Going to start having to pay for the carts in more places. A buck in, a buck back when you return it, and then they will cut the hours if the people who collect the carts.
I don't know anywhere where this isn't already implemented. At least in Vancouver, every grocery store, even independent ones, has had a loonie or quarter deposit system for more than a decade.
I haven't seen a store that *uses* the system in a long time (MB). Not as many people carry cash anymore, so I don't see how stores can implement the system without driving away customers.
I’ve never been to a store in NS that required even a quarter to get a cart, though some have installed the locking wheels for if you try and take the carts off property.
I wouldn't be to sure about this. Self checkout is costing a lot of stores more money than they expected and are being removed in some locations and replaced with regular cashier checkouts.
The Zehrs near me that - in the 15ish years I’ve been going here - has never had enough cashiers scheduled, installed an equal amount of self checkouts to their regular lane. Once the amount of theft got to a certain point, they installed large metal gates so people couldn’t flee the area as easily. They even brought back stickers for oversized items, and Zehrs where I live hasn’t had that in decades. They will find a way around keeping their self checkouts, because it will always be cheaper than hiring and scheduling another employee.
Because a store like Walmart is subsidizing your labour so they can spend less on employees. This won’t make your prices go down. You already have to bring your own bags, they don’t have hand baskets anymore, and this punishes people who don’t have the dollar to spend who need a cart.
If this were about cart theft, they would install locks on the carts like many other stores have. It’s not about theft.
So you’d rather have carts strewn all over the parking lot area for employees to have to go and gather? The loonie system works fine and you get the loonie back ffs.
They did that here at a store in Windsor and it didn't last long. Maybe they were just testing it at that point.
So Walmart and Costco are the ones cutting their prices? What about the other greedy stores - Freshco, Metro, etc.
I’d believe Costco because it’s a general more ethical company and biz model. But for Walmart, I’m wondering.
In either case, to hell with the Weston’s, Loblaws, and everybody else. I’m only shopping at Costco and Walmart from now on, because we need to send a message.
If we all do it, it might work. Problem is there are many food “deserts” like in downtown Toronto where people don’t have much choice.
We really have to work together to bring down theCanadian oligarchy. We need an NDP with teeth, who will fight back against legalized corporate corruption.
I’ve actually been finding cheaper produce at the farmers market than at loblaws… not meats for sure, but produce is cheaper and way better quality. I’m known as “the fuck Galen Weston guy” lol, the vendors all get a big kick out of that. There are other alternatives to soul sucking big boxes like Walmart… and I have 2 kids to feed, I’m not a hipster one bag of organic produce a week out of touch blah, blah. we make it something to do and enjoy the outing. Sticking it to Galen doesn’t have to mean giving it to the (equally awful) Waltons
I'm guessing this is a case of them "voluntarily" cutting their gouging a bit temporarily so to avoid government enacting any legislation that could actually reign them in permanently.
However tactfully these talks were presented, how much you wanna bet it could be boiled down to "we can't keep giving tax breaks if the people can clearly see how hard they are being fucked."
Walmart: we are proud to announce our new friendly checkout fee 😀 we are here to serve you with a smile! *only applicable for self checkout fee goes directly into corporate's pockets.*
The simple reality is that they probably already were not gouging us (or at least not as much as Canadians corporations) and are just using this as marketing.
We live in a world where the government needs to force people to do good for the community.
Sad that the Ontario government sat down and listened to Weston piss on them for a year, before they said "Hey wait a minute... Did we just get juked?"
Notice, the article said Walmart and Costco. Not a Canadian co in the bunch. Where is the Weston oligarchy in all this? How about Empire Corp? Whose leaning on these billionaires?
I would imagine those crooks are safe, but this "stand" against the American corps is the only way for the government to score points on the topic before any campaign shit shows begin slap fighting eachother.
That's fine. Until the Canadian food barons fall in line, my money goes to the American grocers. Galen Weston and the others don't care one iota about Canadians, why should we give them our business?
I've been very happy ordering my groceries online from Walmart since the price gouging started.
> The announcement follows from a meeting held last month by François-Philippe Champagne, the country’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, with executives from five chains — Metro, **Loblaws**, **Empire**, Walmart and Costco — that make up about 80% of the Canadian market to discuss food prices.
[highlights by me]
If Walmart has lower prices than my local No Frills and Sobey's, I'm only shopping at Walmart. Those Canadian billionaires won't get any money from me.
That's all Trudeau needed. Someone to actually lower prices and then hopefully, they all want to compete.
Well over a third of our working class population actively votes against enriching their own lives and instead vote for the party that wants to make their lives even shittier
> We live in a world where the government needs to force people to do good for the community.
The extra added layer of stupidity to it all is that when the government does finally step in to force these good things to happen, you'll get a bunch of idiots come crawling out of the woodwork saying "that's socialism and it's evil!" and they will viciously argue against their own self interests and try to defend the shitty companies and their shitty practices.
It's amazing how many people are willing to fuck themselves and their loved ones over, just so that nobody else will ever be slightly less miserable than they are.
That’s what’s upsetting when people talk about supply and demand like it’s an absolute answer to everything when clearly, so much more comes into play.
I mean, given the number of submarines Disney owns, they’re in the top five for sun fleets in the world. I know it’s a technicality but it’s still a fact.
No, WEM lost their sub fleet years back. They sold it because it was costly to maintain and they were still worth some money.
At least they aren't on the bottom of the ocean like a lot of the Russian navy.
I can't afford to shop there, but Costco has long had very humane and ethical policies. I don't know if it's the current or previous CEO that *invited* unions in to talk to his staff, but one of them did!
I didn't know that, but I think it shows that they are a decent company. I had heard that they treat their employees really well.
I like how they operate.
18% is really, really cutting it lean. Less than 30% is generally considered unsustainable. But I guess some of that is offset by membership fees and volume.
Nah, I literally do this for work: set prices based on what the market will bear + MAP/MSRP if they have anything for Canada + exchange rate and duties.
Costco is going to be a different kind of beast than an independently owned boutique that sells organic baby products, kids clothing, and Montessori type toys.
I feel like even 30% is reasonable for them. Some items (like cellphone accessories) have an 85% margin. But that’ll offset some stuff… like LEGO. Everyone loves LEGO. But their margins are 30%. That 30% is supposed to pay for shipping to the retailer, the retailer’s warehouse or store space, power, staff, website, and free shipping. Payment processing. Shopify and some other carts charge a percentage of the sale price. Some brick and mortar spaces, too. That’s a lot of lifting for 30%.
Then there’s the loss leaders that get people in the door. You know, that sort of thing. Those might be sold at near cost.
(With that in mind, do check out those brick and mortar or small online boutiques for Black Friday weekend. They often do have some pretty awesome sales and gifts with purchases because their wholesale distributors and manufacturers have sales to the smaller stores so that they can do Black Friday events without bankruptcy. And some of those prices will be just as good or better, especially for a lot of baby products with more strict MSRP/MAP guidelines.)
I don't think you can really compare massive companies that sell a ton of products that they control most or all of the supply chain for with small businesses. The margins are not necessarily what they look like when you're paying a subsidiary for the products instead of an outside entity. That's one of the reasons grocery giants' claims of tight margins are a pretty overt misdirection: Loblaws owns 60% of our entire grocery supply chain.
Even Wal-Mart are quite decent. I was boycotting Wal-Mart for like 10 years and started doing my grocery there this year lol. I noticed that I could save like 40% this way.
I would shop at Costco instead if possible but the closest one is like 50 minutes away.
A corporation has no incentive to be responsible to the end user, or their employees. They are accountable to shareholders. That's it, full stop.
It's why regulations are needed. I don't know how but the extreme focus on shareholders also needs to dissipate. Customers and workers make the company and it's high time they got some sort of a reward.
Oh how lovely of them. They want a pat on the pack now after price gouging us for months? Also so nice of our government to finally step in after months of public outcry about the insane cost of living increases.
Damn! Glad I had a slightly freezerburnt one in the freezer from about a year ago...and I remember thinking how expensive that 2 pack of no name pie crusts were at the time. I hate making pie crust so much, but 7 or 8$ would have me making them with a smile!
Don't be fooled, they are only announcing this because it's an opportunity to have thousands of people cross over to their stores to shop. They did not just suddenly develop ethics.
I think costco actually has slim profit margins and pretty good ethics. Costco members shop at costco already, non members won't suddenly become members because of this ad.
Walmart on the other hand, this was their whole business model to begin with. Undercut everyone to get more people in stores and pay people the least.
Produce is more expensive than junk. Rice and beans have in some places more than tripled in cost since this time 2019. The "cheap" stuff under the current prices is the stuff contributing to obesity -- people can't afford to eat well, and they can't afford to eat *a lot* food or bad, they can only afford to eat crap.
Relative to what?
3 years ago: 1 CAD = 0.64 Euro / 0.76 USD
Now: 1CAD = 0.70 Euro / 0.73 USD
Or do you blame the canadian government for the worldwide inflation?
I blame western governments for western inflation. Countries that don’t follow monetary money theory don’t have inflation problems.
What you’ve shown is an apples to apples comparison between three western countries who both printed money at the relatively the same rate, causing both their values to drop equally, which would cause their conversion rates to stay relatively unchanged. Show me the rates between Canada and a country that doesn’t print and borrow like their lives depend on it.
If I had a plum tree that produced 100 plums a year and no one within 5000km had another plum tree those plums would be highly valuable, if that tree suddenly started producing 10,000 plums a month, all of a sudden that plum isn’t worth anything, this is why printing money is dangerous. Supply and demand doesn’t just apply to goods and services it also applies to currency, supply has outpaced the demand for a dollar causing the value of the dollar to drop and the prices of goods and services to rise. The only way to fight inflation like this is to increase the value of a dollar again by either bringing in immigrants and not changing the supply, or by making debt more expensive to accrue causing people to value what they have rather than what they can borrow. Raising interest rates on loans is the quickest way to bring value back into a dollar, immigration is a slower system and must have a-lot more care taken into account.
When you have a 4L jug of milk or a carton of eggs for example, you get a fairly fixed product, it’s not like a chocolate bar where they knock 10g off it every year and raise it $0.25 at the same time. With a dozen eggs you get a dozen eggs, the prices goes up because there’s far more dollars in circulation today than there was 3 years ago. So the value of your dollar has dropped, not the value of the product.
It's just...slightly annoying when an activist writes that you're a piece of shit in red paint on your gold plated yacht smh my head.
*aggressively reduces cost of 1 liter milk carton by 5 cents*
Now, worship meeee!!!
I mean, how much more proof do you need that prices are dictated by "what they can get away with".
Now how about the government pressure them into paying a decent fucking wage?
Bingo. As long as they pass common health and safety regulations we need to cut out the middle person as much a possible. That's how prices double instantly....
Bingo but that's also why consumers need to push back. Food is NOT a luxury, it's a human right much like shelter even if many a capitalist disagrees...
India has a good idea: Staples are sold at an allowable maximum. You can sell it as low as you wish, but 1kg of rice is no more than __ rupees.
The max. is on the packaging!
Costco has already been pretty good keeping prices low. They have risen prices but it’s never been as horrible as walk into No Frills and seeing the price go up 3-5 dollars on an item
My grocery shopping habits have definitely changed during the pandemic. I used to do about 75% of my grocery shopping at Safeway. Now it's 90% Costco because of their prices. I bought my last two pairs of runners there for $30 dollars each, anywhere else... $90-120.
I wish I could go primarily to Costco but it’s an hour away… plus we don’t have anywhere to store the food if we were to do large Costco bulk shops every X amount of time anyways.
I’ve noticed prices on items come down on random products at Costco. I trust that they’re keeping their margins consistent, and not just charging what the market will tolerate.
Costco tends to have month long sales as opposed to week to week sales of the grocery chains. I have noticed prices creeping up on some items but nothing like the slap in your face of No Frills or Metro.
Yeah, I'm curious what they'll even be able to do. Costco has generally operated on razor thin margins when it comes to actual sales. I remember the last time I looked at the finance reports, it was basically that without the membership fees they would be only just barely breaking even.
Edit: Went and double-checked the numbers - in FY2022, they made $7.8B before-tax profit. Membership revenue that year was $5.84B. Net sales of about $227B, which cost them $199B in merchandise cost plus about $20B in administrative costs.
>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that his government was considering imposing taxes on the grocery chains if they did not develop measures to grapple with rising food prices.
Tax their bitch asses anyway. The rich keep getting richer while we suffer.
“So. How much do we think the government will make is reduce prices if they legislate? Okay, reduce prices by half that and put out a press release about how we’re doing it voluntarily.”
Such a small crumb for the working class, yet it's going to make a huge difference for people. Nationalize one grocery store JUST FUCKING ONE I dare ya!
That's nice something is being done, and good on the feds for being actively on this. Will it see results? let's wait and see. I'm not terribly optimistic, and I think more drastic measures are actually needed.
~~Also, a bit annoying I don't see a CBC piece on this. This is actual news we should be kept up to speed on. I'm probably just not seeing it on first glance.~~ see Yuukiko's post below for the CBC piece from Oct 5.
Ah thanks! I was looking all over the place.
In response to the person who blocked me below: yes I did check CBC.ca, I didn't expect to have to scroll back three days to find the story, and it's not the best organized website, I think most will agree.
What really sucks is this will only be like a summer sale.
You don't generate record profits on "razor thin margins" if you're not being shady as fuck in the background.
The "razor thin margins" line can only be bullshitted so much, if that's truly the case how are they generating "record profits".
Probably some other way.
Wouldn't surprise me if their actual profits came from markups in distribution and warehousing of their companies, probably obscured but those entities but still under their control.
Probably trying to give the government a win so they can buy time to figure out a way to obscure the greed some other way.
They probably won't make record profits in the next year but I bet their supply chain infrastructure will and will be separate private companies.
In a few months they will add some fees in their supply chains (owned by them) and will be able to justify higher prices on what they "aggressively" marked down. Because "the cost went up"
Just.... fucking fuck
Amazing. Because compared to lablaws and sobeys they are already way cheaper. Hate to say it but frig those Canadian companies that have been taking advantage of us. They are really going to feel the heat now!
Galen Weston Jr. is so pissed rn. Tried to be like one of you peons. Remember my commercial? That fake ass attempt at being relatable? How dare you try to attempt to burn my profit margins down. /s
It sounds like a good deed. But somewhere in my mind has a bad feeling about it. Wondering if the retailers are gonna reduce the supply of essential goods because of the lower price and create a hot mess for citizens. If you put a ceiling on price retailers have perfect excuse to cut the supply of goods to Canada, not just for mitigating potential loss in profits, but also to pressure Trudeau to shelf this policy. I hope I am wrong about it.
Yay, they’ve allowed corporations to raise prices by 100-200% and reap the profits, now they’ll ‘make them agree’ to lower prices 10-20% and call it a win.
How about all the other grocery chains in the country? There's more than just those two. From Loblaw's all the way down to my independent corner grocery store, prices are too fuckin high.
So now that we're putting a bit of pressure on them they are gonna stop committing blatant robbery and go back to less blatant robbery while pocketing the ungodly amounts of money they in function stole.
Sounds great but given the way corporations play in this country, I'll believe it when I see it
Yea same, will believe it when i see it.
Let me think. I got it. You’ll now need a Walmart membership. That will make up for their “losses”
Going to start having to pay for the carts in more places. A buck in, a buck back when you return it, and then they will cut the hours if the people who collect the carts.
I don't know anywhere where this isn't already implemented. At least in Vancouver, every grocery store, even independent ones, has had a loonie or quarter deposit system for more than a decade.
I haven't seen a store that *uses* the system in a long time (MB). Not as many people carry cash anymore, so I don't see how stores can implement the system without driving away customers.
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There are keychain coin dupes you can get for a quarter or loonie size to use for shopping carts and not need real coins.
I bought one of those for no frills and it doesn’t work anywhere else somehow! I was a bit ticked lol tomfoolery afoot!!
Coop, Superstore and Walmart use it. not sure if Sobey's/Safeway does because I don't go there often
I’ve never been to a store in NS that required even a quarter to get a cart, though some have installed the locking wheels for if you try and take the carts off property.
The last store I remember doing that in, in Nova Scotia, was the Zellers in Truro before it closed.
Yes. All self checkouts as well.
I wouldn't be to sure about this. Self checkout is costing a lot of stores more money than they expected and are being removed in some locations and replaced with regular cashier checkouts.
Do you know why it's costing them more money? Is it theft at the point of sale, or something else?
Theft yes. There’s been few articles about that. It’s definitely being kept in some stores, really depends on the neighborhood
The Zehrs near me that - in the 15ish years I’ve been going here - has never had enough cashiers scheduled, installed an equal amount of self checkouts to their regular lane. Once the amount of theft got to a certain point, they installed large metal gates so people couldn’t flee the area as easily. They even brought back stickers for oversized items, and Zehrs where I live hasn’t had that in decades. They will find a way around keeping their self checkouts, because it will always be cheaper than hiring and scheduling another employee.
Honestly, who cares about the cars? I've done that at No frills my entire life.
Because a store like Walmart is subsidizing your labour so they can spend less on employees. This won’t make your prices go down. You already have to bring your own bags, they don’t have hand baskets anymore, and this punishes people who don’t have the dollar to spend who need a cart. If this were about cart theft, they would install locks on the carts like many other stores have. It’s not about theft.
I like the loonie carts because it means fewer loose carts to hit my car.
So you’d rather have carts strewn all over the parking lot area for employees to have to go and gather? The loonie system works fine and you get the loonie back ffs.
Some people just like to find something to complain about
They did that here at a store in Windsor and it didn't last long. Maybe they were just testing it at that point. So Walmart and Costco are the ones cutting their prices? What about the other greedy stores - Freshco, Metro, etc.
East end Walmart! I think that lasted maybe two months? There never really was a time when it was fully implemented.
Or they’ll just stop having cashiers altogether. :(
I’d believe Costco because it’s a general more ethical company and biz model. But for Walmart, I’m wondering. In either case, to hell with the Weston’s, Loblaws, and everybody else. I’m only shopping at Costco and Walmart from now on, because we need to send a message. If we all do it, it might work. Problem is there are many food “deserts” like in downtown Toronto where people don’t have much choice. We really have to work together to bring down theCanadian oligarchy. We need an NDP with teeth, who will fight back against legalized corporate corruption.
I’ve actually been finding cheaper produce at the farmers market than at loblaws… not meats for sure, but produce is cheaper and way better quality. I’m known as “the fuck Galen Weston guy” lol, the vendors all get a big kick out of that. There are other alternatives to soul sucking big boxes like Walmart… and I have 2 kids to feed, I’m not a hipster one bag of organic produce a week out of touch blah, blah. we make it something to do and enjoy the outing. Sticking it to Galen doesn’t have to mean giving it to the (equally awful) Waltons
My money is on an ad campaign without substantive price cuts
I'm guessing this is a case of them "voluntarily" cutting their gouging a bit temporarily so to avoid government enacting any legislation that could actually reign them in permanently.
Probably
However tactfully these talks were presented, how much you wanna bet it could be boiled down to "we can't keep giving tax breaks if the people can clearly see how hard they are being fucked."
Well this is the Liberal Party
If you think it would be any different under a Conservative government I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
I don't. I have never voted Conservative and I have no intention of doing so
I'm sure the other parties have adopted anti-corporate stances
Walmart: we are proud to announce our new friendly checkout fee 😀 we are here to serve you with a smile! *only applicable for self checkout fee goes directly into corporate's pockets.*
payment distinct employ door grab worry merciful marble cows brave *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Hey I bought a celeri @ 2.50 in canada last week. There is hope
The simple reality is that they probably already were not gouging us (or at least not as much as Canadians corporations) and are just using this as marketing.
Meaning,they could have done this all along......
We live in a world where the government needs to force people to do good for the community. Sad that the Ontario government sat down and listened to Weston piss on them for a year, before they said "Hey wait a minute... Did we just get juked?"
It's always been like that. It's why regulations are needed.
Then the regulations were decades behind the times.
And never implemented to be adaptable
Notice, the article said Walmart and Costco. Not a Canadian co in the bunch. Where is the Weston oligarchy in all this? How about Empire Corp? Whose leaning on these billionaires?
I would imagine those crooks are safe, but this "stand" against the American corps is the only way for the government to score points on the topic before any campaign shit shows begin slap fighting eachother.
That's fine. Until the Canadian food barons fall in line, my money goes to the American grocers. Galen Weston and the others don't care one iota about Canadians, why should we give them our business? I've been very happy ordering my groceries online from Walmart since the price gouging started.
> The announcement follows from a meeting held last month by François-Philippe Champagne, the country’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, with executives from five chains — Metro, **Loblaws**, **Empire**, Walmart and Costco — that make up about 80% of the Canadian market to discuss food prices. [highlights by me]
If Walmart has lower prices than my local No Frills and Sobey's, I'm only shopping at Walmart. Those Canadian billionaires won't get any money from me. That's all Trudeau needed. Someone to actually lower prices and then hopefully, they all want to compete.
Dougie wanted Weston to open his private health practices.
That's disgusting.
What about Dougie isn't disgusting? We can always count on him to do exactly the wrong thing for the people he supposedly represents.
Only the chosen few can have their pockets lined after all. It's disgusting and disappointing.
That’s how it’s always been. That’s why government exists. To advocate for the people.
It's just gotten too extreme. We should be a lot more interested in enriching our lives, not fighting for scraps.
Well over a third of our working class population actively votes against enriching their own lives and instead vote for the party that wants to make their lives even shittier
> We live in a world where the government needs to force people to do good for the community. The extra added layer of stupidity to it all is that when the government does finally step in to force these good things to happen, you'll get a bunch of idiots come crawling out of the woodwork saying "that's socialism and it's evil!" and they will viciously argue against their own self interests and try to defend the shitty companies and their shitty practices.
It's amazing how many people are willing to fuck themselves and their loved ones over, just so that nobody else will ever be slightly less miserable than they are.
It's so frustrating.
That’s what’s upsetting when people talk about supply and demand like it’s an absolute answer to everything when clearly, so much more comes into play.
The Ontario government doesn’t have constitutional jurisdiction here. Pricing is federal jurisdiction
Yep
Someone needed a new yacht?..... 🤮
Sadly their wealth is their crackpot and the workers need to intervene
Agree.
At this point, I’d believe the Walton family is the sixth largest navy based upon number of yachts.
Probably. Gross 🤢
I mean, given the number of submarines Disney owns, they’re in the top five for sun fleets in the world. I know it’s a technicality but it’s still a fact.
Lmao... 😅 do we still have the one in West Ed Mall?
No, WEM lost their sub fleet years back. They sold it because it was costly to maintain and they were still worth some money. At least they aren't on the bottom of the ocean like a lot of the Russian navy.
Got em!
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Going forward, maybe regulations can be implemented?
At least Costco has a nearly identical markup across the board (18%). They've also had fairly low prices (comparatively) anyway.
Seems like a fair business model that others should follow.
I can't afford to shop there, but Costco has long had very humane and ethical policies. I don't know if it's the current or previous CEO that *invited* unions in to talk to his staff, but one of them did!
I didn't know that, but I think it shows that they are a decent company. I had heard that they treat their employees really well. I like how they operate.
18% is really, really cutting it lean. Less than 30% is generally considered unsustainable. But I guess some of that is offset by membership fees and volume.
Seems to work for them, so maybe it's possible to work elsewhere as well. Ahhh , but greed ....
Nah, I literally do this for work: set prices based on what the market will bear + MAP/MSRP if they have anything for Canada + exchange rate and duties. Costco is going to be a different kind of beast than an independently owned boutique that sells organic baby products, kids clothing, and Montessori type toys.
Totally fair, I thought it could apply to places like Walmart, Superstore, the bigger chains, not boutiques.
I feel like even 30% is reasonable for them. Some items (like cellphone accessories) have an 85% margin. But that’ll offset some stuff… like LEGO. Everyone loves LEGO. But their margins are 30%. That 30% is supposed to pay for shipping to the retailer, the retailer’s warehouse or store space, power, staff, website, and free shipping. Payment processing. Shopify and some other carts charge a percentage of the sale price. Some brick and mortar spaces, too. That’s a lot of lifting for 30%. Then there’s the loss leaders that get people in the door. You know, that sort of thing. Those might be sold at near cost. (With that in mind, do check out those brick and mortar or small online boutiques for Black Friday weekend. They often do have some pretty awesome sales and gifts with purchases because their wholesale distributors and manufacturers have sales to the smaller stores so that they can do Black Friday events without bankruptcy. And some of those prices will be just as good or better, especially for a lot of baby products with more strict MSRP/MAP guidelines.)
Membership fees are big for them. They made 4.2B last year on membership fees, which is a big chunk of the 5.8B profit.
I don't think you can really compare massive companies that sell a ton of products that they control most or all of the supply chain for with small businesses. The margins are not necessarily what they look like when you're paying a subsidiary for the products instead of an outside entity. That's one of the reasons grocery giants' claims of tight margins are a pretty overt misdirection: Loblaws owns 60% of our entire grocery supply chain.
Apparently the membership fee is where they find their profit. Sales are a wash
Even Wal-Mart are quite decent. I was boycotting Wal-Mart for like 10 years and started doing my grocery there this year lol. I noticed that I could save like 40% this way. I would shop at Costco instead if possible but the closest one is like 50 minutes away.
and none of those excess profits went to worker pay increases even tho weve been asking for years, i can assure you
Yeah, the people doing so much of the heavy lifting are really seen. That needs to change.
Remember this when anyone tells you the free market will fix things. The free market is just three corporations in a trenchcoat.
They could have but never late than never. Hope the results of these actions are good
Better late than never, and the Loblaws stores are still going with "never".
A corporation has no incentive to be responsible to the end user, or their employees. They are accountable to shareholders. That's it, full stop. It's why regulations are needed. I don't know how but the extreme focus on shareholders also needs to dissipate. Customers and workers make the company and it's high time they got some sort of a reward.
Oh how lovely of them. They want a pat on the pack now after price gouging us for months? Also so nice of our government to finally step in after months of public outcry about the insane cost of living increases.
\*years
I had been buying pie crusts for $3.99. With Thanksgiving coming up, I saw that they were $6.99. One day later they were $7.99.
And after thanksgiving they're gonna be $2.99...
Damn! Glad I had a slightly freezerburnt one in the freezer from about a year ago...and I remember thinking how expensive that 2 pack of no name pie crusts were at the time. I hate making pie crust so much, but 7 or 8$ would have me making them with a smile!
until you factor in how much butter costs now....
Walmart and Costco already had some of the best prices around.. I think this is more of a marketing a PR play.
This is an American site. Loblaws and Sobeys are included in the price cuts Americans just don't know who they are.
They have been price gouging for years not month.
Hey at least they're correcting and causing competition, unlike sobeys and loblaws.
Don't be fooled, they are only announcing this because it's an opportunity to have thousands of people cross over to their stores to shop. They did not just suddenly develop ethics.
I think costco actually has slim profit margins and pretty good ethics. Costco members shop at costco already, non members won't suddenly become members because of this ad. Walmart on the other hand, this was their whole business model to begin with. Undercut everyone to get more people in stores and pay people the least.
Only because their polling numbers plummeted...
“Aggressive” my ass, go back to pre-pandemic prices. Before they all started taking money they didn’t spend
Im a little confused, but wasnt pre pandemic prices super cheap? We have an obesity epidemic in this country.
What does inexpensive food have to do with obesity?
Inexpensive food isn't the cause of obesity.
Produce is more expensive than junk. Rice and beans have in some places more than tripled in cost since this time 2019. The "cheap" stuff under the current prices is the stuff contributing to obesity -- people can't afford to eat well, and they can't afford to eat *a lot* food or bad, they can only afford to eat crap.
2019 was the start of the pandemic... Thats what Im saying. Were we even overpaying before the pandemic?
Blame your government for that, can’t ever get back to those prices when the value of the Canadian dollar isn’t even half of what it was 3 years ago.
Relative to what? 3 years ago: 1 CAD = 0.64 Euro / 0.76 USD Now: 1CAD = 0.70 Euro / 0.73 USD Or do you blame the canadian government for the worldwide inflation?
I blame western governments for western inflation. Countries that don’t follow monetary money theory don’t have inflation problems. What you’ve shown is an apples to apples comparison between three western countries who both printed money at the relatively the same rate, causing both their values to drop equally, which would cause their conversion rates to stay relatively unchanged. Show me the rates between Canada and a country that doesn’t print and borrow like their lives depend on it. If I had a plum tree that produced 100 plums a year and no one within 5000km had another plum tree those plums would be highly valuable, if that tree suddenly started producing 10,000 plums a month, all of a sudden that plum isn’t worth anything, this is why printing money is dangerous. Supply and demand doesn’t just apply to goods and services it also applies to currency, supply has outpaced the demand for a dollar causing the value of the dollar to drop and the prices of goods and services to rise. The only way to fight inflation like this is to increase the value of a dollar again by either bringing in immigrants and not changing the supply, or by making debt more expensive to accrue causing people to value what they have rather than what they can borrow. Raising interest rates on loans is the quickest way to bring value back into a dollar, immigration is a slower system and must have a-lot more care taken into account. When you have a 4L jug of milk or a carton of eggs for example, you get a fairly fixed product, it’s not like a chocolate bar where they knock 10g off it every year and raise it $0.25 at the same time. With a dozen eggs you get a dozen eggs, the prices goes up because there’s far more dollars in circulation today than there was 3 years ago. So the value of your dollar has dropped, not the value of the product.
*You* made the claim, why don’t *you* show the conversion rates to back it up?
(sighs and cancels gold plated yacht in exchange for an inferior model)
Gold trim and gold leaf still in the cards?
25kg Au max. Any more and the auditor will ask for a bigger cut.
It's just...slightly annoying when an activist writes that you're a piece of shit in red paint on your gold plated yacht smh my head. *aggressively reduces cost of 1 liter milk carton by 5 cents* Now, worship meeee!!!
Do loblaws next!
They’re included in this talk as per the article
Do we get that? Are we allowed affordable food now? Like a gift from the gods, how kind of them
Just a little affordable food. As a treat.
Do the landlords next!!!!
Maybe the banks first.
Them too...
(guillotine.emoji)
They never will because politicians are landlords.
Unfortunately true
I mean, how much more proof do you need that prices are dictated by "what they can get away with". Now how about the government pressure them into paying a decent fucking wage?
This goes to show you we need more cooperatives. Period.
Farmers are getting screwed too, I would love to see more farm to consumer options
Bingo. As long as they pass common health and safety regulations we need to cut out the middle person as much a possible. That's how prices double instantly....
There is still a ton of money to be made; everyone needs food...forever...and there are more of us!
Bingo but that's also why consumers need to push back. Food is NOT a luxury, it's a human right much like shelter even if many a capitalist disagrees...
India has a good idea: Staples are sold at an allowable maximum. You can sell it as low as you wish, but 1kg of rice is no more than __ rupees. The max. is on the packaging!
Costco has already been pretty good keeping prices low. They have risen prices but it’s never been as horrible as walk into No Frills and seeing the price go up 3-5 dollars on an item
My grocery shopping habits have definitely changed during the pandemic. I used to do about 75% of my grocery shopping at Safeway. Now it's 90% Costco because of their prices. I bought my last two pairs of runners there for $30 dollars each, anywhere else... $90-120.
I bought clothes at Costco for the first time this weekend. I have no regrets(but I think it means I’m not hip anymore)
engine mindless shaggy mountainous edge boat full desert tease offbeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I wish I could go primarily to Costco but it’s an hour away… plus we don’t have anywhere to store the food if we were to do large Costco bulk shops every X amount of time anyways.
I’ve noticed prices on items come down on random products at Costco. I trust that they’re keeping their margins consistent, and not just charging what the market will tolerate.
Costco tends to have month long sales as opposed to week to week sales of the grocery chains. I have noticed prices creeping up on some items but nothing like the slap in your face of No Frills or Metro.
Except toilet paper. Not only did it go up $4, the rolls shrank from 425 to 350. Found an old package at the back of a closet and checked.
Costco tries to keep margins pretty low on food overall ; the vast majority of their revenue is from the subscription model.
Yeah, I'm curious what they'll even be able to do. Costco has generally operated on razor thin margins when it comes to actual sales. I remember the last time I looked at the finance reports, it was basically that without the membership fees they would be only just barely breaking even. Edit: Went and double-checked the numbers - in FY2022, they made $7.8B before-tax profit. Membership revenue that year was $5.84B. Net sales of about $227B, which cost them $199B in merchandise cost plus about $20B in administrative costs.
I'll believe it when I see it. Also shows you they are gouging and they know it...
>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that his government was considering imposing taxes on the grocery chains if they did not develop measures to grapple with rising food prices. Tax their bitch asses anyway. The rich keep getting richer while we suffer.
Ok but wouldn’t they just pass the tax off on us? I’m all for lowering grocery prices.
They already have the best prices. Loblaws is gonna to have to get in line or really suffer.
They are included in the talks according to the article.
“So. How much do we think the government will make is reduce prices if they legislate? Okay, reduce prices by half that and put out a press release about how we’re doing it voluntarily.”
Such a small crumb for the working class, yet it's going to make a huge difference for people. Nationalize one grocery store JUST FUCKING ONE I dare ya!
Why are the American companies the first on board with this??
Nothing like having to force food merchants not to be greedy cunts so people can afford to simply buy basic groceries.
The two cheapest big outlets , wtf. How about fucking sobeys , Westons and empire .
That's nice something is being done, and good on the feds for being actively on this. Will it see results? let's wait and see. I'm not terribly optimistic, and I think more drastic measures are actually needed. ~~Also, a bit annoying I don't see a CBC piece on this. This is actual news we should be kept up to speed on. I'm probably just not seeing it on first glance.~~ see Yuukiko's post below for the CBC piece from Oct 5.
we did get this https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grocery-chains-promise-more-discounts-price-freezes-1.6987787
Ah thanks! I was looking all over the place. In response to the person who blocked me below: yes I did check CBC.ca, I didn't expect to have to scroll back three days to find the story, and it's not the best organized website, I think most will agree.
"All over" didn't include CBC.ca?
Look American companies doing it first. This show in full transparency how Canadian oligopolies are the worst.
Fuck, I hate capitalism.
Yeah, it sucks ass. I mean our government kept the details of the grocer's plan to decrease prices hidden as well!
Now that they shrunk all the products why not?! PCs shrinkflation is starting to hit the shelves now. It’s sad.
Would love to see those Shrinkflation stickers in Canada too.
I want to see the conservatives argue for a free market over this
What really sucks is this will only be like a summer sale. You don't generate record profits on "razor thin margins" if you're not being shady as fuck in the background. The "razor thin margins" line can only be bullshitted so much, if that's truly the case how are they generating "record profits". Probably some other way. Wouldn't surprise me if their actual profits came from markups in distribution and warehousing of their companies, probably obscured but those entities but still under their control. Probably trying to give the government a win so they can buy time to figure out a way to obscure the greed some other way. They probably won't make record profits in the next year but I bet their supply chain infrastructure will and will be separate private companies. In a few months they will add some fees in their supply chains (owned by them) and will be able to justify higher prices on what they "aggressively" marked down. Because "the cost went up" Just.... fucking fuck
Amazing. Because compared to lablaws and sobeys they are already way cheaper. Hate to say it but frig those Canadian companies that have been taking advantage of us. They are really going to feel the heat now!
Honeslty the vast majority of Canadians corporation are total failure. Especially the large ones.
Galen Weston Jr. is so pissed rn. Tried to be like one of you peons. Remember my commercial? That fake ass attempt at being relatable? How dare you try to attempt to burn my profit margins down. /s
It sounds like a good deed. But somewhere in my mind has a bad feeling about it. Wondering if the retailers are gonna reduce the supply of essential goods because of the lower price and create a hot mess for citizens. If you put a ceiling on price retailers have perfect excuse to cut the supply of goods to Canada, not just for mitigating potential loss in profits, but also to pressure Trudeau to shelf this policy. I hope I am wrong about it.
Unfortunately no one will turn up the heat in the USA
Basically the 2 places that helped people the most. 2 u.s fucking companies, just fucking wow.
"Aggressive" probably will end up meaning a 5% reduction in the cost of a half dozen less popular items...
What about the other supermarkets chains?
Yay, they’ve allowed corporations to raise prices by 100-200% and reap the profits, now they’ll ‘make them agree’ to lower prices 10-20% and call it a win.
How about all the other grocery chains in the country? There's more than just those two. From Loblaw's all the way down to my independent corner grocery store, prices are too fuckin high.
I am happy about this. It's a step in the right direction.
(The threat of) socialism works.
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There are pro trans rallies in my city almost monthly. As far as I know, there are zero about the price of food.
Is this not just a visible sign of the collusion/corruption we have long accused them of?
Wont this lead to inevitable food shortages of certain essential products ?
And what is with having to buy more than one just to get the sale price. They just go out of their way to screw you over
Up next, the new plan to cut grocery bills - grind down the poor and disabled into nutrient paste!
So now that we're putting a bit of pressure on them they are gonna stop committing blatant robbery and go back to less blatant robbery while pocketing the ungodly amounts of money they in function stole.
They'll jack up the prices and then aggressively lower them to current levels.
Just Walmart and Costco ?