A member of my family is the financial manager of a large food manufacturing company. About a year ago, she informed me that Woolies in Weipa was making the company she works for, foot the bill for freight to Weipa. So I'd just like to know the other excuse for the prices we have to pay for food in Weipa.
Does Woolies really have this kind of pull?
You bet it does.
Paul Clitheroe wrote an article that said Woolies sales figures for the December quarter showed first half sales were up almost 16 per cent to $22.1 billion. To improve your sales by 16 per cent when you're a small company on the way up is good work, but to continue to grow sales by 16 per cent when you're the country's biggest retailer is quite astounding.
Clitheroe goes on to say that there are reservations about the culture of Woolworths that are a little harder to measure. These can be broken down into a few key areas that are relevant to us:
1. The buying power that comes with being a giant enables Woolworths to really throw its weight around with suppliers. The end result is lower prices for consumers (really!!! - Top Dog) and higher dividends for investors, but in the process it has on occasion been absolutely ruthless and quite anti-competitive.
2. Woolworths has displayed plenty of arrogance when it comes to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Trade Practices Act. Twice it has been caught out in blatantly anti-competitive activities and both times it has fought the charges to the limit of the law and, even then, effectively claimed the law was wrong. Not nice.
3. It's unlimited growth ambitions are nice for investors, but you might wonder about how healthy it is for our society overall to suffer a loss of diversity in retailers across just about every facet of retailing. The expansion in selling petrol is a foretaste of what Woolworths would like to do in pharmacies and most other fields where dollars are exchanged for goods at the retail level.
That last point is interesting in so far that it brings attention to the ambitions of investors who own the company and the social responsibility to the communities in which the company operates.
Sounds a little like mining companies doesn't it?
Don't get me wrong Woolies (and RIO) are a great investment for those who hold shares in them. The stock has consistently trended upwards for the best part of a decade. A $10,000 Woolworths (ASX: WOW) investment in March 1998 would have yielded $56,000 today. The same investment in RIO would have yielded about $66,000. But before the RIO share boom $10,000 in RIO made you $38,000 by March 2007 - the same cash made you $48,000 in Woolworths. So we're not talking about a pissy little fruit and vege store here.
Again - and I know this sounds like I'm a whingeing prick who bangs on about this stuff - I don't mind these companies making money ... just be a little more ethical you bastards.
2 comments:
Hey have you ever tried to deal with these guys as in taking things back? They are so rude!
I welcome any competition for them.
Naps fruit and vege has gone down hill.
The chemist is bloody good and cheaper.
And buy your stationary from the newsagent or post office.
Buy your bread from the baker.
Buy your meat from the butcher or order form Cairns.
Order decent quality presents over the internet and tell the birthday kids there birthday presents are in the mail!
I DO NOT give Woollies any more than need be.
Complained on Woolies Website about lack of customer service, prices, and quality of food. Head guy of this area tried contacting me about 6 times before getting hold of me...Said only about 4 complaints have ever been lodged and explained why Woolies does everything, etc.. Said to speak to Store Mgr directly about certain complaints...
So if everyone who has a complaint about Woolies or other companies in Weipa, complain directy to them and a lot of the times people will listen..
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