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So retail has nothing to fear from Amazon in Canada at least. I decided to try this amazing Amazon thing out by getting a 1 month Prime trial and holy poo poo are the prices bad. Not "wahh the deals aren't quite as good as in the US" I'm talking about $15 items selling for $70 on Amazon.ca. Other Canadian online retailers will sell at $15+ shipping, amazon.com will sell for like $10 plus free shipping, and then amazon.ca will sell for $70. Almost everything I've looked for is about 200-500% more expensive than local retail. Even a simple thing like socks. Everyone needs socks, that's common right? Oh cool it's PRIME DAY meaning GOOD DEALS. Nope, the marked down socks are now exactly as expensive as if I walked into a nice department store. There's no deals, no convenience.
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Jul 11, 2017 06:16
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Baronjutter posted:So retail has nothing to fear from Amazon in Canada at least. I decided to try this amazing Amazon thing out by getting a 1 month Prime trial and holy poo poo are the prices bad. Not "wahh the deals aren't quite as good as in the US" I'm talking about $15 items selling for $70 on Amazon.ca. Other Canadian online retailers will sell at $15+ shipping, amazon.com will sell for like $10 plus free shipping, and then amazon.ca will sell for $70. Almost everything I've looked for is about 200-500% more expensive than local retail. So you're saying there's money to be made smuggling things over the border?  how many socks u need man
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Jul 11, 2017 06:18
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:So you're saying there's money to be made smuggling things over the border? There actually is. Tons of Canadians will go across the border to shop. In a lot of US border towns the costcos and poo poo get like 50% of their sales from Canadians who do quick day trips to grocery shop or buy bigger ticket items. Even after paying duties it still comes out way cheaper. Canada also has massive cheese tariffs to the point that there's a huge cheese smuggling organized crime thing the RCMP is always trying to bust. "Major Cheese Smuggling Ring Busted" is a legitimate headline here http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19751695 Another big business are US mailboxes. Canadians rent them in some border town, use it to buy poo poo that only ships within the US, then they drive over once a month or so to pick up their poo poo and hope customs doesn't ding them. Or the mailboxes are owned by a company that will then ship your items to you. My company gets a lot of our printing supplies this way, specialty inks and poo poo that won't ship to Canada because they have official Canadian distributors who charge 2-3x as much. So we order the Ink, it arrives at some small US town, it's put on a plane and we then pick it up at the airport at a flat rate. But amazon.ca goes way beyond this. $15 things for $70 or $80 or even $115 is just insane, I assume it's scammers listing on amazon hoping someone accidentally buys it? I see poo poo like that on ebay often too. Like someone selling some garbage $10 model train thing for $150 saying it's RARE. I actually took advantage of all this when I got my computer. The parts were so much cheaper from US sources, like half, that I saved a few hundred dollars by getting the computer shipped to a friend in Seattle who then was nice enough to build the computer, send his wife in a taxi to the ferry terminal to load the computer on as cargo, then have me pick it up at the harbour (I'm on an island which makes US trips very expensive), pay customs, and then wheel the computer home in a suitcase. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 06:25
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OwlFancier posted:That's utterly fascinating to me, how do they... well... work I guess? I mean obviously if you're a state owned enforced monopoly on booze you could hardly fail to make money but how do they shake out as actual shops? Quality? Price? I find the idea of retail divorced from free markets and maximum profit absolutely enthralling. What do you get when you take the market out of supermarket? Whoa that's a lot of questions. I can't speak to much about Alko but I am directly familiar with Systembolagets process from working with a south American wine-manufacturer some time ago. Alright, first on their prices. Alcohol is very expensive in both Finland and Sweden, but that has more to do with our alcohol taxes. They are extremely high and a function of alcoholic content rather than price. This makes things like off-brand hard liquor unsellable as their alcoholic content is the same as on-brand items. So prices are high, but they would very likely still be so under a non-monopolized system. Quality is another matter because due to their organizational goals they do not stock or order their shelf's in the same way that conventional retail stores would. For example, what Systembolaget will do is that they will identify that the markets want like say, a fair-trade red wine with hints of citrus and lavender that will sell for 8€. What they will then do is to open a bid to wine manufacturers who will then compete to fill that space. Then, after a ridiculous over 20-step long process that wine will get placed in maybe 1 or 2 shelf spaces in a select number of stores for a decided period of time. If that product doesn't meet expectations it gets replaced. Rince and repeat for the entire selection of all stores across the nation. You'd think these obtrusive procurement policies would limit selection but what it instead does is that it expands it. While a grocery store in say Germany will be over-stocked with the biggest brands and their imitators (since they can pay for shelf-space) Systembolaget choose their selection based on market demand and identified consumer preference. This means that instead of having say Bacardi flooding a shelf-space, they will only get 1 or 2 spots alongside competing international and local brands. In this way they tailor the selection to span prices, countries of origin (especially in wine) and quality very carefully. Marketing is another interesting thing. Due to their non-consumption oriented goals shelf-space is never for sale and manufacturers are highly limited in how they can market both in-store (due to Systembolagets policies and procurement process) and outside (due to highly prohibitive national legislation). There are no 2 for 1 deals, shelf aisle marketing campaigns, bundled in products (like shot-glasses), on-site taste-testing or sales of any kind. Additionally, they will also at times subtly encourage products which are in the 'societal interest'. For instance, in the last decade they've been letting producers have more shelf-space for their brands if they offer sustainably produced products. Similarly, in just the last years non-alcoholic products have been given advantageous entrance and check-out positioning to encourage non-alcoholic consumption. The most extreme cases of these aims comes in the temperature of products and opening hours. Systembolaget will sell you all its products at room temperature to dis-incentivize spontaneous consumption. For the same reason they also close relatively early (even though they don't have to) and are entirely closed on national drinking holidays to ensure that no one is drinking outside of a bar if they didn't plan to. In this way and many other, they will directly eschew what most would claim constitute sensible business practices when it interferes with their organizational goal of limiting alcoholic consumption. Oh, and with all in this mind let me end on telling that you that Systembolaget is highly popular, one of the most bellowed brands in the country and enjoys broad political support. 
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Jul 11, 2017 06:48
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Baronjutter posted:My company gets a lot of our printing supplies this way, specialty inks and poo poo that won't ship to Canada because they have official Canadian distributors who charge 2-3x as much. Small world, I talked to a salesguy at one of those distributors a few weeks ago. He did an amazing supervillain cackle that I'm not sure was a joke.
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Jul 11, 2017 06:49
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Baronjutter posted:Even a simple thing like socks. Everyone needs socks, that's common right? Oh cool it's PRIME DAY meaning GOOD DEALS. Nope, the marked down socks are now exactly as expensive as if I walked into a nice department store. There's no deals, no convenience. I admittedly didn't follow Prime Day deals this year but I've never found them particularly intriguing. I've never met anyone in my life who raved about getting such a good deal on stuff during Prime Day either. I just don't think they have stuff as enticing as they believe they do.
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Jul 11, 2017 06:53
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For those pondering a beef-less McDonalds, that exists right now, its McDonalds in India's menu, including the only sanctioned Big Mac variation the Maharaja which is made using chicken. The Indian menu also includes a bevvy of vegetarian options so its not just find->replace beef with chicken. As for store layouts, merchandising covers that and as discussed every business and dozens of consulting firms have their own closely guarded attribution models and historical data supporting the decisions they make on laying out the store. Going back to McDonalds they have at their test facility in Chicago the floorspace and dimension specs (and in many cases the already fabricated parts in storage) to create any previously existing McDonalds layout anywhere in the world, even including things like the Sarajevo winter olympics McDonalds and use it constantly to test changes to boost store sales.
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Jul 11, 2017 07:11
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Barudak posted:For those pondering a beef-less McDonalds, that exists right now, its McDonalds in India's menu, including the only sanctioned Big Mac variation the Maharaja which is made using chicken. The Indian menu also includes a bevvy of vegetarian options so its not just find->replace beef with chicken. Not sure if this is the same place but when I went to ~Hamburger University~ they had a fully-functioning standalone store in the basement and you could go through the drive-thru in a golf cart. It was extremely fun.
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Jul 11, 2017 07:33
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Not sure if this is the same place but when I went to ~Hamburger University~ they had a fully-functioning standalone store in the basement and you could go through the drive-thru in a golf cart. It was extremely fun. Hamburger University is a seperate location if I remember right because this building is a warehouse that smells like cooking oil and employs bored old people to roleplay customers for mexican day laborers roleplaying as mexicans with full time jobs. Also, haha you had to do Hamburger University.
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Jul 11, 2017 07:35
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Barudak posted:Hamburger University is a seperate location if I remember right because this building is a warehouse that smells like cooking oil and employs bored old people to roleplay customers for mexican day laborers roleplaying as mexicans with full time jobs. Just a tour, thank god, but man are they proud of that place. Did you know they have a massive modern art collection? There's someone whose job it is to be the curator at Hamburger University and pick out stunning works of art for executives to barrel past and ignore because they are too stressed out about french fries.
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Jul 11, 2017 07:37
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Just a tour, thank god, but man are they proud of that place. Did you know they have a massive modern art collection? There's someone whose job it is to be the curator at Hamburger University and pick out stunning works of art for executives to barrel past and ignore because they are too stressed out about french fries. For the extremely brief period of time I worked on that business we had to come up with hamburger university material and ahahaha I would not wish that nightmare on anyone. I have serious doubt that will survive the transition to moving their headquarters downtown.
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Jul 11, 2017 07:41
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:They had all the research in the world telling them the immediate future (aka now) was going to be marked by a growing distaste for grease n' sugar among the precious middle-class consumers they're desperate to win back, but they just can't figure out a way to reach them and still be McDonald's. I'm gonna guess that Wendy's strategy of just jackhammering the word "fresh" was probably a better idea.
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Jul 11, 2017 08:34
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MiddleOne posted:Booooze That's all really cool, cheers! The tax thing is familiar as the UK has a spirit tax too that makes up the majority of alcohol costs, more alcohol content = more tax. Also I think Scotland at the least has minimum price per unit laws too which prohibit discounts below a certain amount. But the rest sounds fascinating. And bloody hell do I now want a general supermarket following that system, especially if it had a cheese counter. OneEightHundred posted:As far as I can tell their answer has just been to throw in some flavor qualifiers to make the menus sound classier, so now we've got "Maple Bacon Dijon with Buttermilk Crispy Chicken." Hey now adding %10 to the price per-adjective is a perfectly reasonable way to get middle class people to buy your poo poo.
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Jul 11, 2017 09:07
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Sorry to bring up facts again, but America's "distaste" for sugar isn't really new. The consumption of caloric sweeteners (refined cane sugar and hfcs) has been falling since 1999 when it was at an average of 111 grams of sugar consumed per day by an American. In 2015, that number is down to 94 grams a day (from 423 calories to 358--soda sales steadily declining since 1998 being a major reason for the drop, but that's still over two cans of soda worth of sugar a day per American). This trend didn't sneak up on them, though it is continuing. Interestingly enough, the largest hit to soda sales as of late is in the diet brands--diet drinkers are shifting to other beverages, not so much (though the segment is softening) the sugary soda drinkers.
Boxcar fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 09:19
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OwlFancier posted:That's all really cool, cheers! They made an ad a couple of months back comparing exactly the difference between them and a "regular supermarket". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4t-fCKQCP4
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Jul 11, 2017 10:00
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Crabtree posted:Because grocery stores like to split off "organic" from regular dairy. Better to carve off a corner of the store as "cleaner" food or healthier selections from regular or whatnot. Interestingly, the store I work at is integrating all that, because of the surveys taken, only about 10% knew that the big green washed area near the front full of more expensive poo poo is where all the gluten-free stuff was located. So now they're extending the aisles. Basically what it seems like is that a big chunk, half or so, of an aisle will be the organic/GF stuff, but it will be in the same aisle as the other pasta/cake mix/whatever. It'll be interesting to see if this does poo poo, or if only 10% of surveyed customers was the high mark for even caring about that stuff.
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Jul 11, 2017 10:31
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I've heard before that Amazon.ca sucks, but why? Not enough economies of scale I guess? Tariffs on everything coming from the states?
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Jul 11, 2017 11:19
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Not in any conversations I had. They were pretty sensitive about food quality concerns - there was some flak about their chicken nuggets using meat glue ( Only in restaurants so far, though it tasted specifically like a fast food burger, not a restaurant burger - I think it's the texture, a lot more finely ground. I know it's not that kind of iron, but the idea of having to mine for burgers greatly amuses me.
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Jul 11, 2017 11:46
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) at the time. I think they've changed their recipe since then as a response to that.
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OneEightHundred posted:As far as I can tell their answer has just been to throw in some flavor qualifiers to make the menus sound classier, so now we've got "Maple Bacon Dijon with Buttermilk Crispy Chicken." That seems to be McDonald's halfhearted attempt to ape Chipotle by letting people customize their meals. At least at the one near me you can mix-and-match ingredients (pick 1 of 2 styles of buns, pick a protein like the burger, crispy chicken, or grilled chicken, pick a style like BBQ onion or the maple bacon Dijon etc.)
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Jul 11, 2017 13:00
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Be...cause the stores are in different buildings, on different geography with different infrastructure, serving different markets, run by different people.
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Jul 11, 2017 14:01
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OneEightHundred posted:As far as I can tell their answer has just been to throw in some flavor qualifiers to make the menus sound classier, so now we've got "Maple Bacon Dijon with Buttermilk Crispy Chicken." McDonalds is currently in process of testing to switch to fresher meat and has a sustainability goal for its meat products (in many countries theyve hit that for eggs and oil already) so they arent unaware of thay fact, the process is just extremely long.
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Jul 11, 2017 14:50
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Red Baron posted:I admittedly didn't follow Prime Day deals this year but I've never found them particularly intriguing. I've never met anyone in my life who raved about getting such a good deal on stuff during Prime Day either. I just don't think they have stuff as enticing as they believe they do. Amazon equivalent of a clearance sale, really. You're not going to find the best, most in-demand stuff, it's largely going to be stuff taking up warehouse space that they want to get rid of, with a few decent items mixed throughout to get you looking and build interest. That said, I got a little Baofeng two-way radio for like $20, down from $33
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Jul 11, 2017 15:16
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OneEightHundred posted:http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/10/technology/amazon-smart-home-services-geek-squad/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool They've had home installation services advertised on their pages for large/expensive appliances for a while now though, as well as having a whole section for home/office services, seems weird to just "announce" it again? There was of course plenty of humor to be found in that it seemed to do it algorithmically, so you'd see something like a $10 mp3 player and an offer to pay just $99 to get it professionally installed.
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Jul 11, 2017 15:45
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I thought the distinction was that before the installation services were third-party but now it's Amazon itself?
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Jul 11, 2017 15:48
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Cicero posted:I thought the distinction was that before the installation services were third-party but now it's Amazon itself? Im pretty sure theyre 3rd party, just they are tracked/managed by amazon. Its a great feature Ali Baba has had for ages so im glad Amazon is doing it.
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Jul 11, 2017 17:22
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KiteAuraan posted:Interestingly, the store I work at is integrating all that, because of the surveys taken, only about 10% knew that the big green washed area near the front full of more expensive poo poo is where all the gluten-free stuff was located. So now they're extending the aisles. Basically what it seems like is that a big chunk, half or so, of an aisle will be the organic/GF stuff, but it will be in the same aisle as the other pasta/cake mix/whatever. Yeah, people with gluten problems or other specialty organic leaning customers like it when there is a big obvious area for them to flock to and browse without having to look if this is the one non GMO or whatever item of the isle. Pain in the rear end for employees to restock as you're never sure if this is regular area or organic section or that weird nut area next to the botlhouse drinks that circles into produce, though. Especially if the store likes shuffling the items every now and again.
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Jul 11, 2017 17:27
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OneEightHundred posted:As far as I can tell their answer has just been to throw in some flavor qualifiers to make the menus sound classier, so now we've got "Maple Bacon Dijon with Buttermilk Crispy Chicken." Wendy's is loving good and at least when I eat it I feel lovely, but not the equivalent to a McD's burger. Also the news salads and fries are pretty great! But I usually get their chicken nugs. God Wendy's chicken nugs forever. Taco Bell's strategy of advertising to drunk people and stoners was brilliant though.
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Jul 11, 2017 19:01
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cheese eats mouse posted:Wendy's is loving good and at least when I eat it I feel lovely, but not the equivalent to a McD's burger. Also the news salads and fries are pretty great! Yeah Yum brands really hit a goldmine with its "stop pretending you still have the capacity to feel shame" brand strategy. Taco bell has all that dorito poo poo, KFC has the double down and the sadness bowl, Pizza Hut seems to be employing exiled nazi scientists to push the boundaries of how much cheese can be crammed into a pizza crust...
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Jul 11, 2017 19:31
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Yeah Yum brands really hit a goldmine with its "stop pretending you still have the capacity to feel shame" brand strategy. Taco bell has all that dorito poo poo, KFC has the double down and the sadness bowl, Pizza Hut seems to be employing exiled nazi scientists to push the boundaries of how much cheese can be crammed into a pizza crust...  God Bless America.
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Jul 11, 2017 19:33
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I wish I could afford KFC because I want to buy one of those big buckets of chicken someday but they literally cost more than a big plate of sit-down fish and chips with bread and a drink at a nice local restaurant. Fast food is really expensive.
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Jul 11, 2017 19:41
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OwlFancier posted:I wish I could afford KFC because I want to buy one of those big buckets of chicken someday but they literally cost more than a big plate of sit-down fish and chips with bread and a drink at a nice local restaurant. Yeah holy poo poo is this true, specially in Canada. A fast food meal is maybe a dollar or two less than a nice meal at a real restaurant. I can get a nice bento box or some sushi or some thai or a big restaurant burger for maybe a dollar more than going to subway or KFC or something. The only reason to get fast food here is if for some reason you prefer the taste or you're in a big hurry.
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Jul 11, 2017 19:48
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OwlFancier posted:I wish I could afford KFC because I want to buy one of those big buckets of chicken someday but they literally cost more than a big plate of sit-down fish and chips with bread and a drink at a nice local restaurant. If it's just chicken you want and not KFC chicken specifically a lot of grocery store delis do that as well, and for much cheaper. Although I think you're in the UK so maybe not? Enjoy your blood pudding and stiffen that upper lip  There has to be at least one authentic southern US cuisine place in London or somewhere that will do you some real fried chicken if you're going to spend that much money anyway. Or check with Scotland? I think they invented it.
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Jul 11, 2017 19:53
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KFC does Toonie Tuesday in Canada, and you get 2 pieces of chicken ( I think a wing and a drumstick) for $2. I don't really care for KFC, but it's a popular promotion.
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Jul 11, 2017 20:05
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:If it's just chicken you want and not KFC chicken specifically a lot of grocery store delis do that as well, and for much cheaper. Although I think you're in the UK so maybe not? Enjoy your blood pudding and stiffen that upper lip In Southern California this is not super true 
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Jul 11, 2017 20:06
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1st AD posted:In Southern California this is not super true That's where I live! Go to Vons, yo.
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Jul 11, 2017 20:33
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:If it's just chicken you want and not KFC chicken specifically a lot of grocery store delis do that as well, and for much cheaper. Although I think you're in the UK so maybe not? Enjoy your blood pudding and stiffen that upper lip Oh you can get KFC style stuff in the supermarket yeah, and there's actually a bunch of halal food places that do southern fried chicken because, well, halal places tend to do lots of chicken dishes. I just want the authentic 'I'm a loving pig give me a bucket of chicken' experience.
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Jul 11, 2017 20:38
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Nothing quite says 'gently caress this day' like a bucket o chicken and some cheap beer
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Jul 11, 2017 20:43
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KiteAuraan posted:Interestingly, the store I work at is integrating all that, because of the surveys taken, only about 10% knew that the big green washed area near the front full of more expensive poo poo is where all the gluten-free stuff was located. So now they're extending the aisles. Basically what it seems like is that a big chunk, half or so, of an aisle will be the organic/GF stuff, but it will be in the same aisle as the other pasta/cake mix/whatever. they may only be 10% of customers but organic stuff has a mark-up to it so it could very well be worth appealing to them more
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Jul 11, 2017 20:54
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I hate it when the gluten free stuff is lumped in with other garbage because I don't want to be associated with that. Just put the non-dairy yogurt in the diary section, put the gluten free bread in the bread area. I hate the little sort of pseudoscience ghetto places make which makes me feel ashamed to buy the product for legitimate reasons. I don't give a poo poo if it's organic or how many GMO's are inside of it I care if it will make my guts explode. I think though that there's so many "alternative" products and things for special dietary needs that they don't need to be put in a little ghetto anymore, most places I shop don't. But still there's the confusion, will I find the almond milk in with the milk, or in some weird special section? I thought one supermarket simply didn't carry corn pasta, but that's because they didn't put it in the pasta section they put it in their little gluten free zone.
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Jul 11, 2017 21:02
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OwlFancier posted:Oh you can get KFC style stuff in the supermarket yeah, and there's actually a bunch of halal food places that do southern fried chicken because, well, halal places tend to do lots of chicken dishes. Oh see, here in good ol' America the supermarkets will do the buckets too. You can get buckets of anything
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Jul 11, 2017 21:10
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