Noticed Supermarkets feel glum?

[Neverendingdust]

I don’t think I’m imagining this but I’ve started to notice over the last month or two an almost gloomy muted atmosphere in the supermarkets where I live. It’s pretty noticeable that people are now conscious of the rising prices, the mood is almost somber and tense as they’re shopping. Has anyone else noticed similar? M&S, Sainsburys, Tesco and Co Op all feel very different, you can tell people are worried about the prices they’re seeing.

That excitement of popping treats into the trolley has gone for so many, doing the weekly shop has now become a challenge to simply spend the least amount but make the shop last longer. Peoples behaviour has changed massively.

Does anyone work in any of the stores and noticed the same?

I'm based in Suffolk. To get to a big shopping centre with extended opening hours, I'd need to travel either to Norwich or to Westfield at Stratford. Both at least an hour away, hence it's a necessity to shop online.

It's bloody depressing. I used to spend hours each weekend going into town with my mum but I only go sparingly now. The local car parks are notorious for being expensive.

It's a shame because we've got a gorgeous independent book shop in the town, but the owner is 'sporadic' in his opening hours. He doesn't open on Sundays and Mondays. And recently I managed to get into town on a Saturday afternoon and it was closed. But then the owner constantly moans on his FB page about how quiet the shop is. Its frustrating but he doesn't have a website, so I feel like I've tried my best to support him....

there is an imbalance of tax between traditional retailers and Amazon. Business rates in an out of town super massive warehouse will be lower than a small store on the main highstreet. add that to multiple venues and its orders of magnitude more expensive to sell out of a retail store.

Amazon is also known to be predatory, and will deliberately sell at a loss to gut a marketplace and gain a near monopoly, they also will undercut their own marketplace and people and small stores who find good products to sell, will oftern find amazon either dropping them down the rankings, competing directly against them, or in some instances go directly to the manufacturer and cut them out the look with non compete clauses. They let the sells do the market building and research then swoop in to reap the rewards.

Just saying price match Amazon shows how little you know about the industry or the reasons for pricing imbalances.

Unfortunately, because so many people prefer to shop online this is exactly why the high street is dying.

But sometimes, there's no other choice.

I live in small town in the NW. We still have half-day closing on a Wednesday, and most shops also close at 1pm on Saturdays. The only shops open on a Sunday are Tesco, the petrol station and the off-license. So if you work full-time, you're pretty much stuffed.

The nearest big town with Sunday opening is a 45 minute drive away and even then, it's only the big retailers like B&M, Asda etc. who bother opening as nobody else gets enough traffic to make it worth paying out on wages. I love shopping in person but I work during the week and it's much cheaper to shop on Amazon than it is to drive 45 minutes and pay for parking just to look at a handful of shops on a Sunday morning.

Everything seems to have gone up by 10-15p or more per item. For me, anyway. I do a mixture of cooking from scratch and semi convenience stuff.

I have noticed that supermarket clothes are selling as well. There's been a permanent sale of children's clothes in my local Morrisons for month. Great piles of clothes. Assume everyone's less tempted to pick up something nice for the DC at the moment. I certainly am.

The reason our high street is going to die is because the council has just removed EVERY parking space along it, they can't even get deliveries. The spaces are now cycling lanes with bollard things and it's on a hill and quite empty. The nearby side streets are mostly residents' parking. There are perfectly good routes already for cyclists in quiet back streets and there could be more but that doesn't fit the remit of preventing driving. Even electric cars can't park. And they want to support local businesses, Ideology gone mad!

We don't see things the way they are, we see things the way WE are.

I live close to a huge Waitrose and M&S. At any time you could walk I'm and there's a queue. It has definitely not filtered through here as yet.

Same here. We were in the West End last week to see a show and everywhere was heaving. Shops very busy, queues outside restaurants, people spilling out of the pubs onto the pavement etc. And this was Wednesday afternoon!

It is upsetting going round the supermarket seeing all the increases in price. I don't mind admitting I feel tearful when shopping. It's really tough on so many

I wouldn't say much will change in London (Central). I live very close to here and life is pretty much the same. Also went to a show on Tuesday and it was absolutely packed everywhere.

I live in a city, people still seem to be shopping normally here. I haven’t noticed a change yet, but I am sure it’s coming with the COL increases.

I've noticed some dark humour at the checkouts when someone has misheard the total price announced
Old chap "I was worried then, I thought this must be that inflation they're talking about"
Checkout Lady "Yeah come back next week love and then £96 will be the price"

Maybe of all the shoppers were like Sheldon, Leonard, penny, etc that reflect the issues, otherwise the ones near me, are business as normal.

its not the lack of parking that's the issue its the lack of integrated transport solutions. Look at London you don't need a car for a good part of it, whereas if you go to Birmingham and the blackcountry if you don't have a car unless you live by the metro you are fucked.

Nothing wrong with removing car parking, provided the alternative is readily accessible, frequent, and covers a wide enough catchment area

I have taken to doing a decent shop at the local extremely good farm shop for meat, pies and fruit and veg-- I was sceptical about affordability but it's actually been better value and good quality - I spend around £30 I then do a £30 top up at M&S. for a few ready meals and packets of fish cakes/breaded chicken and then about £25 in waitrose for rice, Passata, milk, tinned and jars

I get a fair bit of yellow stickered in M&S and freeze it- particularly fish/ready meals and breaded chicken

Admittedly it's only 2 of us and we eat really well- but I don't buy any snacks/ crisps/biscuits/cake etc

I've yet to go in a Tescos or coop I don't find depressing and I don't find them that cheap either if you want decent quality

Scepticalevents we have excellent public transport but taking away all the parking overnight, with no delivery hours, is a massive challenge. It isn't a car-only place at all but there are many journeys to the neighbourhood, like anywhere, that people need or want to do by car. They already know that it can be difficult to park but it is now largely impossible. Some if the one-off businesses that have been here for years will not survive. There is no flexibility

Oops Skepticalwotsits

Tescos is tight for the values they reduced items on yellow stickers, similar with co-op, asda is usually pretty good.

Lol yeah I was probably projecting. It did feel like there was a small moment of communality but maybe I was just looking for it. I did come down with the covid shortly after so it was possibly just a bit of a high temperature hahaha.

Don't know how the Coop survive they have always been expensive.

The level of ignorance about basic economics on this site regularly surprises me.

How do you know that supermarkets are making ‘massive profits from the cost of living crisis’?

Do you expect them to sell at a loss? Or for the manufacturers and farmers to produce food at a loss? Prices of raw materials have gone up. So has the cost of fertiliser. So has the cost of transporting goods and storing them. So has the cost of packaging. So has the cost of the energy needed to manufacture the finished product.

You say that supermarkets made ‘massive profits during the pandemic’. Are you sure about that? Many of the big food retailers saw profits decline over the pandemic. Where do you think the money for screens around the checkouts and new hygiene measures came from?

Let’s imagine that the supermarkets did, in fact, make ‘massive profits during the pandemic’. Do you think that commercial businesses with shareholders should hold back profits to subsidise keeping prices at an artificially low level in future years? How long do you think that those businesses would survive for?

@GuyMontag well I enjoyed it

Their shops are basically convenience stores for top-up shops. I’m happy to pay higher prices at a co-op I can walk to in five minutes, in preference to driving to eg Asda.

Yes, in a lot of towns Co-op is the main convenient supermarket, we find this a lot on holiday and tend to use them, often larger supermarkets you have to use your car to get to.

Mars ice creams were 2 for £3.50 when I’m sure they used to be £1 per box on the offers, now it’s £1.75? Needless to say the shelf was relatively full and that was on a warm evening.

But don’t you wonder how anyone could have produced, packaged, stored and transported a box of four Mars ice creams for less than £1, if they were being sold for £1?

That is stupidly cheap. I remember when Mars bar ice creams were launched, in the early nineties. They cost more than that for a box then! Even £1.75 is too cheap when you think about it. The price of cocoa beans has rocketed this year, and the cost have other commodities will have too. And the cost of the energy for keeping a cold store cold. And the cost of the petrol for the refrigerated distribution vehicles.