Talk:Supermarket/Archives/2016

"Criticisms"

Someone that has a basic understand of economics and how the world works needs to edit or remove this section. Selling products at lower prices means consumers have to spend less to get the same or more, and also may spend their resources on alternative desires. Smaller is not inherently better, and certainly not when it involves beggaring consumers. Note the cited study dates from 1967, which is not entirely optimal here. Slotting fees are not inherently "reflected in the cost in the cost of the products offered, at least not negatively. If slotting did not increase the volume of products sold, it would not occur, as such this gives the manufacturer greater ability to lower per-unit costs, and pass the savings onto the consumer, thereby increasing market share, and profits. "Squeezing prices" is portrayed negatively. These are weasel words, appealing to emotion, not reason. "Squeezing prices," to the layman, sounds bad. But more efficient modes of production, increased productivity, create wealth. One who opposes "squeezing prices," despite their intentions, are supporting waste, and giving privileges to a minority while hurting a majority, the latter who have much less incentive to oppose rent-seeking than the rent-seekers. Forcing small shops out of business, see above. Favouring imports over British goods is utterly value-neutral in and of itself. Division of labour is widely understood; if not, read Adam Smith, because the relations and nature between domestic and international production was known before 1776. Mark-ups, unless due to a government-granted monopoly, are irrelevant in and of themselves. A mark-up may or may not include the costs of production and acquisition, payroll, fixed overhead, or a "small" or "large" profit. If economic profit can exist (and it always does, perfect competition can't exist), then any mark-up that creates a return on investment greater than other opportunities will signal to investors that they too should fund the construction and operation of a supermarket. This, of course, is competition. And competition, of course, lowers prices. If one wishes to allow for competition, the closest approximation to a condition allowing for the full operation for the Coase Theorem must be created, which means regulations, tax policy, etc. must be repealed, reformed to eliminate or minimize market distortions, etc. Arbitrarily capping a mark-up will only cause existing supermarkets to stagnate, as more appealing investment opportunities will be readily available, and will also tend to prevent new market entrants from coming into being, and therefore tend to increase prices to consumers. Capping mark-ups will only create artificial monopolies and by doing so extract monopoly rents from consumers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.162.33.175 (talk) 05:29, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I trimmed back the section, keeping the useful references but deleting the unencyclopedic anecdotes. Hope this helps. —Patrug (talk) 21:37, 24 November 2016 (UTC)