Caught in Lidl

[philmayfield 6,144]

Oh the shame! Bumped into a neighbour whilst shopping in Bingham Lidl today. We were using our Waitrose bags but that just made it worse. I’ll never be able to face anyone in the village again when the news gets out! 

[Beekay 5,155]

How come they built a Lidl in Bingham? Surely that's just a one horse village out in the sticks, or am I totally behind the times. Incidentally, I've got some Waitrose bags too Phil.

[philmayfield 6,144]

It's got both a Lidl and an Aldi. Bingham has grown vastly. It's no longer the country town it used to be. Hugh housing estates have been and are still being built on the periphery and would appear to be populated primarily by Hong Kong Chinese. Bingham and Newark are equidistant from home and Newark can be busier on a Saturday. 

[Oztalgian 3,298]

We don't have Lidl in Australia, we do have Aldi though. the supermarket giants of the grocery world in OZ are the Woolworths (not the old UK Woolies) and Coles duopoly who have 65% market share and ripping us off right royally whilst making mega profits. What did we expect, that's capitalism at work.  ALDI has a 10% market share with around 600 stores across Australia. Coles have 846 and Woolworths have 1,114 stores. Our Prime minister recently announced a 12 month inquiry into the Supermarket industry by our Consumer and Competition Commission. The remainder are independents or independent groups. By comparison, the two largest chains in the UK are Tesco and Sainsbury who have 45% of the market.

[Brew 5,421]

No idea over the Qz, but here the operating profits in the retail grocery sector during 2022-23 were down 41.5% on the previous year and that average operating margins in the sector fell from 3.2% to 1.8%. Put another way, for every £100 of sales, the typical supermarket is making a profit of just £1.80. Not an unreasonable profit margin and for most businesses is embarrassingly low, only volume of sales make supermarkets a viable operation.

[Oztalgian 3,298]

15 hours ago, Brew said:

No idea over the Qz, but here the operating profits in the retail grocery sector during 2022-23 were down 41.5% on the previous year and that average operating margins in the sector fell from 3.2% to 1.8%. Put another way, for every £100 of sales, the typical supermarket is making a profit of just £1.80. Not an unreasonable profit margin and for most businesses is embarrassingly low, only volume of sales make supermarkets a viable operation.

Woolworths net profit increased 4.6% to AU$1.62 billion on sales of AU$64.29 billion. Profitabillity went from 5.3% to 6% over the year. Woolworths paid a dividend of $0.58 per share, a 9.4% increase on the previous year.

Cole saw a 4.8% rise in profit to AU$1.1billion over the year.

Both supermarkets are reporting increasing stock losses due to theft and incorrect scanning on self check outs. Coles have said that their stock losses were up by 20% over the previous year.

[Brew 5,421]

I have to say Oz with those figures I'd find it difficult to call them a rip-off. They make a lot of money, but to the individual customer a net profit of £4/5 per 100 is actually more than reasonable and considerably lower than most industries.

It would be easy to blame the cost of living on the rise in shoplifting but as Ben will attest stealing from shops has always been with us. It has also steadily increased and the rise in population, the apparent lack pf respect for the law plus no fear of punishment must have some bearing on why that is. I don't some steal in an act of desperation but again  Ben is more qualified to say how true that is.

 

It's a bit strange don't you think you can access figures like this from a commercial enterprise but not from a council?

[Oztalgian 3,298]

17 hours ago, Brew said:

I have to say Oz with those figures I'd find it difficult to call them a rip-off.

Brew, my biggest beef with the supermarket giants is that they pay the farmers and producers of fresh product and meat a pittance and then on sell to their customers at vastly inflated prices. Farmers and growers are often "forced" by supermarkets to sell them product at less than the cost of production. Of course, supermarkets claim that transport costs, labour, packaging, operating and supply chain costs are rising but, in some cases, growers have been forced to accept prices lower that five years ago.

For example, one grower recently let slip what he gets for selling his green apples to Woolworths and it showed that woolies had a 100% mark up on that product. Admittedly, not all mark ups are that high and some are seasonally affected, but growers and producers need a fair price otherwise we will soon not have any.

[Oztalgian 3,298]

On 3/25/2024 at 8:08 PM, Brew said:

It would be easy to blame the cost of living on the rise in shoplifting but as Ben will attest stealing from shops has always been with us. It has also steadily increased and the rise in population, the apparent lack pf respect for the law plus no fear of punishment must have some bearing on why that is.

Today the MD of Drakes supermarkets, a smaller version of Coles and Woolies which has stores in South Australia and Queensland, has announced that high value goods, mainly expensive cuts of meat will be packaged in a container that has a GPS tracker embedded within it. The tracker is removed at the till which means that the customer cannot use the self-check outs. We have just had our police commissioner on radio saying that they cannot guarantee police attendance if a GPS tracker indicates that goods have left the store without payment.

Drakes say they are using the same system that is used in some UK supermarkets. Can anyone (Ben?) tell me what police action is taken in this instance in the UK.

[Brew 5,421]

5 minutes ago, Oztalgian said:

Can anyone (Ben?) tell me what police action is taken in this instance in the UK.

 

This from last year:

Police will only attend shoplifting incidents if there is violence against a store worker, a suspected thief is detained or officers are needed to secure evidence.

[Oztalgian 3,298]

2 minutes ago, Brew said:

Police will only attend shoplifting incidents if there is violence against a store worker, a suspected thief is detained or officers are needed to secure evidence.

So who is going to police action against these thieves and how are they supposed to do it?

Yet again, it looks like the bad guys are winning or are the police too busy pursuing hate crimes.

[Brew 5,421]

On 3/26/2024 at 3:10 AM, Oztalgian said:

Brew, my biggest beef with the supermarket giants is that they pay the farmers and producers of fresh product and meat a pittance and then on sell to their customers at vastly inflated prices. Farmers and growers are often "forced" by supermarkets to sell them product at less than the cost of production.

 

Agriculture is never quite straight forward; I've never met a farmer that wasn't complaining as they climb onto their £100,000 laser and GPS controlled tractors. When we were in the common market there were wine lakes, millions of litres of milk poured down the drain and beef mountains. It was a shambles (maybe still is), under the Common Agriculture Policy.

At the moment we are paying farmers not to grown anything under a system called 'set aside'.  The obverse of that is farmers selling good land for housing. There is no easy answer.

[Brew 5,421]

 

17 minutes ago, Oztalgian said:

So who is going to police action against these thieves and how are they supposed to do it?

Yet again, it looks like the bad guys are winning or are the police too busy pursuing hate crimes.

 

It's as I said earlier Oz shoplifting has steadily increased and the rise in population, the apparent lack pf respect for the law plus no fear of punishment must be a large part of the blame for it. Some will claim it's desperation due to the cost-of-living crisis but I don't honestly believe it.

The approved procedure for stopping a thief is so onerous and coupled with the rise in knife crime among the young most don't bother and simply accept it as a fact of life.

One wrong step and the victim is as likely to faces charges as the thief.

[Oztalgian 3,298]

10 hours ago, Brew said:

It's as I said earlier Oz shoplifting has steadily increased and the rise in population, the apparent lack pf respect for the law plus no fear of punishment must be a large part of the blame for it. Some will claim it's desperation due to the cost-of-living crisis but I don't honestly believe it.

The approved procedure for stopping a thief is so onerous and coupled with the rise in knife crime among the young most don't bother and simply accept it as a fact of life.

One wrong step and the victim is as likely to faces charges as the thief.

No wonder the UK is stuffed and we in OZ are well on the way to being the same. When, why and how did it all go so wrong!

Is it the growing gulf between the haves and have nots?

Is it the rise of legal and illegal immigration?

Are the police so chronically undermanned and under resourced that they cannot investigate "minor" and non violent crimes.

Is it the justice system that so often hands out sentences that do not fit the crime committed? 

Is the bail system too lenient?

[Brew 5,421]

1 hour ago, Oztalgian said:

When, why and how did it all go so wrong!

 Looking back I suppose both Labour and Tory are to blame though I suspect Tony Blair started the rot when he stopped recruiting police in favour of PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) (popularly called plastic police), who wear a police uniform and patrol the streets and in reality had less power than a traffic warden.

 

The police were further damaged by the austerity measures. Teresa May jumped on the bandwagon and reduced the numbers even more whilst at the same time Chief Constables were mandated to pursue hate crimes, diversity, motorists and virtually anyone who said a rude word.

In Scotland even jokes and comedians can be judged to be guilty of hate crimes.

 

To make police more accountable and improve public perceptions Police Commissioners were installed in 2012. Most are invisible and I suspect do little more than rubber stamp council and police policies. 

 

From experience having three motorcycles stolen, two cars stolen and two burglaries only one, the first burglary brought police to the door - and that was one week later.

[woody 552]

It is a case of the do gooders and pacifists doing immeasurable damage to society with their half brained ideas. If the punishment isn't a deterrant then it needs to be increased until it is. Never mind the usual bleat about human rights, they are what normal law respecting people should expect to be honoured, not the low life criminal fraternity.

[colly0410 1,181]

When I was a security guard 20'odd years ago we were told not to lay a finger on anyone as they could cry "assault" & you'd be the one being arrested...