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ErIog posted:Large businesses want to pick their customers, and it's more efficient to take out the bottom tier of the transactions rather than try to foist price hikes evenly on the entire customer base. Netflix did this a year ago with the password sharing policy change. They saturated their market with lower prices to get people in the door. Now with everyone in the door, they want the customers who are willing to pay more to stay. This allows them to hike their prices substantially more in the long term while reducing overhead serving people who can't pay as much. It isn't a very good business decision, but it sounds amazing to investors. None of this explains why they can't just raise prices, or just close locations. You're alleging a remarkable conspiracy here.
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Nov 14, 2023 05:14
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uber_stoat posted:at the kroger here they walled off a bunch of dissimilar items that are theft prone into a sort of redoubt with the shelves arranged to make it so there's only one way into it. batteries, deodorant, cosmetics, detergent. at first they would make you buy your stuff from there at a register located at the entrance to the anti-theft fortress but i guess they got sick of dealing with that so now they just have a disinterested clerk at the entrance to scare you into not stealing. Oh yeah my local Fred Meyer has that for toiletries & stuff with a register that’s never manned. Also cameras. Also armed guards. Hired from a company that had a guard straight up murder a homeless person trying to cash in cans 2 years ago.
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Nov 14, 2023 07:47
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Discendo Vox posted:None of this explains why they can't just raise prices, or just close locations. You're alleging a remarkable conspiracy here. The answer to the latter was already put forward a few posts above. It looks bad on balance sheets to close a shop that is turning a profit, so they try and ensure that the shop doesn't turn a profit any more due to ridiculous security to make people go to where things cost more.
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Nov 14, 2023 08:53
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the Walmart in Renton in Seattle area had/has massive issues with shrink, first they tried everything locked up, now they seem to be settling on specific aisles that have their own checkouts and there is like 75% less self-checkouts now, all of them behind regular checkouts that you have to pass through, along with off duty armed police and armed security. the nearby target in Tukwila at one point had security with rifles lol, so they do hire security but seems only when they want to keep the store open.
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Nov 14, 2023 09:04
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Josef bugman posted:The answer to the latter was already put forward a few posts above. It looks bad on balance sheets to close a shop that is turning a profit, so they try and ensure that the shop doesn't turn a profit any more due to ridiculous security to make people go to where things cost more. This is, again, bizarre, factually unsupported, and needlessly complex relative to raising prices and closing a store.
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Nov 14, 2023 09:14
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Discendo Vox posted:None of this explains why they can't just raise prices, or just close locations. You're alleging a remarkable conspiracy here. It's not a conspiracy, and now that it's been put that way it does make sense. Raising the prices and seeing same-store sales shrink simultaneously drives a narrative that the company is out of touch and needs to adjust pricing practices. That's 100% undesirable to investors and would be considered a failure. Closing a profitable store will similarly spook investors. Trotting out a dog and pony show of locking things up and justifying it via false theft claims is fine for investors. Similarly, when it reduces the store's sales the investors will blame the customers, not the company. Once the store sales decrease enough, it's insufficiently profitable and they can justify closing. And who are you alleging is in on this conspiracy? The C-suite? In the US we call any conspiracy that remains inside the management of a single company "business", hope this helps.
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Nov 14, 2023 09:31
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You are continuing to not provide any support for either the general or specific versions of this claim.
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Nov 14, 2023 10:42
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poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:Raising the prices and seeing same-store sales shrink simultaneously drives a narrative that the company is out of touch and needs to adjust pricing practices. That's 100% undesirable to investors and would be considered a failure. Closing a profitable store will similarly spook investors. I think shareholders understand that raising prices will lower trade volume but there's instances where either lowerering or raising prices can result in higher profits. It's a fundamental and basic concept that everybody in sales work with. Closing a profitable store is perfectly fine if you believe it will drive more customers to another store which will result in higher profits. If that's your motive then you'd just flat out state that openly. If you have no control over prices and can't raise them because suppliers sets prices for you then it's just all that much easier to close the store. "Our suppliers are setting prices that hurt our margins at location x and since we are powerless to negotiate other contracts or affect pricing structure the best option is to close location x so we get more volume at location y."
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Nov 14, 2023 12:14
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poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:via false theft claims is Small thefts aren’t claims. Shoplifting isn’t going to generate a stock throughput claim. A real organized large theft will like the ones that happened during the pandemic during the riots near the beginning. Real claims get investigated too out come the surveyors, forensic accountants, etc. That is something I can be pretty certain about, the retail chains are probably not getting any insurance payouts on these losses.
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Nov 14, 2023 18:08
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Discendo Vox posted:You are continuing to not provide any support for either the general or specific versions of this claim. Have you, or are you just asserting they're wrong? This goes both ways and it seems like you are not meeting their effort.
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Nov 14, 2023 18:30
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Sorry what riots again?
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Nov 14, 2023 18:55
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DR FRASIER KRANG posted:Sorry what riots again? You don’t remember the riots and large protests in 2020?
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Nov 14, 2023 19:24
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Bar Ran Dun posted:You don’t remember the riots and large protests in 2020? I remember the cops rioting
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Nov 14, 2023 20:34
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there was one conspicuous instance of a target getting wrecked though the main thing i remember from that is some white dude who had absolutely pillaged the lego aisle.
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Nov 14, 2023 20:37
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TheScott2K posted:I remember the cops rioting Yeah they were real sobs to the protestors. In Portland customs was outright black bagging folks. That has nothing to do with that organized crime groups used the protests to steal in a targeted way from from high end retail stores. It’s a fact that happened. I’ve rather literally watched it. When I say things like: “The container volume in the terminals is visually down.” “Containerships are drafting light.” “There is an abnormally high number of homeless still on the street in Fairbanks and Anchorage.” These are general things I am seeing in person, physically present observing. It’s a fact that organized crime used the protests as an opportunity for large thefts from specific retail stores. There years on now the ones I saw directly never reopened from the loses. It’s my opinion that large retailers are conflating those real events with shoplifting now because they have been failing to accurately document their real normal shrink for several years.
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Nov 14, 2023 21:00
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Owling Howl posted:I think shareholders understand that raising prices will lower trade volume but there's instances where either lowerering or raising prices can result in higher profits. It's a fundamental and basic concept that everybody in sales work with. If closing a store would reduce net profit then shareholders are unlikely to be sympathetic. Shareholders tend to disregard liability nowadays, as evidenced by all the leveraged buyouts of public companies nowadays. Shed that and all that's left is the money the store makes that the shareholders don't want to lose. Even Target has seen shareholder pushback from their actions in the northeast, and it's impossible to say what they really believe but based on their response they're acting like they did not anticipate it. Bar Ran Dun posted:Small thefts aren’t claims. Shoplifting isn’t going to generate a stock throughput claim. A real organized large theft will like the ones that happened during the pandemic during the riots near the beginning. I didn't mean insurance claims, I meant the companies' claims that theft is occurring. I guess assertion would be more appropriate, but I feel like claim has a stronger connotation of illegitimacy which is appropriate given context. Target has massive camera coverage and automated customer tracking in their stores, if theft were actually occurring they could provide evidence of it in response to the shareholders bristling, but they chose to double down instead. You don't have to be a brain genius to understand that if a company with a huge security apparatus declines to provide evidence of claims of retail theft, something's mighty fucky.
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Nov 14, 2023 21:01
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HootTheOwl posted:Have you, or are you just asserting they're wrong? They're asserting a multi-step process to mislead investors by avoiding taking fairly basic actions that they are already taking, to achieve the same ends, with zero evidence. The burden's not on me here. I know I've been over this before with this user regarding other claims.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:49
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DV the big thing for me is that I know what answers I’ve gotten to: When was your last full inventory?
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Nov 15, 2023 00:27
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Discendo Vox posted:They're asserting a multi-step process to mislead investors by avoiding taking fairly basic actions that they are already taking, to achieve the same ends, with zero evidence. The burden's not on me here. I know I've been over this before with this user regarding other claims. That's not how any of this works. If you're claiming the shrink that the stores are supposedly closing over occurred, it's on you to prove that. Your position doesn't become somehow self-proving just because you agree with a multinational corporation's unsupported public narrative.
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Nov 15, 2023 00:41
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poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:That's not how any of this works. If you're claiming the shrink that the stores are supposedly closing over occurred, it's on you to prove that. Your position doesn't become somehow self-proving just because you agree with a multinational corporation's unsupported public narrative. That is not something I have ever claimed - hell, it's the opposite. Nor am I disagreeing with Bar Ran Dun. I'm disagreeing with the user who is claiming that the stores are using product access restriction to provide a secret backdoor justification to...still close the stores anyway, on the equally unsupported basis that somehow investors are more okay with this source of loss than others, or that the access restriction drives consumers to the same store in a different location in a way price differentials don't. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 01:15
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Bar Ran Dun posted:You don’t remember the riots and large protests in 2020? I remember mass hoarding of toilet paper and some other items, but that was kinda it
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Nov 15, 2023 03:11
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From talking to some people that work in operations at Target it sounds like the bonus structure for regional directors moved from "increased sales and margin" to "decrease shrink at all costs". Some stores are having reduced hours with higher staffing, others are trying to lock up high shrink items.
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Nov 15, 2023 03:14
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I fuckin' love perverse incentives.
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Nov 15, 2023 03:15
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In algorithmic pricing news: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/3/23901840/amazon-project-nessie-algorithm-antitrust-ftc-complaint Amazon was using an algorithm “project Nessie“ to check what their competitors did when they raised prices. If the competitor raised them too then they kept the price higher. If the competition kept prices the same Amazon reverted it price raise.
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Nov 15, 2023 04:28
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Anther source on the same thing I wanna quote a section for y’all: https://www.geekwire.com/2023/ftc-vs-amazon-filing-reveals-more-claims-about-jeff-bezos-alleged-role-project-nessie-and-more/ “This algorithm was conceived by Amazon’s former CEO of its Worldwide Consumer business, Jeff Wilke. According to Mr. Wilke, Amazon deploys this algorithm to avoid a “perfectly competitive market” in which participants lower their prices to a competitive level. Rather than trying to compete, Amazon uses a “game theory approach,” never making the first move and instead disciplining rivals by rapidly copying others’ moves to the penny, both up and down. The goal is to ensure that rivals’ price cuts and discounts do not translate to greater scale, only lower margins. Ultimately, this conduct is meant to deter rivals from attempting to compete on price altogether—competition that could bring lower prices to tens of millions of American households. As a result of this conduct, Amazon predicted, “prices will go up.” Mr. Wilke believes that Amazon’s prediction has borne out and the algorithm has worked just as he envisioned: suppressing price competition by disciplining rival retailers who dare to discount.” The algorithm creates cartel effects without having to actually have a cartel and that’s its explicit goal. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 04:34
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Yep, this is related to the recent anticompetition FTC action, though I don't believe the specifics were in the filing.
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Nov 15, 2023 04:56
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That seems lovely, but at the same time I'm not sure "immediately matching competitors' lowered prices" is actually illegal. Is the intent the sticking point, or the fact that an algorithm is deciding this?
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Nov 16, 2023 03:13
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ErIog posted:Large businesses want to pick their customers, and it's more efficient to take out the bottom tier of the transactions rather than try to foist price hikes evenly on the entire customer base. Netflix did this a year ago with the password sharing policy change. They saturated their market with lower prices to get people in the door. Now with everyone in the door, they want the customers who are willing to pay more to stay. This allows them to hike their prices substantially more in the long term while reducing overhead serving people who can't pay as much. It isn't a very good business decision, but it sounds amazing to investors. What on earth? This is an absolutely bizarre reading of Netflix's strategy. Netflix wasn't trying to reduce its subscriber base, it was attempting the exact opposite. They saw people who shared a password from someone else's account as potential subscribers, and tried to capture some of them by removing the ability to easily share accounts. If they were just looking for the richest subscribers, they wouldn't have spent the last several years adding multiple price tiers (including their ad-supported plan just last year) to attract subscribers in every income bracket. I don't think anyone but Netflix can speak to how successful that has been, but it clearly isn't compatible with the strategy you claim they're employing. Separately, the notion that they could reduce their subscriber base as a means of easily reducing overhead is, I think, based on a pretty poor understanding of where they're spending their money. Their single biggest expense is their yearly spending on content, which they clearly feel is necessary to remain competitive with other streaming services. Fewer customers doesn't mean they can get away with a smaller content catalog, since their customers' tastes will likely be as varied as before. Baronash fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Nov 16, 2023 |
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Nov 16, 2023 04:06
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Cicero posted:That seems lovely, but at the same time I'm not sure "immediately matching competitors' lowered prices" is actually illegal. Is the intent the sticking point, or the fact that an algorithm is deciding this? It has the intent or maybe even just the effect of creating a price cartel but isn’t technically a cartel since it’s accomplished via robot. It’s like one weird trick to skirt anti-competition laws. I’m really glad to see the justice department actually doing something to protect consumers. It does kind of open some interesting possibilities though, since this kind of thing is common in monopolistic competition environments and ogliopolies, firms often compete by differentiating rather than pricing. Since so many US industries are semi consolidated these environments are very common.
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Nov 16, 2023 05:58
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It’s happened in rentals, agribusiness, meat producers… it would more shock me where it isn’t happening.
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Nov 16, 2023 06:26
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It is absolutely anti competitive to automatically coordinate pricing(though it's rare for it to get called out in the US before the monopolist has driven the tiny player out of business). The law predates computers. Amazon is doing it to always top the search results no matter sort criteria, knowing users will click them more than the competitor at similar prices. Pricing has no relation to the product underneath only on competition. Basically it turns capital advantage into consumer preference, buying out the market by temporarily subsidizing the consumer coming to Amazon. Once it kills the competition the price automatically adjusts up to Amazons desired price. You also never get a deal, they only match. Basically, it's a part of a strategy that relies on already having huge market share and cash on hand, it's a method for manipulation of the market. Turning online shopping into a walled garden subscription system is the goal, where they can extract a huge rent on being the garden instead of any innovation. There is no free lunch, prime is funded by general price increases. 15 dollars a month simply can't cover the services. To enable those price increases Amazon must manipulate the market. Barrel Cactaur fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Nov 16, 2023 |
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Nov 16, 2023 21:12
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https://twitter.com/neilretail/status/1733152960597598533?s=46&t=uiUehxbkNdNcN0PmfZ4Vaw I’m shocked I tell you. Shocked.
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Dec 8, 2023 17:13
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lol they’ve pulled it back from theft and clarified that they added on the theft in the supply chain “steal from retailers' warehouses and trucks, “ to the shoplifting.
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Dec 8, 2023 17:21
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poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:It's not a conspiracy, and now that it's been put that way it does make sense. It doesn't make sense at all, to me. It sounds like something someone made up and posted in a Facebook fwd:fwd:fwd Investors don't give a poo poo about the closing of a single store. Moreover, in my (anecdotal) experience prices are higher in poor and ghetto areas, where things are locked up all the time.
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Dec 8, 2023 23:13
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poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:If closing a store would reduce net profit then shareholders are unlikely to be sympathetic. Shareholders tend to disregard liability nowadays, as evidenced by all the leveraged buyouts of public companies nowadays. Shed that and all that's left is the money the store makes that the shareholders don't want to lose. Even Target has seen shareholder pushback from their actions in the northeast, and it's impossible to say what they really believe but based on their response they're acting like they did not anticipate it. I have no doubt that the retailers exaggerate theft, but to claim that organized theft isn't happening at all is silly. I have personally seen a group of 5 or 6 people stuff backpacks full of clothing and walk out of my local Target. I saw another guy with a duffel bag full of stuff get confronted by the security guard at the entrance. He simply refused to open the bag and just pushed past the guard. The guard wasn't going to do anything. At my local Safeway, I saw a (probably brand new) security guard actually confront a shoplifter and try to grab a backpack out of his hand. The shoplifter refused to let go and started screaming that his arm was breaking. The guard wouldn't let go and the guy finally gave up ran off. From what I could tell, the bag had several bottles of wine in it. I know these are just anecdotes, not data. And it may be more common in my area than others.
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Dec 8, 2023 23:47
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It’s a fart in the wind compared to the theft of whole trailer loads of products in transit and from drop trailers.
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Dec 9, 2023 00:15
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Bar Ran Dun posted:It’s a fart in the wind compared to the theft of whole trailer loads of products in transit and from drop trailers. Yeah, probably. I was just responding to the guy who was claiming organized shoplifting isn't happening at all.
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Dec 9, 2023 00:19
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I never claimed that theft wasn't occurring, just that it wasn't occurring to the degree the retailers claimed, and oh hey look at that post two up from yours where retail lobbyists retracted their claims of unprecedented theft. Also the claim that it's organized retail theft is ludicrous on its face, organized theft targets comparatively high-ticket, non-trackable, easily resold items like soaps, small electronics, and electronic accessories. Comparatively large, low value items with poor resale (like socks and underwear) aren't really exposed to that type of risk, which is why it's baffling that Target chose that particular hill not to die on, but to commit violent, obvious suicide on while blaming non-existent shoplifters. That anyone would choose to continue upholding that side of the discussion once the industry groups have abandoned it is beyond baffling.
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Dec 9, 2023 00:34
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The Mafia is making a comeback on organized shoplifting rings baby
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Dec 9, 2023 04:07
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e: Nvm, misread.
Baronash fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 00:41
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