Consumer, Grocery | Easter price war: Kiwis completely crushed by Rima 1000

(The newspaper onlineThe Kiwi has raised the prices of a number of commodities in the price war.

Nettavisen follows the Easter price war closely and checks prices regularly.

Checking prices on a Friday morning makes a lot of people gasp.

See the large overview below

-Free good red wine

The price differences are huge. For 25 “price war items,” the Kiwi is 43 percent more expensive than the Rema 1000.

The price of shopping baskets varies greatly:

• Rima 1000: 426.10 NOK
• Additional: NOK 502.60
• Kiwi: 611.30 Norwegian krone

“I thought this was interesting, and I don’t remember seeing anything close to this before,” says professor at the Norwegian School of Economics, Øystein Voros to Netavsen.

He puts it in perspective like this:

– If you buy these goods, you can take home a good bottle of red wine for free if you go to Rima instead of Kiwi, he says.

– The Kiwis made a mistake

The price difference between the two shopping carts is 185.20. In Nettavisen's large price checks, shopping baskets are usually worth around NOK 3,000, and there are usually no more than a few NOK among competitors.

– Here, the kiwi led to a sharp rise in prices. They made a mistake in their calculations. They must have thought that conscious customers and the media had taken Easter off. This is very surprising, Voros says.

Nettavisen also checked prices on Thursday. Kiwi has introduced this price from Thursday to Friday.

Gudbrandsdal cheese from Tina 500 grams

• From NOK 19.90 to NOK 51.00.

Cheese scribbles

• From NOK 14.70 to NOK 23.90

Omo color

• From NOK 21.50 to NOK 34.40

In addition, they prepare Gilde's Stjernebacon and Wiener sausages between 50-60 percent.

Bounty hunters on Easter weekend

“I think this is sad and dirty, people expect the price war to continue until Easter,” blogger Rune “Gjerrigknarken” Nicolaisen tells Nettavisen.

– Now I really think people should reach out to Rima, instead of Kiwi who has clearly given up, he says.

He has noticed several items that you should pay attention to now.

– There is a big difference in price between Vienna sausages and grilled sausages, so if you haven't bought them for Easter yet, you should do so now, he says.

He's surprised Kiwi raised prices.

-Maybe your bounty hunters took Easter off? He says.

Professor Öystein Forus is enthusiastic about the Kiwi explanation for the price jumps. As is known, the grocery chain bears the slogan “Kiwi never gives up on price” And “It's New Zealanders who pay the prices».

– They will likely lose money on many of these products. But taking this risk in the previous period is now a surprise. Kiwi never giving up on price is not right. They surrendered before Easter this year. He says there is not much pressure on prices in this regard.

Kiwi: – Stores entered the red zone

After Nettavisen informed Kiwi of the prices, the chain decided to take action.

– Why did you choose to set prices for so many items?

– Last week, there was a rough ride on prices with thousands of changes. Many items were sold at huge losses, and our stores suffered a complete loss, communications director Christine Arvin tells Nettavisen.

– Kiwi should be the cheapest, but at the same time we have a responsibility towards the stores and our employees. So you can't sell the goods at such a big loss over a long period of time, she says.

It says many prices have been adjusted from the offer price to what Kiwi refers to as the “regular price”. She claims other chains have done this as well, but Nettavisen doesn't have any documentation of that.

– You say that the kiwi raises prices, does that mean that you will also raise prices?

– No, we do everything we can to make prices as low as possible.

– Can you live with the high cost of many items?

Of course not, and therefore the relevant prices were adjusted this morning.

Kiwi sent a table to Nettavisen in which Kiwi reduced prices to the lowest among competitors.

In response to Gjerrigknarken's comment that Kiwi's pricing was deceptive and depressing, the Communications Director said the following:

– All Kiwi promotional prices continue until Easter, as announced. We have not modified any seasonal products for Easter.

More requires price control

Rima 1000’s comment on the price check is as follows:

– The customer must be confident that he will always receive the cheapest shopping basket with us, throughout the country and throughout the year, and therefore of course also on the Easter basket, category and purchasing manager for Rema 1000, from Line Aarnes to Nettavisen.

– Can customers be sure that the offers will continue until Easter?

– Unfortunately, we can't say anything about future prices because that would be a breach of competition law, but customers should be confident that they will get the cheapest shopping basket at Rema 1000, says Arnes.

The add-ons are also clearly more expensive than Rema in this price check.

– The Extra series will remain the cheapest series, as we were in Nettavisen's recent big price test, and prices have already been adjusted, says Communications Director Harald Kristiansen.

We see that prices came at different times, and with the harsh price war going on now, this helps influence the outcome, he says.

Nettavisen pricing overview

These are the prices checked on Friday morning. The first price was verified at 9:20 and the last at 10:09 AM