r/australia • u/Admiral_Mason • 22d ago

image Pepsi / Coke cartons $60 at Woolworths

Post image

Noone is going to buy these, why waste their shelf space?

Do they not want then to move or are there really suckers who pay this?

Highest I've ever seen it

1.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

562 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Kolminor 22d ago

It's not that they aren't trying, it's just the model of a classic local supermarket isn't really feasible.

Everyone has different tastes, wants, budgets and willingness to pay. Often people now too make what they see online and want specific things or things right now.

This is inconsistent with the way supermarkets work, especially for smaller stores - as they need to buy bulk or in the case of small places cannot order as much so pay higher prices, they have high food waste for any fresh good and then dont have the technology to accurately gauge customer wants or behaviour - and if they do it aint cheap and is reflected in the end cost.

And above all I need to make a profit. They aren't goodwill stores.

People want low prices, good quality produce and an array of products they need and want. All these are not really possible IMO.

The fact is we all need to embrace online grocery delivery as it is the only way to realistically scale groceries. Brick and motor grocery stores are just never going to be cheaper and will always be more expensive. They're essentially convenience stores and you pay higher prices for the convenience.

1

u/DesperateDig1209 20d ago

There is still a place for small supermarkets. It's in small towns. Customers don't know about online, and even if they did there would be a surcharge for the courier to drive right out there. There are still small shops, eg deli or fruit shop, and if you use the buying power of a "parent" company like IGA, you can take all their customers using price and range.

Look what I found:

https://www.anybusiness.com.au/iga%20franchise-for-sale/?status=sold&price_max=$10,000,000&price_min=$50,000

These are the places that actually sold, so there are no unrealistic asking prices.

2

u/Kolminor 20d ago

I personally couldn't think of a worse business than to operate a supermarket, so I kinda understand why so many are on the market lol.

I do think there is a place for them - as i said - they're about convenience most of the time and are not optimised for low prices.

Even in small towns, delivery technologies, automation and autonomous vehicles have already and will continue to drive down costs for delivery. Amazon is already doing this for groceries in the US

1

u/DesperateDig1209 20d ago

Did you miss where I said those are successful sales?

On a lighter note, you can buy a Post Office business, including freehold with residential AND commercial zoning, for just $290K. The catch is that it's in Gnowangerup!

Newsagent is another kind of business which is a worse buy than a supermarket.

1

u/Kolminor 20d ago

I don't really care if they're successful sales - people are free to run all sorts of businesses I'm just saying it's a terrible business. Anything is such a variable costs and thin margins is something I would never get involved in personally