Issue #936

by Paul Taylor

Back when my wife was pregnant with our first child, we moved out of our fun-loving shared accommodation and into a we-are-a-family-now rental.

The nesting urge hit strong so we went to Briscoes, in Invercargill, to buy some bedding, towels and the rest. There was a 50% sale on. I don’t like spending money so I was delighted and happy to fill two trolleys full of goods, to take advantage of this incredible offer. My wife was also delighted. It was only when we were about halfway home, with me basking in a post-bargain glow, she admitted, under her breath, that “Briscoes pretty much always has a 50% sale on”. The dark arts of marriage and retail combine.

While nowadays we’re becoming more savvy about Black Friday sales and the rest, when it comes to the weekly shop, it turns out you’ve got to be absolutely on top of your game to ensure you’re not the fool being easily parted from his money. Last week, Consumer NZ revealed they’d had more than 600 complaints about so-called supermarket specials which were misleading, including many where the goods were more expensive than normal. The Commerce Commission is investigating. And that’s before you even get into the faux discounts of loyalty cards. Consumer NZ, again, analysed the prices of 50 products with a Onecard (Countdown) or Clubcard (New World) discount. Three quarters were available for a lower price elsewhere.

Even with the ‘discounts’, groceries and essentials are expensive. It seems Kiwis are getting shafted over everything - food, petrol, interest rates, house prices, cars. We seem to pay more here than the Aussies, Brits and definitely the Americans for almost everything. Yes, there’s the whole import / distance thing. NZ is remote and Queenstown is a drive from anywhere - but you’d think at least beef, diary, lamb and venison would be super cheap, as we have massive domestic primary industries. Our food production is so efficient and population so small, we’re the second best place in the world to survive a nuclear winter, super volcano or asteroid strike, according to a 2023 study.

Unfortunately, our big supermarkets are a duopoly. They’re all owned by just two companies - Woolworths and Foodstuffs, and that does not particularly encourage competitive pricing. In a cost of living crisis, you still can’t go super cheap, by going to the likes of Lidl or Aldi, like you can overseas. So, what can we do? Not much. We can’t exactly boycott them, because there’s nowhere else to go. The local owners and the staff are also good people, part of our community, so we don’t want to take it out on them. We can only push for government intervention, to introduce another retail giant into the mix, or several. We need someone to ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’.