Using simple figures to laud the big boys misses the point

INDEPENDENT retailers will be waking up this morning wondering why the nation’s newest consumer champion so publicly championed the supermarket big boys yesterday.

Unveiling the National Consumer Agency’s (NCA) first survey of grocery prices, boss Ann Fitzgerald recommended shoppers give their business to supermarkets and then shop occasionally in convenience stores.

Why?

Because prices of popular branded groceries in convenience stores are up to 20% more expensive than those in supermarkets such as Dunnes, Tesco and Superquinn, according to the NCA.

In drawing comparison with supermarkets, no mention was made of better service standards in convenience stores, the importance of small stores to rural and suburban communities or indeed the “open all hours” culture of such shops.

Neither was there mention of how suppliers force higher costs onto convenience stores to make up the profits lost by selling produce in bulk and at low cost to supermarkets.

Ironically, the NCA’s survey was yesterday unveiled at Dublin’s Westbury Hotel, just minutes from the birthplace of legendary writer and wit Oscar Wilde.

“Cynics know the price of everything but the value of nothing,” Wilde once said.

And how right he was — yesterday’s NCA price survey was a perfect illustration of why the agency needs to look at the grocery trade “in the round” instead of just looking at prices.

The survey was limited to 58 brand name goods in 13 different stores, small and large. No fresh produce or own-label goods were included.

Most of the 58 groceries were available in the big three supermarkets but fewer in the smaller stores, undermining any view that small shops are always 20% more expensive for everything.

Fair enough, the NCA’s survey was a pilot ahead of a twice-yearly poll of prices, but in publishing the findings Ms Fitzgerald talked suggestively about the need for an overseas (British) supermarket chain to stir up competition.

But what this logic ignores is the fact that Britain’s and Ireland’s grocery markets are different — and for a reason.

And, as a British citizen, I can tell you that consumers here have the better deal by far — irrespective of surveys showing 20% different in costs.

Britain is largely urban, yet suffers ghost-town shopping arcades where small shops once thrived — all because supermarkets dominate the grocery market.

A case in point is Dudley, near Birmingham in the West Midlands, which by common consent had its heart ripped out when a massive shopping complex opened on the site of a former steelworks in nearby Brierley Hill.

By contrast, Ireland’s retail sector is a lot more varied with even the smallest community enjoying the sort of shops that would arguably be the envy of Britons.

If the NCA must tell us that we’re paying extra for this luxury then that’s fine.

But if it forgets that there’s more to life than money then we’ll all be paying a heavy price indeed.

lconsumerconnect.ie