Microwave combi oven and grill

[Pursuivant]

Which countries healthcare system you would rather trust your life with?
UK or Finnish?

How about Swedish?

[Karhunkoski]

Lidl & Specsavers is just about big chain from abroad trying to grab marketshare so they even might sell at loss

Thus, Lidl pays for everything it buys little less, enabling them to move some of them mass purchased junk to Finland for cheaper and still make some profit.

But your confusion does remind me to make these points:

- Lidl products that are sold throughout Europe - Lidl sells these products for a higher price in Finland than it does in most other European markets.
- Distribution is a relatively small part of product cost. As an example for any products imported to Finland: You can move 20 tonnes of frozen product (I took the most expensive example), from one end of Europe to the other for a couple of thousand euros. That's about 5 cents on a bag of oven chips. If you move tins or some other ambient temperature product, then the cost is half that.
- It's highly unlikely that Lidl makes a loss in its Finnish stores. More likley it looks that its price positioning strategy is "somewhere below S and K Groups, but not too much lower". As to whether Lidl declares a profit is something different, and depends how aggresively it reinvests in its operations. Maybe Lidl invests heavily, runs a good chunk of debt, and avoids oodles of tax.

Lidl can order crap fow WHOLE @#$% CHAIN TO GET LOWER PRICES.
K&S-chains, even when buying for whole chain, can never get that high bulks.

You're on the right lines with the buying power thing, however after a certain point, bulk-buying power has a diminishing benefit. Buy one brick for a euro, buy a thousand bricks and it's 50 cents a brick. Buy 100,000 bricks, and it's still 49,999999999223 cents per brick. Buying for a market of 2.5 million mouths should be enough to achieve the bulk of discounts available on main product lines. Niche products are of course a different story (as that brainless tart in Hank's youtube video clearly demonstrated).



I use Lidl sometimes, but only for some products. Much of what they sell is cheap carp (e.g. their frozen processed products), but there are still some great products there, assuming they're in stock. Not least the bratwurst/rostwurst type products - these are far superior to any of the Finnish traditional sausage offering. Interestingly, it seems that the S Group is now expanding its sausage range to include more foreign-type options, which is certainly goods news.

[Pursuivant]

They should make a deal with the Estonians, they make some decent "raw" sausage.

[Tiwaz]

Lidl & Specsavers is just about big chain from abroad trying to grab marketshare so they even might sell at loss

Thus, Lidl pays for everything it buys little less, enabling them to move some of them mass purchased junk to Finland for cheaper and still make some profit.

But your confusion does remind me to make these points:

There is really no confusion. Are you aware for example that many stores sell coffee at loss?
They are used to lure in customers to buy things which actually have some profit margin.

Same works for Lidl. Sell things for loss so that crap you have mass purchased for whole chain will make up the difference.

- Distribution is a relatively small part of product cost. As an example for any products imported to Finland: You can move 20 tonnes of frozen product (I took the most expensive example), from one end of Europe to the other for a couple of thousand euros. That's about 5 cents on a bag of oven chips. If you move tins or some other ambient temperature product, then the cost is half that.

You forget that there are also issues of storage. Lidl can take advantage of cheaper storage space in other countries along with it's bulk purchases.

You're on the right lines with the buying power thing, however after a certain point, bulk-buying power has a diminishing benefit. Buy one brick for a euro, buy a thousand bricks and it's 50 cents a brick. Buy 100,000 bricks, and it's still 49,999999999223 cents per brick. Buying for a market of 2.5 million mouths should be enough to achieve the bulk of discounts available on main product lines. Niche products are of course a different story (as that brainless tart in Hank's youtube video clearly demonstrated).

Except you cannot purchase same crap for 2,5 million mouths. One likes his bread from one brand, another one from different. Thus, your purchases volume goes down as variety increases.

And volumes which Lidl can purchase tend to give it benefit. That 0,0000000xxx777 cents starts to count when you speak of chain which deals in sufficiently large quantities.

It is surprising how much money fractions of cents make in volumes.


Either way, fact remains that taking UK or other totally different society with demographics and geography which is completely different, or market chain like Lidl which by itself runs bigger amount of business all over Europe than all Finnish domestic chains combined is flat out stupid.

[Rosamunda]

Given the negative remarks that many Finns (and non-Finns) make about Lidl, I was wondering if they feel the same way about shopping in Hemtex, Indiska, H&M, even Ikea etc which are all based on a very similar business model to Lidl: importing masses of cheap products from abroad (often exploiting cheap labour in Asia), selling in cookie-cutter retail outlets with a skeleton workforce (almost no local overheads) etc

Personally I have fewer qualms about shopping in Lidl (which actually does sell some Finnish produce) than I do about purchasing clothes from H&M or Indiska where I have an eerie feeling that I might be buying something made by a 7-year old in a sweatshop in India or China.

[Karhunkoski]

There is really no confusion. Are you aware for example that many stores sell coffee at loss?

Yes I do, in fact I know more about retail pricing strategies than most.

You forget that there are also issues of storage. Lidl can take advantage of cheaper storage space in other countries along with it's bulk purchases.

I omitted to talk about storage because it's relatively negligible in a FMCG business environment. The whole idea is that you don't hold much stock of anything.

Except you cannot purchase same crap for 2,5 million mouths. One likes his bread from one brand, another one from different. Thus, your purchases volume goes down as variety increases.

Of course everyone eats differently and this same appetite for different tastes is equally applicable everywhere. Nobody said this wasn't the case.

And volumes which Lidl can purchase tend to give it benefit. That 0,0000000xxx777 cents starts to count when you speak of chain which deals in sufficiently large quantities.

It is surprising how much money fractions of cents make in volumes.

Really? In my example you would have to buy over 1 billion bricks to achieve a "bulk buy" discount of 1 cent? I admire your optimistic approach to Lutheran thriftiness, but lets bring some realism in here?

Either way, fact remains that taking UK or other totally different society with demographics and geography which is completely different, or market chain like Lidl which by itself runs bigger amount of business all over Europe than all Finnish domestic chains combined is flat out stupid.

Um, I'm certainly not comparing the Finnish market to the UK at all, they're two totally different animals. My points were simply looking at the Finnish grocery market, which despite having a decent range of reasonable quality products, does lack price competition. Personally, I don't really mind as there are bigger things in the world to worry about. But that doesn't change the facts.

[Rick1]

Good point Penelope I am glad that there comes some competition like Lidl since I do not want to spend all my time chasing offers, just want to have reasonable prices the whole year.

[Karhunkoski]

Pen

[Upphew]

As to whether Lidl declares a profit is something different, and depends how aggresively it reinvests in its operations. Maybe Lidl invests heavily, runs a good chunk of debt, and avoids oodles of tax.

As Lidl is Ky, they don't have to, publicly, declare anything. On the other hand, I wouldn't like to be the person in Lidl ky that is personally liable for the debts...

Personally I have fewer qualms about shopping in Lidl (which actually does sell some Finnish produce) than I do about purchasing clothes from H&M or Indiska where I have an eerie feeling that I might be buying something made by a 7-year old in a sweatshop in India or China.

Personally I prefer that the kids work at sweatshop instead of sexshop. And by sexshop I mean a shop selling sex, not toys.

[Rip]

On the other hand, I wouldn't like to be the person in Lidl ky that is personally liable for the debts...

I believe that person is called "Lidl Holding Oy"