the same once frozen, I would rather visit my butcher every few days and buy fresh if I can. Just buy what you need, have a good look in your cupboard, and when you hit the shops stick to your list.  Most folk would have enough food for weeks and weeks if they just took a look before they went shopping.

RichardM

on 1311850613:

Just because it's "on special" doesn't mean it's a bargain or that you need or want it. Personally I'm sick of the buy 3 for the price of 2, or 2 cartons for coke for $32 style promos.  I just want a decent price everyday, knowing that the local farmers are also making enough to make it worthwhile growing our veg and looking after the cattle.  We don't need to fill our cupboards full of food like the shops are never going to open again!!!

Oh yeah that is a total pet peeve. I go shopping, and think "i'll just get a yogo for dessert for just tonight"....off I go...."3 two packs for $5 or one fore $2.99" (or similar)...I just roll my eyes, and not bother, every time. Don't care if it's toilet paper or something, but for perishables, it's very annoying. I too just want a straight reasonable price. As mentioned before though, it's just so much better going to asian supermarkets, butchers etc. You always seen to end up with more in your pocket, and better quality food (in our regional area at least).

Koffee_Kosmo

In our home we shop fresh every day Local butcher Local Fruit shop Local bread shop ect We rotate the supermarket to spread our cash around 4 adults costs me about $450 to $550 per week for everything from food to toilet paper KK

RichardM

on 1311852760:

In our home we shop fresh every day Local butcher Local Fruit shop Local bread shop ect We rotate the supermarket to spread our cash around 4 adults costs me about $450 to $550 per week for everything from food to toilet paper KK

Wowee. We spend $140/week for two adults, and we eat WELL (that includes toilet paper, shampoo etc)

Dry_bean.

on 1311853047:

Wowee. We spend $140/week for two adults, and we eat WELL (that includes toilet paper, shampoo etc)

You eat toilet paper and shampoo? :o

Koffee_Kosmo

Quote from: RichardM on Today at 09:37:27 PM Wowee. We spend $140/week for two adults, and we eat WELL (that includes toilet paper, shampoo etc)

on 1311856203:

You eat toilet paper and shampoo? :o

We dont skimp My 3 girls are always in the kitchen And I get a la carte meals every day Plus all the nicest sweets & biscuits to have with my coffee KK

Aktion

Cheap coffee is a good thing. It will introduce people to "proper" coffee that otherwise would have been stuck with blend43 for the rest of their life. ...and because coffee = taste, sooner or later they will venture into PROPER coffee. Win win situation.

shape_shifter

I don't actually agree that it will introduce people to proper coffee, it will just make them buy it from the supermarket more. In the case of my family, I showed them and left them with my roasted Peru, which my father said they all enjoyed, going back to QLD, do you think that my sister was going to go to a roaster to get some fresh coffee, NOPE, good old supermarket coffee with the words "it's only coffee". My brother and SIL stood there while I was making coffee and do you know what they did, pulled the instant out of the cupboard and made a cup. I've given up even thinking about others, well people not into coffee already anyway.  I might mention it in passing when I meet people and if they are interested they can come to me, I'm sick of wasting good coffee on people that don't appreciate it. Oh the supermarket buying thing - we shop at IGA where we can but there are quite a few things that even they don't have that we like which means having to go to Woolworths. I wish it wasn't the way but it is at present.

Aktion

Lol, you made me laugh (only because I have seen the same scenario unfolding before my eyes) Marketing. When companies spend big dollars on advertising thew don

Dry_bean.

on 1311891997:

Lol, you made me laugh (only because I have seen the same scenario unfolding before my eyes) Marketing. When companies spend big dollars on advertising thew don

gregpullman

Interesting discussion... and timely. <mount_soapbox> I have a friend in the wholesale fruit industry who yesterday had to sign a 13 page agreement to supply their fruit to Woolworths. He was expressing to me last night his disbelief at the draconian one-way street nature of this contract. Things like 'If we don't like your fruit we'll slug you $350 immediately to cover the admin costs of ringing you up. Then you have to come and get it and replace it with stuff we're happy with within 24 hours (or something like that)". Also they'd pay close to 10% below the invoiced amount as a matter of course. Multiply this by 13 pages and you can imagine what the whole contract was like! I said why don't you just not sign it; of course then someone else will and they'll lose the work. But also Woolworths recently bought out a chain of nurseries which represents a significant portion of their clientele and if they didn't sign the contract they weren't allowed to supply to any Woolworths-owned stores - which would now include these nurseries. This is just one story, behind one brand of product. Look at your supermarket and imagine how many similar stories are behind every other brand. The coffee example would be a case in point. I see pretty good value Quilton toilet-paper printed with "only at Woolworths and Safeway" on the wrapper, and realise they're probably making cents' profit after being told by Woolworths they're going to buy toilet paper from them at this price. Such bully tactics disgust me and just reinforce the policy I've had for some time now of supporting IGA-type markets and other places where the growers sell direct to the public. A bit less convenient perhaps, often it's actually cheaper believe it or not, but either way I'd much rather support local industry than see businesses getting milked for every last cent by greedy multi-nationals. And if you didn't know already, I have a friend in the printing industry (OK you didn't know that ::)) who explained why junk mail keeps pouring in. Woolies and Coles (and probably others too) sell space in this stuff to their suppliers to promote their wares. Naturally they sell the space at a profit over the printing / distribution cost, so before it's even polluted your letterbox they've made money out of it. No wonder they keep jamming the stuff in! </mount_soapbox> So moral of the story is, it's up to you where you shop. If you're interested in having a country where people can prosper, think about the future before you decide where to shop. Greg

FreshCoffee2

Part of my profession is to cup "competitors" offerings. It is a very enlightening and interesting part of the day and anyone in my industry that doesnt do it is sticking their head in the sand. I am lucky to be on the panel of judges for the Sydney Fine Food Show (fine food section of Royal Easter Show in Sydney) and get to cup a great many offerings from others and therefore compare to my own. Very instructive to say the least. We dont consider $11.74 as a competing product to any of ours, but we cup lots of different things and with a view to that, my right hand man (assistant roaster here) bought a packet last night for us to try later today. I am afraid it wont be anything like our own offerings, but neither is the price, and there is a market for all. People who are likely to be swayed to buy some $11.74 coffee from a supermarket, are not our clients and as someone else above said, it may well lead the clients to better things later on down the track as their palate refiines and therefore bring them to us. Rgdz, Attilio.

FreshCoffee2

And.....just came up from a cupping of the $11.74 blend. Pretty much as expected, the palate discerned the usual characteritics of very low priced greens turned brown! What else could you expect? And contrary to what some non coffee industry commentators would say......it was well roasted as in not under or over roasted, was nowhere near being stale, and crema'd up nicely. Pity about the palate but what would you expect for the price. As I said, not our market...dont worry about it. Look at it another way...its streets better than the cheap robusta laden italian imports dumped into oz through non coffee merchant general grocers, and that are looked upon in some quarters as being the real authentic italian espresso  ;D  So it serves a purpose and competes with the really low end imports masquerading as authentic italian espresso blends.. Just taking a broader viewpoint! Rgdz, A.

FreshCoffee2

What a coincidence... Someone brought an auto coffee machine in for repair an hour ago, still had beans in the grinder that he said were bought recently (as in in the last few days). Said they were from costco and cost 20$ per kilo. Unlike the "special" coffee from above, these really are diabolically aweful and for 20 a kilo are actually unbelievably expensive...especially when you add to that, that the problem with the machine is very possibly due to the beans input. Everything is relative. A.

Dry_bean.

I recently said in a post relating to cheap milk, you usually get what you pay for (with rare exceptions) don't expect mangoes if your paying pumpkin prices.