Online list of prices

Guy:Incognito

mylastparadigm wrote: »

have you anymore to say on the topic or are you happy to waste your time talking about me? im flattered.

What about you answer the points properly?

Ignoring specifics and just replying to a loads of posts with points as to why your idea wont work by saying "thanks for the input" or somesuch is not a rebuttle.

mathepac

skinny90 wrote: »

... if so what's it about?

It's about 63 posts now.

skinny90

The topic of the project u simpleton.cleary not what the op has proposed,if its an assignment they generally are quite open towards the topic in question ie public services. I think it's obvious he has been giving a topic or question regarding how to improve public services something along those lines....by the way have you managed to answer all my questions?

mylastparadigm

MOH wrote: »

There's a couple more problems with your idea I could suggest, but since I'm just some anonymous internet troll who spends my day ripping apart any idea that's not mine, it seems a bit pointless. :rolleyes:

whatever trevor

mylastparadigm

skinny90 wrote: »

Ok well as a public service this would receive massive critism towards it as it will be passed on the customers,tesco dunnes are a high volume low margin business they won't absorb the cost.if its made legal for business's to accept this that won't look good for the business's setting up in Ireland if everything is gonna be published online and then compared to competitors. Sites/systems like this are great for certain types of goods-mainly services offered.
Services in generall have a higher margin to give commission to the website

i see this a different way. i remember working in mcdonalds years ago and the manager was giving out that the furniture shop next store made hundreds or euro on a few sales where we only made pennies... the thing was that we sold thousands of items a day / hour on a good day. she bemoaned our 'penny profits'. but i can tell you that the restaurant was the most profitable building in the lot. :-) low margins (they would have you believe - ask the milk supplies, they'd tell you otherwise) but high volume. tesco made billions in profits off the irish market the last few years afaik.

anyway, i find services are much harder to compare than the price of heinz beans in one location compared to another.

mylastparadigm

skinny90 wrote: »

Is this a project for college?if so what's it about?

nope, its a kernal of an idea. nothing more. nothing worth getting riled up about.

mylastparadigm

skinny90 wrote: »

The topic of the project u simpleton.cleary not what the op has proposed,if its an assignment they generally are quite open towards the topic in question ie public services. I think it's obvious he has been giving a topic or question regarding how to improve public services something along those lines....by the way have you managed to answer all my questions?

nope, just something i was wondering about.

mylastparadigm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

What about you answer the points properly?

Ignoring specifics and just replying to a loads of posts with points as to why your idea wont work by saying "thanks for the input" or somesuch is not a rebuttle.

im afraid i dont know all the answers. im not qualified in economics, business management, financial accounting so how should i know?

why should i rebut anything when you'll just find another specific pedantic question to ask? and we'll go further and further into specifics and lose the core of the idea. already there have been far too many posts on dunnes stores for example. its an idea. why it has people so animated amazes me.

maybe you could answer your own questions? help me out. you seem to be well capable.

throwing a hundred and one questions at someone seems to be the mo around here.

skinny90

mylastparadigm wrote: »

skinny90 wrote: »

Ok well as a public service this would receive massive critism towards it as it will be passed on the customers,tesco dunnes are a high volume low margin business they won't absorb the cost.if its made legal for business's to accept this that won't look good for the business's setting up in Ireland if everything is gonna be published online and then compared to competitors. Sites/systems like this are great for certain types of goods-mainly services offered.
Services in generall have a higher margin to give commission to the website

i see this a different way. i remember working in mcdonalds years ago and the manager was giving out that the furniture shop next store made hundreds or euro on a few sales where we only made pennies... the thing was that we sold thousands of items a day / hour on a good day. she bemoaned our 'penny profits'. but i can tell you that the restaurant was the most profitable building in the lot. :-) low margins (they would have you believe - ask the milk supplies, they'd tell you otherwise) but high volume. tesco made billions in profits off the irish market the last few years afaik.

anyway, i find services are much harder to compare than the price of heinz beans in one location compared to another.

The reason why I asked was to recommend a different topic,
It obviously depends on what it is but generally speaking sercive is greater..
ok furniture business is high profitable that's down to the stock itself and the standards most furniture business's sell l,generally high quality stuff at premium prices,think about it,the shop isn't going to buy in a load of the same couch..there would also be quite high storage costs attached to the sale so margin would need to be very healthy.
Regarding McDonald's making small margins,perhaps money wise (ie 50 cent a hamburger but the percentage is quite healthy,your manager most be using it to motivate you to sell more meal deals/desserts/go large meals. Mcdonalds percentage margin is quite high plus volume is crazy,add large meal deala to that and you have a very high margin business,Mc Donald's is a highly efficient and profitable business believe me.I remember doing a case study on them just coffee alone was creating millions of annual profit,
tesco on the other hand are special in their own way.they have such a massive business it's not even funny how many different revenue streams.net sales, mobile insurance etc they are the masters of CRM.and effective crm is one of the main reasons why their annual profits excede 1bn,
what tesco do great is create value,I'm not talking about generic deals,what they do is analyse you as a person via your club card(and then tailor offers to suite you and just you),they also "tease the customer" to trying out other brands as a lot of customers will buy other branded foods thus possibly increasing the average transaction,.they are also able to cater for every class lower middle and upper,to compete with lidl brands you have the bland tesco branded food which is considerably cheaper than other leading brands,you have your branded items,then to compete with the likes of marks and sparks you have the tesco finest products,all this creates assumption and that is that yea tesco is seen as really cheep supermarket compared o m and s but the fact that they now do their own premium/luxurious branded food now they can convert a lot of traditional m and a customers.
I don't want to go on for ages but their supply chain is so sophisticated yet effective it's also saving millions per year.read up on that I'm too tired to reference it again I literally finished a case study of tesco their for an exam.
The thing about baked beans (just using that as example)you just can't compare baked beans through out all the stores,the size of the tin is important,the brand to a lot of people is important poeple will pay extra for Heinz,is it a single tin,2 pack,4 pack etc this is what makes it difficult to set up a site that's effective
The point I'm making about tesco is that it's not about the money they make on products it's down to the way they run their business that effects profits and if you look into to sone of the stuff mentioned above you'll be amazed

StupidLikeAFox

I think this is a mad idea.

1. The supermarket industry is ridiculously competitive as it is and this site wouldnt lower prices all that much, if at all

2. The sheer scale of the thing, there would be millions of products on it, who is going to bother sifting through all that

3. There is no need for it, you can be clever with your money and get cheap groceries with v little effort now as it is. Supermarkets advertise all their cheapest stuff anyway so you can still do a tour of the shops to get the cheapest overall price.

4. What about poor bridie down the road with her little shop? Sure she thinks the internet is that thing on the inside of your swimming shorts - now she is a criminal with your legislation! :pac:

mathepac

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

What about you answer the points properly? ...

Who appointed you moderator in this thread. What about you stop the bully-boy tactics? What right do you have to demand answers or adjudicate on their "properness" in this way?

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

... Ignoring specifics and just replying to a loads of posts with points as to why your idea wont work by saying "thanks for the input" or somesuch is not a rebuttle.

Rebuttal. You joined OP's thread voluntarily; you have no authority to try and influence how or whether your questions (or anyone else's ) are answered.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

mylastparadigm wrote: »

you'd swear this was dragons den!

no, this has not been fully thought through. this is simply an exercise in teasing out what is possible and the pitfalls or problems with doing something like this. you can absolutely depend on annonymous posters on an internet forum to sit back and take shots at any idea they didnt think of themselves. its useful to me because i can learn about the idea, the likely objections and likely arguements against it.

Hang on a minute! You put the suggestion out there for discussion. We come in and give our feelings on the subject and just because they don't agree with yours you have the nerve to accuse people of taking shots at your idea because they didn't think of it first. Catch a hold of yourself mate. That is the most immature response to criticism I think I have ever read on Boards. Could be others didn't put the idea forward because it was a bad idea - maybe not!

Then you go on to say it's useful to you to learn of the objections! Make your mind up!:mad:

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

mylastparadigm wrote: »

its not ment to make money! once you start putting ads on a site like this concept you lose independence. its ment to be a public service idea.

what about the cost? well, in a world where we are spending 67billion paying off debts we didn incur, i think we could manage it.

That is no answer. Who will fund such an undertaking - particularly if there is no advertising revenue? Who is the We?

{And it's Meant not ment; I'd look at punctuation as well if I were you (just in case you use it in any school work);)}

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

mylastparadigm wrote: »

whatever trevor

Very grown up response to a civil post.:rolleyes:

mylastparadigm wrote: »

nope, its a kernal of an idea. nothing more. nothing worth getting riled up about.

You are the one getting annoyed and then insulting anybody who bothered their heads to contribute to this thread. What did you want when you posted it? A bland "Great idea kid!" "WOW, how did you think of that!"?? Or genuine opinions on the idea? Because what you got were genuine opinions and concerns from consumers.

mylastparadigm wrote: »

im afraid i dont know all the answers. im not qualified in economics, business management, financial accounting so how should i know?

why should i rebut anything when you'll just find another specific pedantic question to ask?

It has become more and more obvious what you don't know, and have no qualification in, as this thread continues. You posted on Consumer Issues, so answers and opinions will be around the consumer issues involved.

Why can't you accept that? You put the subject out there and people responded. As for rebuttal; it was your suggested idea so you would be expected to reply to the issues others raised as a result.
Nothing so far suggests any pedantic questions have been asked. Did you mean to use pedantic?

mylastparadigm

Lorenzo Glamorous Bird wrote: »

Very grown up response to a civil post.:rolleyes:




You are the one getting annoyed and then insulting anybody who bothered their heads to contribute to this thread. What did you want when you posted it? A bland "Great idea kid!" "WOW, how did you think of that!"?? Or genuine opinions on the idea? Because what you got were genuine opinions and concerns from consumers.





It has become more and more obvious what you don't know, and have no qualification in, as this thread continues. You posted on Consumer Issues, so answers and opinions will be around the consumer issues involved.

Why can't you accept that? You put the subject out there and people responded. As for rebuttal; it was your suggested idea so you would be expected to reply to the issues others raised as a result.
Nothing so far suggests any pedantic questions have been asked. Did you mean to use pedantic?

try to stay on topic, please.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Only a direct reply to comments made by yourself.:rolleyes: I note no reply to any of the issues raised. (And I'll leave the call on off topic or not to the Mods. You may report the posts to them if you consider them off topic.)

To reiterate: What aspect of the problems or flaws raised by the contributors here do you consider just bad grace? What solution to said issues do you imagine? What questions raised were pedantic?

This is all very much on topic, as it's your threads that are being replied to with no drift whatsoever from the underlying subject matter or what you have written. So, staying on topic: what did you want from the Opening Piece? I'm sorry if we mis-read it and thought, in error, that you wanted feedback or comments. I'd sincerely appreciate some clarification asto what exactly the point of throwing the notion out there was; if not for honest feedback.

MOH

mylastparadigm wrote: »

whatever trevor

See, now we're getting somewhere. You've identified me as Trevor.
I'm no longer an "anonymous poster" tearing your idea to shreds.

Given that, maybe you'd feel like responding to any of the legitimate criticisms of your suggestion?

dudara

skinny90 warned for insulting another poster.

mylastparadigm Less of the back seat modding please - and this can be extended to many posters

Posters - the OP has presented an idea, which he has later acknowledged is very much in it's formative stages. It is a more theoretical post than normal for Consumer Issues, but I'll willing to keep it open for discussion.

Keep the debate focused on the topic. Any further non-contributive posts may result in warnings/infractions.

dudara

dudara

I just came across this site today - how does this match up with your idea?

http://www.fitthebill.ie/

Guy:Incognito

mathepac wrote: »

Who appointed you moderator in this thread. What about you stop the bully-boy tactics? What right do you have to demand answers or adjudicate on their "properness" in this way?.



Rebuttal. You joined OP's thread voluntarily; you have no authority to try and influence how or whether your questions (or anyone else's ) are answered.

What bully boy tactics? Is it too much to expect a reply to specific questions when the rest of us are taking the time to answer and address his points ?

The OP asked for opinions and questions. He got ones that didnt agree with him and got precious.Any valid questions that more or less showed his idea as unworkable were ignored. It cant work the way the op wants and he cant accept that. Instead he ignores the points that prove it any then starts a bit of a crazy rant or a mildinsult. Getting agressive because your wrong doesnt help you win an arguement. Especially when your only in a discussion to begin with.

You took the time to reply to my specific question about why he wasnt answering specific questions. Would that effort not have been better used answering the points . Or do you realise its unworkable too and your just going to keep argueing the irrelevant stuff?

mathepac

dudara wrote: »

... how does this match up with your idea?

http://www.fitthebill.ie/

Thanks, you beat me to it. Rather more limited in scope but generally in the same ball park.

It has the "my shopping list" idea implemented with pricing. No idea who they are but generally a nice implementation of their more limited version of our ideas. Nice one.

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

... . Or do you realise its unworkable too and your just going to keep argueing the irrelevant stuff?

Ehhhm, that would be a resounding "no" to both questions from me and a a resounding "no" to both questions from them, so the "noes" have it then.

Guy:Incognito

mathepac wrote: »

Ehhhm, that would be a resounding "no" to both questions from me and a a resounding "no" to both questions from them, so the "noes" have it then.

So explain to us how a system where by every single retail shop in the whole country is required by law to have all their prices online and updated daily is functionanble.

Show your work, use a seperate sheet if necessary. Dont forget to explain how the small local shopkeeper (hitherto referred to as "ben") that cant afford to hire an extra member of staff to take on the extra work that wont give him any reward is going to cope. Should Ben give up sleeping at night and do the work then?

Bandana boy

skinny90 wrote: »

Tesco love

Your case study is very much out of date
Not sure if thats important for your exam but pretty much all the advantages Tesco was getting from their CRM have been negated by competitors and an educated customer base.
They had their worst year in 30 last year, profits are falling drastically and they sacked their CEO in the last few months.

skinny90

Bandana boy wrote: »

skinny90 wrote: »

Tesco love

Your case study is very much out of date
Not sure if thats important for your exam but pretty much all the advantages Tesco was getting from their CRM have been negated by competitors and an educated customer base.
They had their worst year in 30 last year, profits are falling drastically and they sacked their CEO in the last few months.

Agreed its out of date,but look at what tesco have vs dunnes and other competitors.a wide range of services ie tesco mobile,insurance etc.if you add in an effective CRM into all of that and integrate it all into a club card,it's gonna create a massive amount of revenue and customer loyalty,their still making huge profits aren't they?are the decreases not down to the 500m invested into price cuts?I can't find much more about it.have ya a link

mylastparadigm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

So explain to us how a system where by every single retail shop in the whole country is required by law to have all their prices online and updated daily is functionanble.

Show your work, use a seperate sheet if necessary. Dont forget to explain how the small local shopkeeper (hitherto referred to as "ben") that cant afford to hire an extra member of staff to take on the extra work that wont give him any reward is going to cope. Should Ben give up sleeping at night and do the work then?

So maybe the idea is impractical for Ben. A lot of those little shops dont even use a scanner at the til. so maybe it cant be done there. fair enough.

but in fairness, you are using an extreme example (with added sympathy for poor ben the shop keeper that has to stay up all night or his business will close and his family will starve... ;-) ) to hammer something that really would apply to major retailers who are not gonna be closed down because of it. infact in your opening paragraph you use the word whole, all, every which just shows you are using hard/extreme examples to back up your arguements. have you anything based on the mean? an average case example? that applies to most stores effected by the idea? thats why i think your examples/arguements are pedantic and i dismiss them easily. come up with something that applies to the mean case and you'll have my attention.

as the mod said and i made clear a few times, this is an idea at a formative stage. it is not perfect. but again, using extremes to invalidate it is easy, and easy to ignore.


so in an answer to your question, ben can rest easy for now. in the long term, increased competition due to the listing on accurate up to date prices online may force him out of business but thats the free market and thats acceptable, right?

mylastparadigm

Lorenzo Glamorous Bird wrote: »

Only a direct reply to comments made by yourself.:rolleyes: I note no reply to any of the issues raised. (And I'll leave the call on off topic or not to the Mods. You may report the posts to them if you consider them off topic.)

To reiterate: What aspect of the problems or flaws raised by the contributors here do you consider just bad grace? What solution to said issues do you imagine? What questions raised were pedantic?

This is all very much on topic, as it's your threads that are being replied to with no drift whatsoever from the underlying subject matter or what you have written. So, staying on topic: what did you want from the Opening Piece? I'm sorry if we mis-read it and thought, in error, that you wanted feedback or comments. I'd sincerely appreciate some clarification asto what exactly the point of throwing the notion out there was; if not for honest feedback.

oh, i got what i wanted alright. ;-)

mylastparadigm

dudara wrote: »

I just came across this site today - how does this match up with your idea?

http://www.fitthebill.ie/

looks like my idea is gone. :-/ awh.

okay its not live data but once weekly survey is a good start. that is more or less it. its a business though so they must be selling ads or something. fair play to them.

maybe ill check it out and we can see how much people save by using it.

mylastparadigm

mylastparadigm wrote: »

dudara wrote: »

I just came across this site today - how does this match up with your idea?

http://www.fitthebill.ie/[/QUOTElooks like my idea is gone. :-/ awh.

okay its not live data but once weekly survey is a good start. that is more or less it. its a business though so they must be selling ads or something. fair play to them.

maybe ill check it out and we can see how much people save by using it.

so i looked at that site. they survey prices on products once a week and have only about 1000 - 1500 products listed. they also include special offers as their actual price. no ads as far as i can see (they must be selling demographics and shopping preference data.) they dont do price tracking though. that would be interesting. although in fairness though, they blog about prices changing so they must monitor it on the back end. http://www.fitthebill.ie/node/44

differences from what i proposed -> no price tracking, no live price data, limited items (tesco claim to have over 20000 individual items per store). but in fairness its a good effort.

out of interest, the value to the customer of a site like this: i selected a couple of items in each category that might make up your shopping. totals came to 64,64,64,59 for the main four multiples. the one that was 59 actually was the best place to buy all but two of the common items. if you went to the other shop for the cheper items youd save another two euro. so worth about 10% of your shopping bill.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

If Tesco have 20000 items how do you expect daily updates on prices and to take account of what can be hourly offers? Also, do they have to record stock levels - as I often find items I want are out of stock in any one week.

How did you come up with 10% in your sample above?

Lets flesh out the points raised - it's a formative idea so that's what you do with such things. Do you have any idea of what size limit would be applied to the stores in this scheme? What would it cost to keep it updated? Any store can show a price of 1p for everything, as an advertised price is not binding so how would that be policed?

Come on, people are posing questions and it behoves you to flesh out the idea as a result.

Guy:Incognito

mylastparadigm wrote: »

So maybe the idea is impractical for Ben. A lot of those little shops dont even use a scanner at the til. so maybe it cant be done there. fair enough.

but in fairness, you are using an extreme example (with added sympathy for poor ben the shop keeper that has to stay up all night or his business will close and his family will starve... ;-) ) to hammer something that really would apply to major retailers who are not gonna be closed down because of it. infact in your opening paragraph you use the word whole, all, every which just shows you are using hard/extreme examples to back up your arguements. have you anything based on the mean? an average case example? that applies to most stores effected by the idea? thats why i think your examples/arguements are pedantic and i dismiss them easily. come up with something that applies to the mean case and you'll have my attention.

as the mod said and i made clear a few times, this is an idea at a formative stage. it is not perfect. but again, using extremes to invalidate it is easy, and easy to ignore.


so in an answer to your question, ben can rest easy for now. in the long term, increased competition due to the listing on accurate up to date prices online may force him out of business but thats the free market and thats acceptable, right?

It was your idea that every single shop in the country is forced by law to participate. Thats a fairly open and shut case. Whether the idea is at the formative stage or not it falls down right there. It's unworkable. There are hundreds or small shops all around the country, but even if theres only 1 that cant cope with the extra, thats the idea dead. Thats before you even think about the likes of Tesco and the sheer size of the operation for them.

Theres nothing wrong with a voluntary site for whoever wants to participate and thats all it ever should be.