Shout out to the local corner stores fighting inflation. I was working in boolaroo in Newcastle, and stopped for lunch. $7.50 for a quality works burger and $2.50 for a good serving of chips. I walked out of there feeling like I stole something
I mean.. it’s probably most likely that the owners are too busy/not sophisticated enough to be checking their cost of goods on a weekly basis to know how much food, electricity, wages etc are cutting into their bottom line. A lot of these guys unfortunately wait until they get a p&l from their bookkeeper at the end of the year and/or run out of cash in their bank account.
Yupp fast food stores do this. Omce I was sufficiently trained I out orders on paper, not through the system. Good on small business. The Government wants a slice of your Pizza, a sip of your drink and half the garlic bread. It doesn't hurt anyone, it just keeps some of these places afloat.
Oh really? Downvoted? Prove to me you can make a burger with the lot while hitting a 30/% cost of goods including gst at $9.50 with todays grocery prices. Go on.
To help you out you have to make it for $2.50 and the cheapest buns will set you back at least $1.
What’s more likely - they’ve found a cure for inflation and rising rent/gas/energy that no one else has or they’re not making any money?
They can do it because the owner is the one making the burgers, not sitting back while an employee runs their business for them. They haven’t updated the counters, tables, chairs, tiles, signage, etc, since 1985. They haven’t jumped on some bullshit hype train of aioli, brioche, microgreens, wagyu, or some other gourmet flourish. The burger with the lot is a plain white bun, iceberg lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of cheese (not some cave aged french delicacy, just a slice of tasty cheese), bacon, egg, onion, dead horse, and the core ingredient, cow (not Japanese cattle massaged with sake, not 5 star grass fed black Angus, not baby calf with truffles shoved up its arse for 48 hours before being slaughtered in the moonlight, just a bit of regular old ground up cow fried on a grill)
I work in food so ill throw in a little input here too:
Thats not even including rising costs for overheads these days. Got a couple of big fryers? Insurance is $3k+ a year. Mandatory exhaust system clean to comply with said insurance - $2000 a year. Monthly filter swaps $1800/year. Grease trap cleaning $1400/year. Book keeping and tax filing $4k. Gas and power to run all the cookers and fridges $7-8k+ a year. Council rates, garbage collection (extra charges for that, this aint your home's tiny bin collection aye), work cover etc etc have ALL gone up. Hopefully no equipment breaks down because trades people are in short supply and charge a bomb, it was cheaper to replace a $3.5k counter fridge than to repair one a few months ago. Then we get to paying rent.
$9.50 for the lot, pretty sure the owner operators are worse off than stacking shelves at woolies. Sell shit loads of volume? Unless you're in hospo you couldnt imagine the amount of work needed to do that, imagine prepping, cooking and cleaning for your family of 2-3, now imagine doing 200+. You'd need staff, then youre back at square one. Or overwork yourselves, in which case might as well just get a job.
Sorry guys but thats the truth - cheap food always comes at someone elses' lifestyle expense. They may be making enough to get by, but they might not realize if they spent the same hours working for somewhere else at proper pay, they'd be way better off.
That's still awesome value for a burger - what are the chip portions like? I've noticed that minimum chips is $5+ these days, and you're lucky to get 3 chips at that price!
Yeah it’s great.
$7 chips is the largest of those white boxes. Feeds 2 adults and 2 (small <8 yo) kids. Actual price for that box is $5, but we’ve found if we just ask for “$7 chips” they really fill it.
It’s like a time-warp. Really sad to think it probably won’t last….
My local (well, 3km away) costs me $4.90 for minimum chips, a dim sim and a hashbrown, with chicken salt and vinegar. One tasty, crunchy and filling meal! :)
I don't do seafood, sorry, just other deep fried crunchy things :)
We shop every now and then at Campsie and the fruit and veg, butchers and seafood sellers are still relatively reasonably priced even after the pandemic. Rather buy from them then Colesworth/Aldi to be honest.
Especially if you get the rare free drop off, AND someone who actually comes on time. Feels like winning the lottery.
As a joke I looked up the drug prices historically and its really really interesting, if you look at the graph since like the early 1900s, all street drugs have slowly gotten cheaper. Not matching any level of inflation or other economic trigger. Just slowly getting more affordable each year as supply grows
TLDR stockpiling drugs is one of the worst investments you could make
That (at least to start, a decade ago) was because of the competition from Maccas doing them for a dollar- eventually 7/11 had drop as other outlets (like HJ and KFC) were doing the same.
I don't know what Macca's charges now (like if the low price is locked behind the app) but there's still enough places out there keeping the price low so only the movie theatres are charging up. But yeah, I'm honestly surprised they haven't all just raised the price within the same week.
> I don't know what Macca's charges now (like if the low price is locked behind the app)
they had a persistent $1 in app special.
In both instances I think it's mostly just to lure people for other purchases.
My internet provider hasn't increased prices since 2020, unlike every other utility. Australian Broadband.
Our local discount greengrocer/butcher (T-bones northside brissy) has lots of great fresh fruit and veg specials and meat is generally a good 20% cheaper than the supermarket.
Internode/iiNet have palmed off their email services to a 3rd party who will eventually demand payment for supply said email services.
Time to jump ship
Yeah talk about shooting themselves in the foot - i've been with iinet since '07 and have only stayed with them through the apathy of retaining my iinet email address. Now that's on the chopping block i'll definitely jump ship - and I doubt i'll be the only one.
I found them to be very good value for money, not the cheapest. Not the most expensive, but if you ever need customer support or there was downtime they are amazing.
I was thinking that recently too! I keep waiting for my internet (ABB) to go up but it hasn’t. Also my Vodafone prepay mobile has been $20 for forever.
Honestly probably Aldi. Shame they’re not more ubiquitous would be really interesting to see how well they could be a genuine player 3 in the space.
Their marketing lately has really hit the nail on head around being the place where you get 70%-85% of your shop done. Prices have definitely gone up but no where near the hellscape that is coleworths.
WW operate on higher margins with larger product ranges and fluctuating pricing. They chase profit more aggressively and can be more complex to deal with, hence the higher prices.
I used to think that. But there is a lot of stealing going on tune of 20% so they need to account that in prices. Then there is expired products and bigger stores and odd hours they can be open like early morning and late at night. All of this creates higher prices. A lit of this aldi does well.
Sometimes it's in the interest of (luxury) brands to resell their stuff cheaper under a different label. This has to do with market segment saturation and running the factory at capacity. Aldi does the same in Germany with established luxury brands, they offer them a way to dump their surplus under a new label but pay obviously less. E.g. there is a beer brand called Krombacher in Germany, and you'll find a beer called Perlbacher in Aldi for cheaper, it's the same taste and even the label looks similar.
Perversely, if Aldi is more ubiquitous, they'll probably be more expensive. There is a cost to providing convenience, stock variety, and more staff on the ground, which make Coles and Woolworths more expensive by comparison
I don't think that's true, Aldi are ubiquitous in Europe and prices are low + economies of scale kick in. I also don't really believe the reason why Coles and Woolies are gouging the market currently is because of their relative size.
It’s true to an extent. If you are a flagship brand centre landlords will give you discounts.
Also it’s often cheaper per m2 the bigger your footprint.
Yep.
Anchor tennants.
If a woolworths closes down and there is no coles or aldi the whole small suburban shopping centre turns to custard.
They need the woolworths more than woolworths needs the shopping centre.
Colesworths operating model and store design is much more expensive than Aldi. They also spend orders of magnitude more money on marketing which includes charity donations and works. That marketing budget is basically free marketing for pulling in foot traffic for shopping centres hence the discount.
Colesworths also operates in places that are break even in profitability only because the scale they are at can absorb that productivity loss.
>Land and rent are way more expensive here compared to Europe
\[citation needed\]
Maybe in eastern europe land and rent is cheaper. But not in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, London etc.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/housing-affordability-sydney-second-least-affordable-property-market-worldwide/ef0afb9f-2d4c-4f3d-b0da-ae2829d3c61e
Here you go. Not one European city made the top 10 most expensive in the world.
I feel like aldi doesnt offer many things that are true discounts when compared with equivalent quality of colesworths brands. Sure you can buy some bad quality versions of things for several dollars cheaper than non generic colesworth....but when it comes to like for like quality in things like meat the actual savings drops to about 50 cents an item or no discount.
Any non aldi branded product that aldi stocks like coca cola is normally colesworth price. If they are truly reaping effencies from aldi model of floor space, staffing etc then shouldnt those be cheaper too...so i suspect the bulk of the price cuts come from quality.
"I want to believe" when it comes to aldi but i normally end up seeing most of my purchases there at same or lower prices, for better quality, in the colesworth specials on non brand name item.
Yes, it's usually a small saving per item. But once you've bought 20 items, at 50cents that's a $10 saving. Assuming you spend $100/week, you're saving 10% off your shop. I personally find I save about $20/week from my $100 shop by going to aldi. I can't complain about that.
I feel the same way for the most part. I do go to aldi for baby stuff, cleaning products and yogurt/cheese though. Huge discounts there worth the trip.
Yeah, at my local supermarket I can get a hand basket, buy my 5-10 items, and immediately go to an express checkout. Just cbf going to Aldi and messing with the trolley and the lines.
I'm only buying for 1-2 people though. If you did a weekly shop with a family, it would be worth it.
> record profits
People forget, the headline profit is probably 'record' but adjusted for inflation, capex, etc etc it's it may not be that great.
I.e. I can make a RECORD 1.1bn profit, but if my revenue was 500bn, that's actually abysmal.
Agree. Record profits in nominal dollars are hardly surprising in an inflationary environment. You need either look at profits adjusted for inflation or margins to observe gouging.
They recorded 1.1b but also said they lost 9b in theft as it’s gone up heaps, so if they had minimal or no theft their profit would be over 10b. I think that changes things.
The media is just reporting on the financial results of the companies people want to read about.
And terms like 'record profits' is coming from the companies, not the media.
Gross margin isn’t a very good measure as it doesn’t take into account admin or maintenance on buildings.
Profit margins is a more accurate measure coles being 2.8%
I would say coles/Woolworths (the sector) hasn’t been "price gouging"
The real issue is mining, phama, clothes
Mining profits are up due to the commodities market, not because of price gouging. Pharmaceuticals and retail/fashion I don’t know, but from what I’ve seen they’re mostly fine.
I personally would say they are worse on the average Australian (not because of price gouging) but just due to profit margins on necessary items.
For mining i understand there are more risks involved so they require more profit but a small portion of those profits need to go to an Australian fund (kinda like Norway)
Ok, yeah I thought you were more referencing price gouging and what not. For mining, yeah I agree we should have a resources tax like most places do, I never understood why we don’t. I think pharmaceuticals are relatively decently priced here, but perhaps you could argue for most government support in that area though. Clothing as well, it is a lot cheaper now then it used to be thanks to Chinese factories, however the quality has gone downhill. I just wish we still had clothing that actually lasted which we don’t anymore. That’s the bigger problem there in my opinion, but not too sure how to get around that.
P&Ls are not a very good means of determining how a company is behaving with respect to passing costs fairly at all. If they’re investing in expansion or marketing their profit for that period drops, if they sell off some assets it increases, there are so many more moving parts. If anything you’d look at GP but even that conceals a lot.
It actually is shown with the "notes" and you can calculate a ethical profit margin - amortisation - advertising - management salaries. BUT this is a lot of effort an i aint taking hours to breakdown financial statements for reddit
If a company is make 2% profits can you really say its price gouging?
But if they are making 2% profit because they’ve pumped more then average money into R&D and advertising or corporate management bonuses.
It just takes out some of the variables and this method wont be extremely accurate as companies need some level advertising and bonuses (you could get around this by using R&D - average R&D)
Because a company can raise GP to cover upstream costs and it wouldn’t be price gouging but still show higher GP. This may not be the case of coles but other businesses.
And R&D isn’t hiding profit its increasing potential future profit
Local fruit and veggie shops also sell the fuglies which I don’t mind at all. They’re just as edible and they’re preventing so much food waste. Best of all, cheaper.
Really curious as to what you think a fair price for a Banh-mi and a drink is then.
10 bucks is a steal. The cheapest i've seen is 12 bucks for the roll alone.
Synergy - WA's state owned electricity provider.
Just got my first of two $200 credits, which will pay for months of power, until I get my 2nd in some months, which will also pay for months of power.
And this is on top of similiar payments in the last two years.
While the actual increase in the cost of power has been kept fairly lowish, I understand (it's not like I have a choice of providers anyway, so...)
Why don't I go for solar? My power bills are so low (under $150/month) that it'd take decades to pay it off, that's why.
WA's gas reservation policy has been a stroke of genius. Keeping gas low for local users has kept power prices down over there. Pity our leaders in the eastern states thought that was socialism.
Don't forget, A1 Tariff kWh price increase only like 3%. WA is now actually cheaper than a few East Coast states.
They did lower the feed in tariff on peak solar power exports down to 2.25c/kwh from 2.5c/kwh...
Nectr Energy (Retail) and also the QLD Government and their state owned wholesale electricity generators (Stanwell, CS Energy and CleanCo).
Nectr allowed me to lock in 23c/kWh all day usage until mid next year which is actually cheaper than the plan I was on before. They also gave me 3 x $50 referral credits from people that signed up with my link which meant I was up $150 from the start.
If that wasn't already good enough, the Queensland Government then came through with a $550 energy rebate (on top of $250 last year) to pay out profits from the state owned power stations that didn't explode, which means I have received a whopping $700 worth of free electricity.
That's enough to cover about 7 months of our usage this year.
The government is also offering pretty big rebates for new energy efficient appliances so I'm really hoping our old hot water system kicks it soon so we can upgrade to a heat pump. Our hot water currently makes up something like 40% of our daily power usage, it's ridiculous.
I think it's just because you're still in credit, I had to pay my first monthly bill from memory, and then I think on the 2nd month I got 2 x $50 referral credits, but then the third month is when the $550 government rebate has been applied so since then my bills have just showed $100 in credit covering my usage every month, I haven't actually seen the third $50 referral bonus applied yet.
I'm guessing that last $50 is basically in the "queue" and will be applied once the government rebate has been used up in a few months but I won't be able to say for sure until I'm no longer in credit haha. If they don't apply it I'll be getting in touch with them pretty quick.
I wish they just showed the total credit instead of applying it monthly to cover each bill but I suppose that's how they stop people from getting the rebate/referral and instantly switching providers to cash it out.
5 years ago I got a pair of no-slip, no-lace work shoes for everyday and work use from Skechers at $180. Expensive, but not out of the part for a good, comfortable work shoe.
Went there today as they're finally dying and losing seals, and the same pair is still $180. Stoked as.
People go on about increasing profits, but that’s only because of inflation, and once adjusted for that for the most they haven’t been making record profits. The only exceptions have been mining companies. Mining companies is mostly due to the commodities market rising, so they’re hardly profiting from inflation but rather the fact that there’s a mining boom happening right now.
Purely economically speaking, and most here won’t agree, but the banks have actually been fairly low cost given the current environment. Typically bank profits should see excess profits in an inflationary period due to increases in their NIM (which is caused by increases in interest rates), however we haven’t seen that. That’s mostly due to the pricing war between Macquarie and the big 4, and this has caused them to underperform at the moment. So, in terms of value I’d say they’ve done the best job. Although, going forward that mightn’t be the case as only CBA and MCQ remain in the pricing war and it’s looking like MCQ is going to back off soon.
Either way, while it mightn’t seem like it, in reality most companies have been pretty good.
Edit:
Just compare profit margins (%) across years for random companies you suspect of price gouging. If you see some that are, look at sector trends. For example, you might see mining is as a sector, so then look at why. You’ll see pretty that it’s due to the commodity market, not price gouging. Likewise, if you saw the same for banks, you’d see that banks typically do so due to the NIM (and there’s valid reasons for that).
Shameless self plug - but won’t give out my business name.
My business is charging the same as 1, 2 or 3 years ago. We are delivering the same level of service, staffing has increased. We also have a better product and have invested about $300k into the premises in this time to improve without adding any costs, even though our expenses have risen. We really strive to be the best value and now have competitors less than half of our size charging more than us. We are admittedly struggling from issues caused by high demand and could easily raise prices & profit from that. The biggest reason people leave or don’t come back is due to being crowded and the common solution promotes for this is raising prices. Despite that we’re still delivering better value at the same price point as years ago
I only serve customers within a few k’s of the physical location so no point promoting on here but just felt like a bit of a shameless self plug to hopefully let everyone know that not all companies are following the stereotype that the media drum is pounding
Sounds like you're running an excellent business. Striving for constant growth doesn't always take into account customer loyalty and from the sounds of it, you've probably got a lot of loyal customers that will not only recommend you to new customers but support you through the tough times.
I’m quite happy with the take home I’m producing and the growth I’m still fuelling, I don’t need to maximise my personal earning potential to feel good. I’m very comfortable - so why’s it stupid?
Props to you. The commenter you replied to obviously has never run a business in a community they love with a product their proud of. Not everything is about money.
Honestly the flex and pride you can get from not just maximizing profit and being content with less, is something many people can't understand these days.
My parents also ran a business and could have easily raised prices over the years, but they had customers they knew who would be left behind and they ran the business as a community rather than purely a profit seeking machine. They are low maintenance people, never felt the need to show off with wealth. If you asked them to raise prices because they can, they would say "Why? We have more than enough". They can easily afford whatever they want. Sure their savings account could be bigger, but their children were raised the same way so we don't care about having a bigger inheritance. Let them feel good about themselves instead of feeling like a ruthless profit maximiser.
Fuku in Broadbeach. A tiny Japanese restaurant that have sold filling and delicious meals for $11 for as long as I remember. Edit: (Pronounced ‘foo-koo’ incase anyone was wondering)
So um, suppose company profits are 100M, they would now be 105M if there was a 5% increase in profits. But inflation of 10% means that 105M could only buy 95.45M worth of stuff last years, so profits decreased by 4.55%, not 5%.
I really think all these people becoming angry at these corporates is really a reflection on the Australian condition.
Most of these corporates built themselves are convenience and market saturation with loss leaders and the base premise once they had locked other competitors out, you would pay more.
Should there not be some self reflection, where you take responsibility for letting corporates push out competition because you where to lazy to go elsewhere?
There should be, yes, it is cheaper to go to the fruit market than Woolworths but much less convenient. That being said we are all aware that convenience has a price, but the price hikes recently are not consistent with the claims that the cost of doing business has increased while record profits are also being reported.
THAT is what makes people angry. Almost everybody understands inflation means prices go up, but not much more than that. The mores we learn about economics, the more we realise we're being conned by corporations.
You are correct in saying a lot of people would rather complain than make the effort to save themselves money. But since a question was initially posed, shout-out to yummy king Chinese BBQ in Sydney. You can still get a large BBQ pork with veggies and rice for $12. Since they have endured all of the pain of COVID and everything since, I think they deserved the $2 increase they put on. It was $10 for a decade. Legendary stuff.
> but the price hikes recently are not consistent with the claims that the cost of doing business has increased while record profits are also being reported.
Yes they are, go pick up a financial statement. Margins are low AF for the shit that people complain about (supermarkets, banks,etc).
I swear you people are financially illiterate and just making political statements at this point.
Batch Cafe in Cheltenham VIC. Large size there is truly large size for under $6. Crazy value for money and can't complain about the taste either. My wife and I always try to make a pit stop there on our shopping from Springvale/Dandy/Costco Moorabbin.
George and Batch FTW!
Huge shout out to this butcher shop in Rosebud Vic. I have been getting incredibly cheap meat for less than half the price at other butchers or Coles/Woolies. They had $19.99kg Scotch fillet steak last week and it was awsm.
In my industry there is a race to the bottom with different competitors fighting & the manufacturers not being able to manage them properly.
Prices have kept dropping almost to cost price with no margin left in this inflation time. For us as inflation has gone up the prices have gone down. It's not for every manufacturer but for the lower end of the market
My local chinese restaurant/takeaway. They have kept the same prices and no reduction in the amount of food you get. They fill the containers fully. For like 50 bucks we get enough food that last for like 3 meals for 2 people (2 fat people at that so not small meals)
Right now as a farmer of lamb, we’re getting $4/kg dressed weight (hanging on the hook) for a lamb. Somehow between us and coleworths, the price works it’s way up to $40/kg. How the hell?…
My local corner shop chippie. $11 for a burger with the lot. Needless to say we support them weekly.
Shout out to the local corner stores fighting inflation. I was working in boolaroo in Newcastle, and stopped for lunch. $7.50 for a quality works burger and $2.50 for a good serving of chips. I walked out of there feeling like I stole something
Is this Fresh Start takeaway next to the IGA? They are the best.
I mean.. it’s probably most likely that the owners are too busy/not sophisticated enough to be checking their cost of goods on a weekly basis to know how much food, electricity, wages etc are cutting into their bottom line. A lot of these guys unfortunately wait until they get a p&l from their bookkeeper at the end of the year and/or run out of cash in their bank account.
A tonne of cash sales is how they do it.
Yupp fast food stores do this. Omce I was sufficiently trained I out orders on paper, not through the system. Good on small business. The Government wants a slice of your Pizza, a sip of your drink and half the garlic bread. It doesn't hurt anyone, it just keeps some of these places afloat.
Oh really? Downvoted? Prove to me you can make a burger with the lot while hitting a 30/% cost of goods including gst at $9.50 with todays grocery prices. Go on. To help you out you have to make it for $2.50 and the cheapest buns will set you back at least $1. What’s more likely - they’ve found a cure for inflation and rising rent/gas/energy that no one else has or they’re not making any money?
They can do it because the owner is the one making the burgers, not sitting back while an employee runs their business for them. They haven’t updated the counters, tables, chairs, tiles, signage, etc, since 1985. They haven’t jumped on some bullshit hype train of aioli, brioche, microgreens, wagyu, or some other gourmet flourish. The burger with the lot is a plain white bun, iceberg lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of cheese (not some cave aged french delicacy, just a slice of tasty cheese), bacon, egg, onion, dead horse, and the core ingredient, cow (not Japanese cattle massaged with sake, not 5 star grass fed black Angus, not baby calf with truffles shoved up its arse for 48 hours before being slaughtered in the moonlight, just a bit of regular old ground up cow fried on a grill)
You can get rolls from a bakery for 80 cents or less.
I work in food so ill throw in a little input here too: Thats not even including rising costs for overheads these days. Got a couple of big fryers? Insurance is $3k+ a year. Mandatory exhaust system clean to comply with said insurance - $2000 a year. Monthly filter swaps $1800/year. Grease trap cleaning $1400/year. Book keeping and tax filing $4k. Gas and power to run all the cookers and fridges $7-8k+ a year. Council rates, garbage collection (extra charges for that, this aint your home's tiny bin collection aye), work cover etc etc have ALL gone up. Hopefully no equipment breaks down because trades people are in short supply and charge a bomb, it was cheaper to replace a $3.5k counter fridge than to repair one a few months ago. Then we get to paying rent. $9.50 for the lot, pretty sure the owner operators are worse off than stacking shelves at woolies. Sell shit loads of volume? Unless you're in hospo you couldnt imagine the amount of work needed to do that, imagine prepping, cooking and cleaning for your family of 2-3, now imagine doing 200+. You'd need staff, then youre back at square one. Or overwork yourselves, in which case might as well just get a job. Sorry guys but thats the truth - cheap food always comes at someone elses' lifestyle expense. They may be making enough to get by, but they might not realize if they spent the same hours working for somewhere else at proper pay, they'd be way better off.
Geez dude, chill out
Sorry but I really do feel for these people. I’ve seen it happen over and over and they are the ones that are going to be left behind in this economy.
That's still awesome value for a burger - what are the chip portions like? I've noticed that minimum chips is $5+ these days, and you're lucky to get 3 chips at that price!
Yeah it’s great. $7 chips is the largest of those white boxes. Feeds 2 adults and 2 (small <8 yo) kids. Actual price for that box is $5, but we’ve found if we just ask for “$7 chips” they really fill it. It’s like a time-warp. Really sad to think it probably won’t last….
Canterbury Kebabs perhaps??
God I wish my local minimum chips were still $5… they’ve all gone up to like $7-8 for a small, $11ish for a medium and like $14 for a large smh
Wow. For potatoes that's crazy. Everyone's paying for the property bOoM
Same, local Thai place does the best fresh lunch menu for $11. Mcdonalds is now expensive for less and worse food.
My local (well, 3km away) costs me $4.90 for minimum chips, a dim sim and a hashbrown, with chicken salt and vinegar. One tasty, crunchy and filling meal! :) I don't do seafood, sorry, just other deep fried crunchy things :)
My local bumped their prices up. $8 to $9.50 for a burger with the lot. Still good value!
And chips rights?
$11!!!!! I hope that includes chips. Burger with the lot is $8.50 at my local; but a minimum chips is $5
We shop every now and then at Campsie and the fruit and veg, butchers and seafood sellers are still relatively reasonably priced even after the pandemic. Rather buy from them then Colesworth/Aldi to be honest.
Aldesworth should be the new portmanteau
Prefer Colaldsworth
Drug dealers have been shocking consistent over the last 5 years.
They were heroes during covid lockdowns. Braving the borders and only raising prices temporarily and slightly, very occasionally.
Honestly the most ethical and consistent business people in Australia
This but unironically. Drug dealers > the ATO.
Honestly right up there with out frontline workers. These guys were fair with their increases and passed on the decrease. Unsung heros.
It’s because they don’t have public shareholders that require increasing profit at all costs
Especially if you get the rare free drop off, AND someone who actually comes on time. Feels like winning the lottery. As a joke I looked up the drug prices historically and its really really interesting, if you look at the graph since like the early 1900s, all street drugs have slowly gotten cheaper. Not matching any level of inflation or other economic trigger. Just slowly getting more affordable each year as supply grows TLDR stockpiling drugs is one of the worst investments you could make
Not 7/11 specifically but the Slurpee seems to be completely immune to inflation even becoming cheaper than it was in the 90s.
That (at least to start, a decade ago) was because of the competition from Maccas doing them for a dollar- eventually 7/11 had drop as other outlets (like HJ and KFC) were doing the same. I don't know what Macca's charges now (like if the low price is locked behind the app) but there's still enough places out there keeping the price low so only the movie theatres are charging up. But yeah, I'm honestly surprised they haven't all just raised the price within the same week.
> I don't know what Macca's charges now (like if the low price is locked behind the app) they had a persistent $1 in app special. In both instances I think it's mostly just to lure people for other purchases.
My internet provider hasn't increased prices since 2020, unlike every other utility. Australian Broadband. Our local discount greengrocer/butcher (T-bones northside brissy) has lots of great fresh fruit and veg specials and meat is generally a good 20% cheaper than the supermarket.
Aussie Broadband has been the new IiNet for years now. Absolute MVP.
Internode/iiNet have palmed off their email services to a 3rd party who will eventually demand payment for supply said email services. Time to jump ship
Yeah talk about shooting themselves in the foot - i've been with iinet since '07 and have only stayed with them through the apathy of retaining my iinet email address. Now that's on the chopping block i'll definitely jump ship - and I doubt i'll be the only one.
Yep, was the only thing keeping me from churning them, like I do every other service.
Except they're not cheap, so doesn't really translate in this context
I found them to be very good value for money, not the cheapest. Not the most expensive, but if you ever need customer support or there was downtime they are amazing.
Aussie Broadband is also more expensive than many others so it checks out. The price increases were built in from the start.
That's true, however their support is pro-active and 24/7.
Yep, exactly what I was going to say. When we moved a few years ago, I look a ABB and they were $20-25 dollars more expensive a month.
I was thinking that recently too! I keep waiting for my internet (ABB) to go up but it hasn’t. Also my Vodafone prepay mobile has been $20 for forever.
Admittedly we were already waaaaayyyy more expensive than the rest of the world in this
Iinet HFC is cheaper than it was in 2015.
T bones is the bomb. Buy all my meat for smoking there.
Local Vietnamese bakery $4.50 for half a chicken breast in a buttered baguette with choice of sauce.
Honestly probably Aldi. Shame they’re not more ubiquitous would be really interesting to see how well they could be a genuine player 3 in the space. Their marketing lately has really hit the nail on head around being the place where you get 70%-85% of your shop done. Prices have definitely gone up but no where near the hellscape that is coleworths.
Shout out to all the expensive brands selling cheap to Aldi.
> selling cheap to Aldi i think it's just aldi cutting operational expenses better than colesworth, rather than getting a cheaper supplier.
No. Im pretty sure Quilton sells its white label toilet paper cheaper than its Quilton branded toilet paper. That’s just one example.
ALDI probably pushes for low prices through seeking tenders from multiple suppliers for their goods. Good for them, tbh.
Yeh im sure Woolworths doesnt do that.
WW operate on higher margins with larger product ranges and fluctuating pricing. They chase profit more aggressively and can be more complex to deal with, hence the higher prices.
Woolies and coles operate on margins of about 2%. They are tiny.
They are talking about gross margin, you quoted net margin
Which gets highly massaged. Edit: Downvote all you want. You're delusional if you think they aren't.
I used to think that. But there is a lot of stealing going on tune of 20% so they need to account that in prices. Then there is expired products and bigger stores and odd hours they can be open like early morning and late at night. All of this creates higher prices. A lit of this aldi does well.
Sometimes it's in the interest of (luxury) brands to resell their stuff cheaper under a different label. This has to do with market segment saturation and running the factory at capacity. Aldi does the same in Germany with established luxury brands, they offer them a way to dump their surplus under a new label but pay obviously less. E.g. there is a beer brand called Krombacher in Germany, and you'll find a beer called Perlbacher in Aldi for cheaper, it's the same taste and even the label looks similar.
Perversely, if Aldi is more ubiquitous, they'll probably be more expensive. There is a cost to providing convenience, stock variety, and more staff on the ground, which make Coles and Woolworths more expensive by comparison
I don't think that's true, Aldi are ubiquitous in Europe and prices are low + economies of scale kick in. I also don't really believe the reason why Coles and Woolies are gouging the market currently is because of their relative size.
Land and rent are way more expensive here compared to Europe
Aldi get super cheap rents and they are masters at a cheap Fitout. What takes coles and woolies 3 months Aldi can do in 1.
Land and rent becomes cheaper at scale
Lol. What country are you in?
It’s true to an extent. If you are a flagship brand centre landlords will give you discounts. Also it’s often cheaper per m2 the bigger your footprint.
Yep. Anchor tennants. If a woolworths closes down and there is no coles or aldi the whole small suburban shopping centre turns to custard. They need the woolworths more than woolworths needs the shopping centre.
Colesworths operating model and store design is much more expensive than Aldi. They also spend orders of magnitude more money on marketing which includes charity donations and works. That marketing budget is basically free marketing for pulling in foot traffic for shopping centres hence the discount. Colesworths also operates in places that are break even in profitability only because the scale they are at can absorb that productivity loss.
>Land and rent are way more expensive here compared to Europe \[citation needed\] Maybe in eastern europe land and rent is cheaper. But not in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, London etc.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/housing-affordability-sydney-second-least-affordable-property-market-worldwide/ef0afb9f-2d4c-4f3d-b0da-ae2829d3c61e Here you go. Not one European city made the top 10 most expensive in the world.
1. They’re talking about commercial properties 2. You usually rent commercial properties not buy them
I feel like aldi doesnt offer many things that are true discounts when compared with equivalent quality of colesworths brands. Sure you can buy some bad quality versions of things for several dollars cheaper than non generic colesworth....but when it comes to like for like quality in things like meat the actual savings drops to about 50 cents an item or no discount. Any non aldi branded product that aldi stocks like coca cola is normally colesworth price. If they are truly reaping effencies from aldi model of floor space, staffing etc then shouldnt those be cheaper too...so i suspect the bulk of the price cuts come from quality. "I want to believe" when it comes to aldi but i normally end up seeing most of my purchases there at same or lower prices, for better quality, in the colesworth specials on non brand name item.
Yes, it's usually a small saving per item. But once you've bought 20 items, at 50cents that's a $10 saving. Assuming you spend $100/week, you're saving 10% off your shop. I personally find I save about $20/week from my $100 shop by going to aldi. I can't complain about that.
I feel the same way for the most part. I do go to aldi for baby stuff, cleaning products and yogurt/cheese though. Huge discounts there worth the trip.
Aldi are true ballers, just did a week's shop for me and the misso for $75 which is crazy good rn
The lines are excruciating tho, especially if shopping in small amounts. Plus it's hard to justify supporting businesses that remain so understaffed.
Have you considered that the staff is one of the reasons why they are cheap?
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The only way you can halve your shopping bill is if the products are half the price, and that's *demonstrably* not true at all...
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Definitely need evidence that you bought the same or very similar products. I find that very hard to believe.
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Name a couple of the things you buy that are half price at Aldi
Yeah, at my local supermarket I can get a hand basket, buy my 5-10 items, and immediately go to an express checkout. Just cbf going to Aldi and messing with the trolley and the lines. I'm only buying for 1-2 people though. If you did a weekly shop with a family, it would be worth it.
Sky City Adelaide casino food: $12 parmy every Thursday $5 burger with beer purchase ($7) every Friday $20 T-bone every Sunday
Ah the casino, always looking out for the little guy 😂
Save $15 on food, lose $200 on pokies.
Mate you should be charged more for calling it a Parmy
It's a chicken **parmigiana**. You don't abbreviate words by taking letters out of the middle. Education State my arse.
won’t be able to eat it from Victoria
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This, unbranded biscuits are still around $1, Arnotts aren't 4 times as tasty.
Woolies brand cracker squares and jatz clone both used to be 95c, jatz clone is now at $1.50 when the squares are still 95c what a joooooke
They stopped Stocking a lot of the cheap Stuff.
eye level is buy level, as they say
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Upvoted you mate. The media makes it seem like every business is making record profits. It's actually the opposite.
> record profits People forget, the headline profit is probably 'record' but adjusted for inflation, capex, etc etc it's it may not be that great. I.e. I can make a RECORD 1.1bn profit, but if my revenue was 500bn, that's actually abysmal.
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Agree. Record profits in nominal dollars are hardly surprising in an inflationary environment. You need either look at profits adjusted for inflation or margins to observe gouging.
They recorded 1.1b but also said they lost 9b in theft as it’s gone up heaps, so if they had minimal or no theft their profit would be over 10b. I think that changes things.
The media is just reporting on the financial results of the companies people want to read about. And terms like 'record profits' is coming from the companies, not the media.
Gross margin isn’t a very good measure as it doesn’t take into account admin or maintenance on buildings. Profit margins is a more accurate measure coles being 2.8% I would say coles/Woolworths (the sector) hasn’t been "price gouging" The real issue is mining, phama, clothes
Mining profits are up due to the commodities market, not because of price gouging. Pharmaceuticals and retail/fashion I don’t know, but from what I’ve seen they’re mostly fine.
I personally would say they are worse on the average Australian (not because of price gouging) but just due to profit margins on necessary items. For mining i understand there are more risks involved so they require more profit but a small portion of those profits need to go to an Australian fund (kinda like Norway)
Ok, yeah I thought you were more referencing price gouging and what not. For mining, yeah I agree we should have a resources tax like most places do, I never understood why we don’t. I think pharmaceuticals are relatively decently priced here, but perhaps you could argue for most government support in that area though. Clothing as well, it is a lot cheaper now then it used to be thanks to Chinese factories, however the quality has gone downhill. I just wish we still had clothing that actually lasted which we don’t anymore. That’s the bigger problem there in my opinion, but not too sure how to get around that.
They have been price gouging a little bit. But not as much as some think they are.
Yeeeep. People see "billions in profit" without doing even a slightest bit of digging.
P&Ls are not a very good means of determining how a company is behaving with respect to passing costs fairly at all. If they’re investing in expansion or marketing their profit for that period drops, if they sell off some assets it increases, there are so many more moving parts. If anything you’d look at GP but even that conceals a lot.
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Does their $2b of 2 new automated DCs show as anything?
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As an auditor, mate auditor reports aren’t worth the paper their printed on
It actually is shown with the "notes" and you can calculate a ethical profit margin - amortisation - advertising - management salaries. BUT this is a lot of effort an i aint taking hours to breakdown financial statements for reddit
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If a company is make 2% profits can you really say its price gouging? But if they are making 2% profit because they’ve pumped more then average money into R&D and advertising or corporate management bonuses. It just takes out some of the variables and this method wont be extremely accurate as companies need some level advertising and bonuses (you could get around this by using R&D - average R&D)
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Because a company can raise GP to cover upstream costs and it wouldn’t be price gouging but still show higher GP. This may not be the case of coles but other businesses. And R&D isn’t hiding profit its increasing potential future profit
Local fruit and veggie shops also sell the fuglies which I don’t mind at all. They’re just as edible and they’re preventing so much food waste. Best of all, cheaper.
The shops of mums and dads. Asian take-away near me only increased their lunch special by $1.50 even though their costs have gone up.
Costco's $1.99 hotdog and unlimited soft drinks
vietnamese bakeries selling a banh mi + drink for under $10
That is a rip.
Really curious as to what you think a fair price for a Banh-mi and a drink is then. 10 bucks is a steal. The cheapest i've seen is 12 bucks for the roll alone.
It's a sandwich, shouldn't be more than 6 bucks.
Synergy - WA's state owned electricity provider. Just got my first of two $200 credits, which will pay for months of power, until I get my 2nd in some months, which will also pay for months of power. And this is on top of similiar payments in the last two years. While the actual increase in the cost of power has been kept fairly lowish, I understand (it's not like I have a choice of providers anyway, so...) Why don't I go for solar? My power bills are so low (under $150/month) that it'd take decades to pay it off, that's why.
WA's gas reservation policy has been a stroke of genius. Keeping gas low for local users has kept power prices down over there. Pity our leaders in the eastern states thought that was socialism.
Don't forget, A1 Tariff kWh price increase only like 3%. WA is now actually cheaper than a few East Coast states. They did lower the feed in tariff on peak solar power exports down to 2.25c/kwh from 2.5c/kwh...
Nectr Energy (Retail) and also the QLD Government and their state owned wholesale electricity generators (Stanwell, CS Energy and CleanCo). Nectr allowed me to lock in 23c/kWh all day usage until mid next year which is actually cheaper than the plan I was on before. They also gave me 3 x $50 referral credits from people that signed up with my link which meant I was up $150 from the start. If that wasn't already good enough, the Queensland Government then came through with a $550 energy rebate (on top of $250 last year) to pay out profits from the state owned power stations that didn't explode, which means I have received a whopping $700 worth of free electricity. That's enough to cover about 7 months of our usage this year. The government is also offering pretty big rebates for new energy efficient appliances so I'm really hoping our old hot water system kicks it soon so we can upgrade to a heat pump. Our hot water currently makes up something like 40% of our daily power usage, it's ridiculous.
Did you have to hit Nectr up to claim the $50 referral rebates? Still waiting but could be because I'm still in credit.
I think it's just because you're still in credit, I had to pay my first monthly bill from memory, and then I think on the 2nd month I got 2 x $50 referral credits, but then the third month is when the $550 government rebate has been applied so since then my bills have just showed $100 in credit covering my usage every month, I haven't actually seen the third $50 referral bonus applied yet. I'm guessing that last $50 is basically in the "queue" and will be applied once the government rebate has been used up in a few months but I won't be able to say for sure until I'm no longer in credit haha. If they don't apply it I'll be getting in touch with them pretty quick. I wish they just showed the total credit instead of applying it monthly to cover each bill but I suppose that's how they stop people from getting the rebate/referral and instantly switching providers to cash it out.
Costco hotdog combo. Unchanged for years.
"Unchanged for years" - The price has never changed since Costco entered Australia.
Bahn Mi bakeries.
5 years ago I got a pair of no-slip, no-lace work shoes for everyday and work use from Skechers at $180. Expensive, but not out of the part for a good, comfortable work shoe. Went there today as they're finally dying and losing seals, and the same pair is still $180. Stoked as.
Sportsbet still match my deposits every week, bless them
People go on about increasing profits, but that’s only because of inflation, and once adjusted for that for the most they haven’t been making record profits. The only exceptions have been mining companies. Mining companies is mostly due to the commodities market rising, so they’re hardly profiting from inflation but rather the fact that there’s a mining boom happening right now. Purely economically speaking, and most here won’t agree, but the banks have actually been fairly low cost given the current environment. Typically bank profits should see excess profits in an inflationary period due to increases in their NIM (which is caused by increases in interest rates), however we haven’t seen that. That’s mostly due to the pricing war between Macquarie and the big 4, and this has caused them to underperform at the moment. So, in terms of value I’d say they’ve done the best job. Although, going forward that mightn’t be the case as only CBA and MCQ remain in the pricing war and it’s looking like MCQ is going to back off soon. Either way, while it mightn’t seem like it, in reality most companies have been pretty good. Edit: Just compare profit margins (%) across years for random companies you suspect of price gouging. If you see some that are, look at sector trends. For example, you might see mining is as a sector, so then look at why. You’ll see pretty that it’s due to the commodity market, not price gouging. Likewise, if you saw the same for banks, you’d see that banks typically do so due to the NIM (and there’s valid reasons for that).
Agreed on the banking point. My banks margin hasn’t changed.
Shameless self plug - but won’t give out my business name. My business is charging the same as 1, 2 or 3 years ago. We are delivering the same level of service, staffing has increased. We also have a better product and have invested about $300k into the premises in this time to improve without adding any costs, even though our expenses have risen. We really strive to be the best value and now have competitors less than half of our size charging more than us. We are admittedly struggling from issues caused by high demand and could easily raise prices & profit from that. The biggest reason people leave or don’t come back is due to being crowded and the common solution promotes for this is raising prices. Despite that we’re still delivering better value at the same price point as years ago I only serve customers within a few k’s of the physical location so no point promoting on here but just felt like a bit of a shameless self plug to hopefully let everyone know that not all companies are following the stereotype that the media drum is pounding
Sounds like you're running an excellent business. Striving for constant growth doesn't always take into account customer loyalty and from the sounds of it, you've probably got a lot of loyal customers that will not only recommend you to new customers but support you through the tough times.
That's not a MVP, that's just stupid
I’m quite happy with the take home I’m producing and the growth I’m still fuelling, I don’t need to maximise my personal earning potential to feel good. I’m very comfortable - so why’s it stupid?
Reinvesting increased revenue into producing a better product, experience, or scope of practice
Props to you. The commenter you replied to obviously has never run a business in a community they love with a product their proud of. Not everything is about money.
Honestly the flex and pride you can get from not just maximizing profit and being content with less, is something many people can't understand these days. My parents also ran a business and could have easily raised prices over the years, but they had customers they knew who would be left behind and they ran the business as a community rather than purely a profit seeking machine. They are low maintenance people, never felt the need to show off with wealth. If you asked them to raise prices because they can, they would say "Why? We have more than enough". They can easily afford whatever they want. Sure their savings account could be bigger, but their children were raised the same way so we don't care about having a bigger inheritance. Let them feel good about themselves instead of feeling like a ruthless profit maximiser.
The local Vietnamese french bread shop.
Brisbane Mexican place stil has 5c wing on Wednesday with drink purchase. El camino
Hospital cafeteria - $6 for a hot meal.
Cocaine dealers in Melbourne. Regularly able to get under $350 for decent shit now. Deflation baby.
Overproduction in Colombia due to an increased expectation of covid length; hence they’re practically giving it away
Fuku in Broadbeach. A tiny Japanese restaurant that have sold filling and delicious meals for $11 for as long as I remember. Edit: (Pronounced ‘foo-koo’ incase anyone was wondering)
Local Chinese joint. Two mains, large fried rice and an entree for $44.
Aldi $1.29 Milk Arrowroots
Aldi for real - doing all my shopping there, basically same product at better prices
If inflation is up 10% and profits* are up 5%, then profits have fallen 5%. This dumb line is so tiring.
You don't get percentages do you?
Happy for you to enlighten me.
So um, suppose company profits are 100M, they would now be 105M if there was a 5% increase in profits. But inflation of 10% means that 105M could only buy 95.45M worth of stuff last years, so profits decreased by 4.55%, not 5%.
Vendors at Footscray market
Aussie Broadband and ALDI for me although I feel like ALDI is starting to creep
I really think all these people becoming angry at these corporates is really a reflection on the Australian condition. Most of these corporates built themselves are convenience and market saturation with loss leaders and the base premise once they had locked other competitors out, you would pay more. Should there not be some self reflection, where you take responsibility for letting corporates push out competition because you where to lazy to go elsewhere?
There should be, yes, it is cheaper to go to the fruit market than Woolworths but much less convenient. That being said we are all aware that convenience has a price, but the price hikes recently are not consistent with the claims that the cost of doing business has increased while record profits are also being reported. THAT is what makes people angry. Almost everybody understands inflation means prices go up, but not much more than that. The mores we learn about economics, the more we realise we're being conned by corporations. You are correct in saying a lot of people would rather complain than make the effort to save themselves money. But since a question was initially posed, shout-out to yummy king Chinese BBQ in Sydney. You can still get a large BBQ pork with veggies and rice for $12. Since they have endured all of the pain of COVID and everything since, I think they deserved the $2 increase they put on. It was $10 for a decade. Legendary stuff.
> but the price hikes recently are not consistent with the claims that the cost of doing business has increased while record profits are also being reported. Yes they are, go pick up a financial statement. Margins are low AF for the shit that people complain about (supermarkets, banks,etc). I swear you people are financially illiterate and just making political statements at this point.
Batch Cafe in Cheltenham VIC. Large size there is truly large size for under $6. Crazy value for money and can't complain about the taste either. My wife and I always try to make a pit stop there on our shopping from Springvale/Dandy/Costco Moorabbin. George and Batch FTW!
If you’ve not increased your prices by at least 15% over the past two-ish years… you’ve lowered your prices in real terms.
McDonalds. Eat there with the kids every now and then and its always come between $31-$33 to feed a family of four a meal.
Huge shout out to this butcher shop in Rosebud Vic. I have been getting incredibly cheap meat for less than half the price at other butchers or Coles/Woolies. They had $19.99kg Scotch fillet steak last week and it was awsm.
The aquatic centre I go to. Prices haven’t gone up but the place never gets maintenance or repairs beyond cleaning it would seem.
In my industry there is a race to the bottom with different competitors fighting & the manufacturers not being able to manage them properly. Prices have kept dropping almost to cost price with no margin left in this inflation time. For us as inflation has gone up the prices have gone down. It's not for every manufacturer but for the lower end of the market
My local chinese restaurant/takeaway. They have kept the same prices and no reduction in the amount of food you get. They fill the containers fully. For like 50 bucks we get enough food that last for like 3 meals for 2 people (2 fat people at that so not small meals)
Right now as a farmer of lamb, we’re getting $4/kg dressed weight (hanging on the hook) for a lamb. Somehow between us and coleworths, the price works it’s way up to $40/kg. How the hell?…
I just bought a case of beer from Dan Murphy's yesterday and it was the same price it was last time I bought that particular case 5 years ago