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> If Amazon decided to enter the German supermarket landscape, Lidl (also, Aldi and others) would be in serious trouble. I doubt that since I think that Amazon

> If Amazon decided to enter the German supermarket landscape, Lidl (also, Aldi and others) would be in serious trouble. I doubt that since I think that Amazon's vision is very different from what many German customers want. Here is a (German) text of a German blogger who went to Amazon Books in the Empire State Building. His experience was not positive: > https://www.danisch.de/blog/2019/06/18/ein-seltsamer-einkauf/ https://www.danisch.de/blog/2019/06/18/ein-seltsamer-einkauf...

lstamour 6y ago
That’s not how prices work at Whole Foods, and that wasn’t my personal experience at the same store in January this year. Most items had e-ink price displays next to them so they could update but they were slow to update and so price updates were generally limited to once a day. In Whole Foods, they still use the usual printed price tags everywhere, though maybe locations vary. In Ontario, where I am, there’s a Retailer Code of Conduct that most grocery stores have signed up for which says if the price in the aisle is cheaper than the price at the register, you get the item for free if it’s under $10, or thereabouts. Also as a clarification, the in store demo Amazon Echo devices are set to a variety of names including Alexa and Amazon, which one to say where is printed on the product description tag I saw. They’re not spaced far enough apart though, occasionally “the wrong one” would answer me. I had a much nicer time shopping at an Amazon Go Store, though selection was limited and I had to edit my receipt later as it thought I’d bought a pop when I had only browsed for flavours.
yorwba 6y ago
To sum up: intransparent pricing that depends on your Prime customer status and may change after looking at an item, so you may end up paying more than expected.
bildung 6y ago
That wouldn't even be legal in Germany (and I guess the EU), pricing has to be clearly labelled, and additionally has to have a price per common unit if the package has a different size (e.g. a 3.5l bottle of detergent would show €/litre). I wonder why they don't just use e-ink price labels? These are common around here for a decade or so.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Ever been to any Rewe or Penny at Saturdays? They usually have the bright yellow "action price/Sonderangebot" signs on the shelves which are valid only from the following Monday. It's a real nuisance.
  - eru 6y ago
    It used to be even worse in Britain before the invasion of Aldi and Lidl really had an impact. They had lots of 'buy 5, pay 3' and similar nonsense deals. Often, the software in the register would "mysteriously" not have the deal, and you pay more. And, of course, a 50% reduction usually meant that they just doubled the price in the week before. Things got much better in the last ten years or so. That's roughly when Lidl and Aldi really started eating Tescos lunch.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
      That is really something which rubs me the wrong way. There is no (to my knowledge) comprehensive public place/site where one could see this price devolopment over time, visualize it, show the regional differences, by vendor, product, package size/amount/volume/weight/per piece, and so on. No transparency at all. IMO this should exist. But it doesn't. In german i'd say: Fortwährende Vortäuschung falscher Tatsachen! which translates roughly to 'sustained simulation of staged facts'.
      - eru 6y ago
        The thing is that British grocers got regularly fined (and talked to sternly) for these kinds of practiced. But they kept finding ways around the regulations or just ignoring them. What really helped in the end to rein the practice in was new competition from abroad. British retail banking is similarly customer unfriendly. For example a few years ago (no clue whether that's still the case), you could NOT not have an overdraft. They called it an 'unarranged overdraft'. Instead of just letting you tell the bank to refuse to let you got even a penny below zero, they still gave you the money (to an extent) but with a hefty fee. They also ordered your outgoing bills or standing orders for the day in decreasing size: that's the order that maximizes that number of items that hit your account when its below zero. They regularly got dinged by their regulators. Nothing much changed. This time the new competition didn't come from overseas, but from upstarts like Monzo. I don't know whether the incumbent British retail banks have gotten their act together yet. But last time I checked they were at least afraid and scrambling.
eru 6y ago
Amazon would have to enter the German retail market with a Germanized product.

lstamour 6y ago

That’s not how prices work at Whole Foods, and that wasn’t my personal experience at the same store in January this year. Most items had e-ink price displays next to them so they could update but they were slow to update and so price updates were generally limited to once a day. In Whole Foods, they still use the usual printed price tags everywhere, though maybe locations vary. In Ontario, where I am, there’s a Retailer Code of Conduct that most grocery stores have signed up for which says if the price in the aisle is cheaper than the price at the register, you get the item for free if it’s under $10, or thereabouts. Also as a clarification, the in store demo Amazon Echo devices are set to a variety of names including Alexa and Amazon, which one to say where is printed on the product description tag I saw. They’re not spaced far enough apart though, occasionally “the wrong one” would answer me. I had a much nicer time shopping at an Amazon Go Store, though selection was limited and I had to edit my receipt later as it thought I’d bought a pop when I had only browsed for flavours.

yorwba 6y ago

To sum up: intransparent pricing that depends on your Prime customer status and may change after looking at an item, so you may end up paying more than expected.

bildung 6y ago

That wouldn't even be legal in Germany (and I guess the EU), pricing has to be clearly labelled, and additionally has to have a price per common unit if the package has a different size (e.g. a 3.5l bottle of detergent would show €/litre). I wonder why they don't just use e-ink price labels? These are common around here for a decade or so.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Ever been to any Rewe or Penny at Saturdays? They usually have the bright yellow "action price/Sonderangebot" signs on the shelves which are valid only from the following Monday. It's a real nuisance.
- eru 6y ago
  It used to be even worse in Britain before the invasion of Aldi and Lidl really had an impact. They had lots of 'buy 5, pay 3' and similar nonsense deals. Often, the software in the register would "mysteriously" not have the deal, and you pay more. And, of course, a 50% reduction usually meant that they just doubled the price in the week before. Things got much better in the last ten years or so. That's roughly when Lidl and Aldi really started eating Tescos lunch.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    That is really something which rubs me the wrong way. There is no (to my knowledge) comprehensive public place/site where one could see this price devolopment over time, visualize it, show the regional differences, by vendor, product, package size/amount/volume/weight/per piece, and so on. No transparency at all. IMO this should exist. But it doesn't. In german i'd say: Fortwährende Vortäuschung falscher Tatsachen! which translates roughly to 'sustained simulation of staged facts'.
    - eru 6y ago
      The thing is that British grocers got regularly fined (and talked to sternly) for these kinds of practiced. But they kept finding ways around the regulations or just ignoring them. What really helped in the end to rein the practice in was new competition from abroad. British retail banking is similarly customer unfriendly. For example a few years ago (no clue whether that's still the case), you could NOT not have an overdraft. They called it an 'unarranged overdraft'. Instead of just letting you tell the bank to refuse to let you got even a penny below zero, they still gave you the money (to an extent) but with a hefty fee. They also ordered your outgoing bills or standing orders for the day in decreasing size: that's the order that maximizes that number of items that hit your account when its below zero. They regularly got dinged by their regulators. Nothing much changed. This time the new competition didn't come from overseas, but from upstarts like Monzo. I don't know whether the incumbent British retail banks have gotten their act together yet. But last time I checked they were at least afraid and scrambling.

eru 6y ago

Amazon would have to enter the German retail market with a Germanized product.