Price Wars!

[Guest Scathane]

In the Netherlands, a price war is going on in the supermarkets! The German Aldi started by lowering its price for one liter of milk with 3 eurocents (that's 12.8% to the original price of 47 eurocents!). Albert Heijn, the largest Dutch supermarket chain, responded by lowering prices for 1,000 of its products!

 

Needless to say, Dutch consumers are very happy for the moment! Is anything like this happening in your respective countries as well?

[Jin_Roh]

Well Scath, I haven't seen a price war in the grocery stores over here in the States in a long time, at least not over a specific product. In general though, competition in the grocery business is really fierce over here. And it's getting tougher now because the giant discount retailer Wal-Mart is getting into the grocery business. Talk about an Evil Empire!

[ElvisMiggell]

Yeah, them and Micro-soft and Nestle should get together.

[the_mask]

Has Aldi only recently opened shops in the Netherlands ?

 

Here (for me: Germany, for those of you who don't know yet ) that's been goin on for years. Aldi brings something for x Euros, Lidl (another discounter) has it for a little less, but maybe a few days later and vice-versa. The trick is to see how the pattern evolves, which one offered first and who's gonna follow with the cheaper offer

 

Lidl is part of a chain even larger than Aldi, their owner's are Lidl & Schwarz. Several other firms belong to them as well, like Metro or Asco for example.

[R2-Opus2]

I'm not familiar with those chains, but I am familiar with Royal Ahold. They're another one of those Euro supermarket monguls I believe (somebody correct me if you know but I think they're either Dutch or Swedish heh). Anyway, I used to work for a US supermarket a few years ago and while I was with them that company bought ours. As far as I know they still own the US chain, although last thing I knew, they came under fire for some accounting issues (this was all post-Enron, when a bunch of companies were under the microscope for similar issues).

 

I know that before I left, they had designs on obtaining a few more chains, cornering a majority of the market on the east coast. I haven't really kept up with them over the years, but I think besides here and in Europe, they have operations in Asia as well.

[Guest Scathane]

Royal Ahold is indeed a Dutch firm; they're also the holding company for Albert Heijn (which I mentioned in my initial post). They hold several operating companies in the USA and a number of them elsewhere in the world:

 

USA:
• Stop & Shop
• Giant-Landover
• Giant-Carlisle
• Tops
• BI-LO
• Bruno’s
• U.S. Foodservice
• Peapod
Netherlands:
• Albert Heijn
• Schuitema
• Etos
• Gall & Gall
• Deli XL
Scandinavia:
• ICA AB
Poland:
• Ahold Polska
Czech Republic:
• Ahold Czech Republic
Slovakia:
• Ahold Slovakia
Spain:
• Ahold Supermercados
Portugal:
• Jerónimo Martins
South America:
• Bompreço
• G. Barbosa
• Disco
Central America:
• La Fragua
• CSU
• CARHCO
Thailand:
• CRC. Ahold
Malaysia:
• Tops Retail (Malaysia)
Indonesia
• PT Ahold Indonesia

They're big, but not as big as Wal-Mart. With regard to the accounting scandal that was referred to: I believ this had to do with Disco.

 

With regard to Aldi in the Netherlands: no, they haven't started opening shops in the Netherlands recently, they've been around here for at least 10 years. They are getting rather successful these days, however...

[R2-Opus2]

Yea I think in the end, with the events here in the US, they probably only paid a fine if anything happened to them at all. For a little while though during all that, I was sorry for any people I knew still imployed at my old digs. BTW, that group I was in was Giant-Landover. It had been previously a family owned operation for damn near 50 years that had been expanding well in their own right.

 

To this day though I can't fathom the reason for the sell out if they were doing so well. Probably just greed there....damn sellouts hehe

[Guest Scathane]

The reason for selling one's firm - even if it's doing well - can be one out of a great many...

[Trejiuvanat]

Central America:

• La Fragua

• CSU

• CARHCO

[With regard to Aldi in the Netherlands: no, they haven't started opening shops in the Netherlands recently, they've been around here for at least 10 years. They are getting rather successful these days, however...

 

CSU?

Corporación de Supermercados Unidos.. I didn't know they had anything to do with a dutch firm. Odd.

The CSU is conformed by

Palí and MaxiMercados (roughly equivalent to Aldi)

Mas X Menos (your normal usual supermarket)

Hípermás (the megabighipersupermarket that isn't any good)

 

I remember going to Aldi with my parents when I was a little kid. Those were the days...

No Price Wars in Costa Rica. But they have silly promotions.

 

Megasúper is the main competition to Palí.

Megasúper started saying that they had the lowest prices. And if anyone found the same product in a supermarket of the competition having a lower price, then Megasúper would lower their price as well.

CSU and more specifically Palí responded by saying that if anyone found a product in the supermarket of the competition to be lower than those in Palí, then Palí would refund you the double of the difference between both products. The double of the difference never exceded the 40 colones (about 10 eurocents).

Then Megasúper started with the Miércoles de Mayoreo. That meant that on Wednesday the prices of the different products were lowered drastically. but would get higher any other day of the week.

 

And so it stands.

[SOCL]

Can't say I've heard of any of the ones you listed for the United States, but I can tell you a few things about what's going on here. The big name, retail stores are at all-out war with each other and it seems that Wal-Mart imperium will end up prospering. In the tiny city outside the base (I mean, itty-bitty) K-Mart and Wal-Mart were at odds for a while, along with another one called Winn Dixie. First Winn Dixie fell and they closed the two they had here. Now K-Mart, with three centers, is closing all of them. Additionally, when I moved here three years ago, there were only two Wal-Marts...currently there are 5, and that's not counting the 3 others they're opening. Guys, it's a monopoly! These people are insane! And to make matters worse, they're not regular, smaller Wal-Marts, I'm talking about the enormous, double-size, one acre supercenters (plus, they're adding a ~twelve acre warehouse and district headquarters outside the city)! Before I leave this place, there will be 8! That's about the size of the entire town-city, for goodness sake ...well, maybe not, but still, good god!!!

 

Clarksville, Tennessee, USA: Land of the Wal-Marts

[SOCL]

And you'll never believe this!

 

 

 

Begun this Price War has....

[R2-Opus2]

hehe nice picture.

 

Yep, even the hiring of illegal aliens hasn't slowed Wal-Mart down hehe. Kinda questions if they even pay their people, American or not, decent living wages. Also last I knew, they weren't unionized but maybe that's changed. I would think that their workforce is big enough that it ought to be. I've worked for both union and non-union establishments, and one of the things I think is a must these days is job security...no matter how people feel about them, I think that aspect is key in a large company like that.