Demand/Surge pricing coming to supermarkets soon
Discussion
SpeckledJim said:
NoIP said:
SpeckledJim said:
They wont play the silly games envisaged in this thread or they will upset their customers.
They work VERY hard to keep customers onside.
Tripling the price on the last 6 loaves is not on the agenda.
They literally throw away £££,£££.££ every day. A 10% improvement on that would make a huge difference.
Again, you've failed to provide any information on how this would work in practive.They work VERY hard to keep customers onside.
Tripling the price on the last 6 loaves is not on the agenda.
They literally throw away £££,£££.££ every day. A 10% improvement on that would make a huge difference.
I said:
And furthermore, how do they "cut the price easily and instantly" on fresh produce that's nearing its 'sell by' date? If they electronically reduce the price of the item then all those items in stock get reduced, not just the ones they need to shift.
10 packs of £4 chicken breasts go out of date at the end of today, but there's 40 packs with 3-4 days left to run still on the shelf. How does your electronic pricing turn this problem into a 10% improvement on their chicken breast profits?You will have trimmed the price to £3 and solved the problem yesterday.
Is that £10 lost, or £30 saved?
I knew you'd fall for my finely laid trap there.
So okay then, supermarket has dynamic pricing in place and reduces the price by a quid because the system "sees" it has too product in stock vs the 'use by' date on some of the product. The customers go "great! I'm gonna get me some chicken breasts!" and flock to the shelf. What do you think will happen then? Will the customers pick up the 10 packs that are expiring at the end of that day, or will they rummage underneath and pick up the ones which don't expire until 3 days later? You don't need me to give you the answer to that because if you've ever observed the behaviour of shoppers when you're in the supermarket you'll already know the answer.
Is that £10 lost, or £30 saved? It's neither. It's a whole lot more loss!
Edited by NoIP on Sunday 25th June 22:05
NoIP said:
SpeckledJim said:
NoIP said:
SpeckledJim said:
They wont play the silly games envisaged in this thread or they will upset their customers.
They work VERY hard to keep customers onside.
Tripling the price on the last 6 loaves is not on the agenda.
They literally throw away £££,£££.££ every day. A 10% improvement on that would make a huge difference.
Again, you've failed to provide any information on how this would work in practive.They work VERY hard to keep customers onside.
Tripling the price on the last 6 loaves is not on the agenda.
They literally throw away £££,£££.££ every day. A 10% improvement on that would make a huge difference.
I said:
And furthermore, how do they "cut the price easily and instantly" on fresh produce that's nearing its 'sell by' date? If they electronically reduce the price of the item then all those items in stock get reduced, not just the ones they need to shift.
10 packs of £4 chicken breasts go out of date at the end of today, but there's 40 packs with 3-4 days left to run still on the shelf. How does your electronic pricing turn this problem into a 10% improvement on their chicken breast profits?You will have trimmed the price to £3 and solved the problem yesterday.
Is that £10 lost, or £30 saved?
I knew you'd fall for my finely laid trap there.
So okay then, supermarket has dynamic pricing in place and reduces the price by a quid because the system "sees" it has too product in stock vs the 'use by' date on some of the product. The customers go "great! I'm gonna get me some chicken breasts!" and flock to the shelf. What do you think will happen then? Will the customers pick up the 10 packs that are expiring at the end of that day, or will they rummage underneath and pick up the ones which don't expire until 3 days later? You don't need me to give you the answer to that because if you've ever observed the behaviour of shoppers when you're in the supermarket you'll already know the answer.
Is that £10 lost, or £30 saved? It's neither. It's a whole lot more loss!
Edited by NoIP on Sunday 25th June 22:05
Maybe the valuable young chickens are not on the shelf until the ropey old chickens are sold?
Reckon a £30m system could be as clever as that?
Maybe Tesco know more about their customers and how to manage them, and their stock and how to manage it, than you or I?
Or maybe at the end of the day a loaf will be £5 and they will have 20 staff on the complaints desk...
Wiccan of Darkness said:
I stopped shopping at Tesco when I saw an offer for mixed seafood - £3 each or 3 for £10.
Usually in these sorts of offers there is a range of items available, probably priced £3-4. Therefore if you buy 2x £4 items and 1x £3 item you will save £1 on the single selling price. Indeed you won't save money by buying 3 of the £3 items, they are included to allow a greater range of items to be within the offer.MarkRSi said:
That's probably why some Tesco stores have been testing out scan as you shop systems, which at present seems a bit pointless compared with the normal/self service checkouts.
I use them because: a) you can pack items in your bags as you go, not piling it all in at the end, and b) it's a LOT quicker than scanning each item and waiting for the weight to be verified at the self-service checkouts.SpeckledJim said:
Clearly you are a man to be reckoned with.
Maybe the valuable young chickens are not on the shelf until the ropey old chickens are sold?
Reckon a £30m system could be as clever as that?
As one of the points of such a system is to reduce manpower (ie. not needing people to manually change the shelf price labels) then I would say no because unless they have some robots and automatic conveyor system from the warehouse fridge to the shelf they would need to employ staff to do that task when all the 'old' chickens have sold Maybe the valuable young chickens are not on the shelf until the ropey old chickens are sold?
Reckon a £30m system could be as clever as that?
.SpeckledJim said:
Maybe Tesco know more about their customers and how to manage them, and their stock and how to manage it, than you or I?
Yes. Yes, they do. They know very well how dynamic pricing will work and they are very much looking forward to the increased profits they'll see from extorting more money from their customers who are mostly too stupid to see what's really going on. They will fall for the PR and buzz phrases about "improving the customer experience" and the complete BS about how much money they'll save by shopping at 4am instead of 12pm.SpeckledJim said:
Or maybe at the end of the day a loaf will be £5 and they will have 20 staff on the complaints desk...
There will be some gnashing of teeth and outrage in the DM and Facebook for a few months about it and how "something must be done" then people will accept it as being the new norm and carry on as normal while the supermarket CEOs ROFL at their increased profits and general public's stupidity.In this world where Tesco reduce the price of chicken breasts to get rid of stuff that's close to date, in a when it's gone it's gone move, and then presumably wheel out the new stuff perhaps with a Microsoft Windows TaDaaaa note over the speaker system, what about the customers who don't give two farts about cheaper end of date chicken breasts that need to be used today and want some that are a bit more you know, fresh?
FiF said:
In this world where Tesco reduce the price of chicken breasts to get rid of stuff that's close to date, in a when it's gone it's gone move, and then presumably wheel out the new stuff perhaps with a Microsoft Windows TaDaaaa note over the speaker system, what about the customers who don't give two farts about cheaper end of date chicken breasts that need to be used today and want some that are a bit more you know, fresh?
Isn't that the exact point I've been making above?
NoIP said:
FiF said:
In this world where Tesco reduce the price of chicken breasts to get rid of stuff that's close to date, in a when it's gone it's gone move, and then presumably wheel out the new stuff perhaps with a Microsoft Windows TaDaaaa note over the speaker system, what about the customers who don't give two farts about cheaper end of date chicken breasts that need to be used today and want some that are a bit more you know, fresh?
Isn't that the exact point I've been making above?
NoIP said:
SpeckledJim said:
Clearly you are a man to be reckoned with.
Maybe the valuable young chickens are not on the shelf until the ropey old chickens are sold?
Reckon a £30m system could be as clever as that?
As one of the points of such a system is to reduce manpower (ie. not needing people to manually change the shelf price labels) then I would say no because unless they have some robots and automatic conveyor system from the warehouse fridge to the shelf they would need to employ staff to do that task when all the 'old' chickens have sold Maybe the valuable young chickens are not on the shelf until the ropey old chickens are sold?
Reckon a £30m system could be as clever as that?
.SpeckledJim said:
Maybe Tesco know more about their customers and how to manage them, and their stock and how to manage it, than you or I?
Yes. Yes, they do. They know very well how dynamic pricing will work and they are very much looking forward to the increased profits they'll see from extorting more money from their customers who are mostly too stupid to see what's really going on. They will fall for the PR and buzz phrases about "improving the customer experience" and the complete BS about how much money they'll save by shopping at 4am instead of 12pm.SpeckledJim said:
Or maybe at the end of the day a loaf will be £5 and they will have 20 staff on the complaints desk...
There will be some gnashing of teeth and outrage in the DM and Facebook for a few months about it and how "something must be done" then people will accept it as being the new norm and carry on as normal while the supermarket CEOs ROFL at their increased profits and general public's stupidity.Supermarkets will stop competing on price and just put their prices up? We will stop shopping on price and just pay more without shopping around?
Why would we do that? How will this work?
Get real. This system works to cut supermarket costs and as such will make them more competitive. Like cost savings always do.
FiF said:
In this world where Tesco reduce the price of chicken breasts to get rid of stuff that's close to date, in a when it's gone it's gone move, and then presumably wheel out the new stuff perhaps with a Microsoft Windows TaDaaaa note over the speaker system, what about the customers who don't give two farts about cheaper end of date chicken breasts that need to be used today and want some that are a bit more you know, fresh?
Maybe there are two price tiers. Old chicken and new chicken.Test the extremes - if supermarkets could only review prices once a year or once a minute - which would they prefer?
Whichever they prefer is probably better for you and me too - because they choose what saves them money, and that saves you and me money.
SpeckledJim said:
And the famously cutthroat price competition in the supermarket industry will just vanish?
Supermarkets will stop competing on price and just put their prices up? We will stop shopping on price and just pay more without shopping around?
Why would we do that? How will this work?
Get real. This system works to cut supermarket costs and as such will make them more competitive. Like cost savings always do.
I think we should perhaps agree to disagree on this one. You seem to be under the illusion that it's a great idea and everyone (including the customers) will benefit from it. That is fine, you're entitled to your opinion. I have worked in big business retail and know how they think and operate.Supermarkets will stop competing on price and just put their prices up? We will stop shopping on price and just pay more without shopping around?
Why would we do that? How will this work?
Get real. This system works to cut supermarket costs and as such will make them more competitive. Like cost savings always do.
The competition you speak of will of course still exist. The only difference is that they'll all be adopting the new technology in quick succession and so it will make no difference if you decide to stop shopping at Tesco due to them charging an extra 10% at 5pm when you want go because all the other supermarkets will be doing the same. I've no doubt one of them will run an TV ad campaign saying they don't charge a premium but I can guarantee that the "loss" from doing that will be recouped in other underhand ways.
In short : the whole retail shopping experience in the UK in going to become a lot more complicated and 'hassle' with absolutely no benefit to the customer.
SpeckledJim said:
Or maybe at the end of the day a loaf will be £5 and they will have 20 staff on the complaints desk...
Cant remember the last time i saw a complaints / customer service desk. Cant remember the last time I saw more than 5 ladies holding down the entire operation. Unfortunately none of what you described require "dynamic" pricing. Electronic / automated stock checks have been around for long enough and reducing the close-to-date chicken requires someone on the floor to inspect and mark the relevent packets. None of that reconciles with the idea of peak and off peak prices.
All of what you say depends upon customers being in the shop at the time to scoop up that soon to be out of date produce. Supermarkets will no better be able to predict that whether their pricing is electronic lr manual. That doesnt make the case for reduced pricing.
Finally - if the idea was to elimate wastage then there would be no need to move prices around because the system would be managing stock levels and sell-by-dates efficiently, and supermarkets would invest more storage out back so they can stack shelves according to demand, keeping the chickens with good dates frozen out back until the rest has been sold.
ked.FiF said:
If adopted widely won't it ultimately make it more difficult to keep track of prices and thus hinder shopping around?
Hmm, speckled Jim, your post to which this was a reply has now been deleted. Firstly that will teach me to quote stuff and not care if it ends up as a quote fest, and secondly I'm going to take it that by deleting the post you've accepted that your argument was a bit rubbish. Poor form.Going to have to agree to disagree on this. Yes it could make for less waste on product, but seeing how my local lot price end of date stuff the discounts aren't going to be enough to persuade me to shift some old and crappy stocks off their shelves.
I can see how price shifts in the other direction will make me go elsewhere though.
I seem to have missed it if it has been mentioned, but how do you change the price on an item when it clearly has to have a price tag on it? What happens when a person is shopping with cash, has a finite amount, and gets to thentill to find all the prices have gone up 30% because lunchtime has ended.
Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
Yipper said:
Totally amazed that anyone who lives in a city / big town still shops at the big 4 supermarkets. They are just overpriced fossils. Almost everything of the same brand or similar quality and choice can be bought 5-40% cheaper online or at Lidl / Aldi.
I bet virtually everything amazes you though, Yipper.King Herald said:
I seem to have missed it if it has been mentioned, but how do you change the price on an item when it clearly has to have a price tag on it? What happens when a person is shopping with cash, has a finite amount, and gets to thentill to find all the prices have gone up 30% because lunchtime has ended.
Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
1/ Electronic shelf edge tagsSome people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
2/ Of course. The price of your basket can change online between putting something in it and checking out. No different 'in real life'. Their invitation to you can check any number of times until they accept your offer.
King Herald said:
I seem to have missed it if it has been mentioned, but how do you change the price on an item when it clearly has to have a price tag on it? What happens when a person is shopping with cash, has a finite amount, and gets to thentill to find all the prices have gone up 30% because lunchtime has ended.
Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
It's called 'invitation to treat' the argument being that is at the point of sale, the checkout. The same argument is used where a pricing error occurs on the display and they can refuse to sell it to you at that price. Depends as sometimes they honour the displayed price.Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
To my mind there's a difference between an error and a strategy which says at one point, "Here, buy this product for x!" only to find later that having made the decision to buy the price is now (x+y). Personally I can't imagine that the supermarkets are stupid enough to actually do this to a customer.
FiF said:
King Herald said:
I seem to have missed it if it has been mentioned, but how do you change the price on an item when it clearly has to have a price tag on it? What happens when a person is shopping with cash, has a finite amount, and gets to thentill to find all the prices have gone up 30% because lunchtime has ended.
Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
It's called 'invitation to treat' the argument being that is at the point of sale, the checkout. The same argument is used where a pricing error occurs on the display and they can refuse to sell it to you at that price. Depends as sometimes they honour the displayed price.Some people DO still organise their shopping by the actual price of the item.
Forget the financial profit making theories, how does it work in practise, are they legally allowed to change the price mid-shop? When it tells you £3 on the shelf, how can it be different when you check out?
To my mind there's a difference between an error and a strategy which says at one point, "Here, buy this product for x!" only to find later that having made the decision to buy the price is now (x+y). Personally I can't imagine that the supermarkets are stupid enough to actually do this to a customer.
Start throwing curve balls at people by moving the prices as they shop and they'll not be impressed.
I will admit to being a chicken digger - right to the back of the shelf for everything chilled or fresh. Stand on the base of the chiller to get to the back of the higher shelves, lift out the big green plastic crates to get underneath to the newer fruit'n'veg, I'm probably a right PITA for stock control. Unless the shelves and stocking systems themselves can be computerised and linked to the changing price system so they only release fresh food when the older stuff has been sold the idea of cheaper older chicken won't work.
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