Comments on: Big Groceries and Big Petrol meet Big Airline

By: Phil Chappell

Phil Chappell — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

A correction to the mistaken comment about Fly Buys in the article. That scheme is owned by the Coles Myer Group that DO confine a shopper’s choice to stores owned/franchised by them. That’s what Woolworths are competing against. I have no idea of the success of Fly Buys, but judging by the question “Fly Buys?” every time I shop at Coles, or Target, or Liquorland, or a petrol station with Coles Express……….., it must have a significant number of members. It would be good to see the retail price calculations for products from these stores to see just how much we pay to support these schemes. I remember using a Coles docket once after filling up the tank and got enough of a discount to buy the Saturday newspaper! The material benefits to the consumer are neglible; to the retail super-giants they must be immense.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I think the conspiracy is a tad more prosaic than that. Woolies would have you believe that their nobility is such that they will offer you a few cents of at participating petrol stations with no impact on the actual price of groceries. If this BS is to be believed outside the strictly formal terms of BS which is allowable by the ACCC, Woolies is giving you petrol for free. Now, presumably, Woolies would also like to give you QANTAS perks for free although they are on a bit stronger wicket there because no-one can actually redeem a QANTAS frequent flyer point who is not free to travel seven tuesdays in advance.

The churlish amongst us believe that all these cross subsidization deals amount to the bundling of traditionally seperate comodities, which obscured the simple task of finding what is a fair price for any one of them alone. I do not want to have to trade off my grocery bill against some notional benefit as an airline traveler or motorist. Furthermore, I want to be able to buy groceries at a price which has not been inflated by the assumption that I will redeem some of the excess profits at a second business. But, as you indicate, the ACCC is likely to remain supine on this given the size of the companies involved.

By: RWilson

RWilson — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

So why shouldn’t two fo the largest users of crude oil get together?
75% of the the things you buy in a supermarket a based on petroleum (crude oil) - from plastic bags, containers and utensils to shampoo and cleaning products, to cosmetics and pharma to well….faux cream and other food products as additives?
If people only knew that they are being sold crude oil in every imaginable derivation they would fly out of these petroleum based mall-housed mausoleums and into the arms of the struggling local corner shop who sells the brands that can no longer get onto the shelves of the main supers - is it because they are not petroleum - based? This scam started when the powers that be decided in the early 60’s that the world’s currency was going to be crude oil and then successfully convinced the sellers of crude oil to accept only US dollars for it, and the rest of the world to pay for it in US dollars. Of course two countries wouldnt go along and latterly a couple more …..You guessed it - Iraq and Iran and recently Venezuela and Russia

So I say why not Qantas get together with Woolwoirths - if you open your eyes you arel able to see what is going on and hopefully make choices about what you want to do about it. Frequent flyer points by the way are 20th century. That whole scam is a dead duck and should be binned forthwith.. Every frequent flyer can tell you that!