Supermarkets in Shetland - prices, ethics and experiences

[Malachy]

Its great tesco is coming i hope they give us a good service and shake up the fat cats , i dont care who they upset as long as the customer gets value for money , we have paid over the odds far too long now so welcome tesco

 

The idea of Tesco coming to Shetland to 'shake up the fat cats' is hilarious. This is a company that has 31.5% of the UK grocery market, and around 3% of the UK's total GDP. To suggest they are some kind of consumer freedom fighter is utterly ludicrous. The company is known to go into new areas and use their massive wealth to deliberately target specific competitors, with the intention of closing them down. That they should be applauded for destroying small local businesses is very, very sad.

 

Shetland may well pay a bit more at the supermarket than other parts of the UK, but we are still not paying 'over the odds'. Tesco et al can sell their food cheaply by mercilessly ripping off producers - I don't think anyone should feel pleased about that.

 

We have grown used to paying very little for food in the west; the proportion of our income spent on food has been decreasing for decades, but that strikes me as a very dangerous state of affairs. We no longer place any value on food. But this is likely to change soon (though for the wrong reasons). Anyone who expects food prices to remain this low indefinitely, even as the price of oil skyrockets, is living in a dream world. The wholesale price of many goods has almost doubled in the last year, and these increases will be transferred to the consumer. I think over the coming years, people will have to get used to spending more of their income on necessary things like food, and less of it on superfluous luxury goods. Unfortunately, I don't think food producers will get a better deal out of it, but companies like Tesco will manage to maintain their immense profits.

 

People should stop whinging about having to pay a few pence extra for a can of beans and start thinking a bit more about the value of what they are buying and where they are buying it from.

[Frances144]

Hear Hear

 

I completely agree.

 

Thank you, Malachy, for putting it so eloquently.

[Silvercloud]

Hi,

 

We plan to move up to yourselves in October and look forward buying my meat for the family from the local butchers as I do now, despite the choice of Supermarkets I have available to me.

I do not mind paying a few pence more for local fresh produce,so when we get up there Tesco will no impact on us when it come to buying meat at least.Where possible we always strive to buy things locally when we can.

 

However petrol expensive even down south nevr mind where you guys are where its even more and it soooo wrong,but there we go not alot we can do about that

 

Silvercloud

[JAStewart]

Malachy, I generally agree with what you are saying, but its easy for you to say, because maybe you can afford to pay a little extra for your groceries. Families need to be able to buy cheap foodstuffs, and if you're living on very little then every penny counts.

[Malachy]

Well that's a slightly misleading suggestion, and while I don't wish to discuss my financial situation in detail on the internet (or to have it discussed), I will say that I earn well under half the national average wage for the UK, so I don't exactly consider myself a high earner. But then I have sheep, which obviously makes a difference.

Certainly I accept that poverty is still a big problem in the UK, but I also believe that many people on low incomes (and higher incomes) see food as an extra cost, to be cut down as much as possible. People expect to be able to buy music, DVDs, computer games, mobile phones, widescreen tvs etc, and then go and buy their food with what's left over. Most people see our current excessive lifestyle as somehow necessary, and count food as an extra financial burden. That is an attitude problem that is far too prevalent today. It's not people's own fault of course - our entire society is screaming at folk constantly that this is how we have to live, so you can't blame anyone for believing it.

I don't own a TV, so I consider myself a wealthy man

[Roachmill]

At the moment nobody is really paying "a little extra" for the their groceries. Prices are certainly inflated over those on the mainland - but they're all over inflated no matter where you shop up here.

 

If you're on a tight budget then, sure, you're going to shop where you get the most for your money. However, there's plenty folk up here that don't need to save a few quid each week just to see smaller businesses potentially go down the pan.

 

All I'm saying is folk can shop where they want - but they should also take in to account who they're giving their money to, what they do with it and what the possible outcome may be. Competition is good but unfair competition sure ain't.

[Njugle]

They should also not take for granted that supermarkets will be cheaper. They are on 'specials' but across the range they are not guaranteed to be. Staple product prices often go unchecked by shoppers, whilst 'much cheapness' deals stick in the mind. Don't believe the hype

[JAStewart]

Competition is good but unfair competition sure ain't.

 

How would you define unfair competition? Do Tesco not have a right to open a business in Shetland? I understand the need for local businesses, and I respect and promote anyone's right to shop there over a supermarket, hell, the food you get in a local butcher is many times better value for money (for the quality you are getting) than in a supermarket. But you have to ask yourself; how did Tesco get to where they are today? The truth is; its what people want. Cheap food is what people want, and they'll get it.

[Roachmill]

The unfair (life's unfair I know) business practices of Tesco have already been highlighted earlier in the thread. There's web sites and even books about them. Malachy made good mention of them on this very page.

 

If you think of it in footy terms... imagine a team with Celtic's money and clout moving in to the local league. They could kick everyone else off the park... and likely get cheered on while they do it.

 

Yes they have a right to open up here. People also have the choice to shop there or not. Sadly, I fear there's plenty that have the luxury of a healthy income and just don't give a sh*t. Ain't choice a wonderful thing Personally I hope they do what every other chain has done previously in that store and don't do the Tesco / Walmart Stomp all over town.

 

And as for how did Tesco get where they are today? See above.

 

/End rant not directed at you JAS

[JustMe]

Price is not the only factor that will decide whether Tesco's Lerwick store will do well. Choice and service also play a part in shoppers decisions. For me I hope that they will have a wider selection of products than their predecessors, that they will have better staff training and above all that they will ensure that queues at the checkouts become a thing of the past. Do all that and I will shop at Tesco.

 

I said shop at Tesco but I did not say that I would shop at Tesco all the time. The two local shops I use frequently will get the same level of custom from me as they do now. Probably fair to say that I make some effort to buy from local shops as I appreciate them being there and I hope everyone else will do the same.

[JAStewart]

Sometimes long Q's are beyond our control, certainly, they were with Somerfield.

 

Somerfield had a weird 'skeleton' staff policy that they seemed to think would work, and therefore we were not allowed to hire any more staff, despite the fact that people were leaving, so we had to stretch staff big time. Also, 3/10 of the tills at Somerfield are currently broken and we've been waiting on the engineers to fix them for ages, however with the impending take over, its unlikely that they will get fixed, as Tesco will definetly be putting new tills in place.

 

Also, certainly recently, certain cards have been taking ages to pay, and therefore, holding up the Q.

 

Whenever the Q's are big I always nip down to help out, 'cause its a good chance to sit down .

[Medziotojas]

One of the big supermarket chains here, Iki, has just introduced self-service check-outs. So, with the massive cutbacks in staffing levels have the savings been passed on to the customer? Ha, not likely.

 

These big chains are the same the world over. I don't know what I'd do without the market.

[JustMe]

JAStewart wrote

Sometimes long Q's are beyond our control, certainly, they were with Somerfield.

 

Up to a point I agree. Mainly the long queues in either supermarket stem from management not being prepared to have enough staff on what is their main customer interface.......checkouts. There are also odd incidents where a sudden burst of customers arrive at the same time.

 

That said there are many times when queues build up because the duty supervisor takes too long to open extra checkouts.......latest evidence of this that I saw in the co-op was a queue at the only open checkout while two checkout staff were doing some seriously important work........dealing with the remaining newspapers from the previous day.

[Symbister]

[quote name=" You cannot knock anywhere that sells jeans for £3 a pair' date=' even if they only last for a few months!

 

[/quote]

 

 

Well, you could if the people who made them were paid slave wages.

 

Tesco's offer is very cleverly judged. They don't have the downmarket feel of Asda yet compete with them at the lower price points; having said that, they might feel there's scope to pitch a little upmarket here. That could affect some local shops but the main impact, overall, will be on the Coop. That may change if (more likely, when) they propose an expansion.

 

Petrol has been mentioned but may be tricky; our local fuel wholesalers might not want to send the other retailers to the wall by offering bulk cheap fuel to Tesco, which would leave Tesco having to bypass the existing local suppliers, which might not be economic.

 

Being a Tesco supplier may not be much fun. Tescopoly, by Andrew Simms, is well worth a read. As it points out, there is no such thing as cheap food, or cheap jeans. Someone, somewhere, is paying a price.

[JAStewart]

Dispatches - Tesco: The Supermarket That's Eating Britain.