There are economies of scale for retail also.
For transportation, the principle involves unit costs reduction derived from larger modes (e.g. megaships), terminals, and distribution centers; the massification of transportation. For consumption, larger retail outlets tend to reduce input costs, underlining the success of large megastore chains such as Wal-Mart.
That article doesn’t explain enough.
How would you get lower prices with fewer firms? One would expect the opposite.
I can imagine an Amazon-Walmart type of price war.
Of products we don’t need/want
In that case why not have the Taiwanese government enter the retail business? Single payer.
Also this acquisition does not mean that there will be any consolidation in terms of retail footprint. If the number of stores remain the same, then nothing has really changed transportation wise. If the number of stores say remain at 50, suppliers will still have to deliver to 50 stores. You cited Walmart, and of course that makes sense. Walmart stores are HUGE, i.e. they are like consolidated stores, but I haven’t yet seen Uni saying anything like we are going to close stores A + B + C and instead we’ll create this gigantic store D that will offer lower prices. Even if that happens, it will still be a loss for some customers because for customers that used to live near A, they’ll now have to travel to store D that’s further away.
They actually have/had supermarkets. They’re cheaper. I had one in my area, didn’t go there for while. So I don’t know if they’re still there. They started out as stores for military and government employees but than allowed the general public. Bare bones stores tho.
I currently do most of my grocery shopping at Carrefour. If it comes to that, then I’ll have to stop.
A state owned supermarket is not strange. Wasn’t everything in the Soviet Union owned by the state? And no, I am not saying Taiwan should emulate the Soviet Union, just saying the concept is not new.
What??? The government has no business being in retail.
It’s now one company paying for the shipping instead of two.
Why does that matter. Why is it cheaper for the supplier? And now we are back to the single payer model. Why not make everything a monopoly since it’s so awesome.
Actually the argument could be made that the government shouldn’t be anywhere in the private sector. But most people here would agree for example that the Taiwanese government runs a pretty awesome health system.
In the home country there is a discount chain store that actually halted buying some brands/products until they got the price they thought would be acceptable, so manufacturers/suppliers are not always golden.
For sure better than the monstrous amount people pay in the US and even with health insurance can go bankrupt.
This discussion is completely off the rails.
Its not always bad. My home country also had stores for soldiers, now they run a very powerful consumer club and even their own credit card: gets soldiers and police officers big discounts on many products.
No it’s not.
So is really Carrefour closing in Taiwan? Sounds stupid to even say (or type) out loud considering how massive their market share is.
Sold to the fake food empire. It’s looking more and more like they are going to do nothing with it, it’s probably such a cash cow, why would they?
So it’s just changing ownership and will be organizationally separate from Carrefour Europe? If so that might mean we will lose all the French products that Carrefour stocks- not that’ll miss them.
Don’t know if it’s a Mos burger type deal or not. I haven’t seen anything on it in the Taiwanese English news since it was announced. Lazy local media should have asked these questions three months ago when it was announced.