Target plans to cut prices on thousands of consumer basics this summer, from diapers to milk, as inflation cuts into household budgets and more Americans pay closer attention to their spending.
The price cuts, already applied to 1,500 items, will eventually include 5,000 food, drink and essential household goods. Target and other retailers are increasingly catering to customers who are struggling with higher prices for groceries, though inflation has begun to cool. Many of them have switched to private label brands sold by Target and others big retailers, which are typically less expensive than well-known brands.
Target launched one such collection in January called Dealworthy which includes nearly 400 basic items, ranging from clothing to electronics, that can cost less than $1, with most items under $10.
Last week, McDonald’s said that it was planning to introduce a $5 meal deal in the U.S. next month to counter slowing sales and customer frustration with higher prices. Walmart posted strong quarterly sales last week driven by a influx of customers, including households with incomes of more than $100,000, looking for bargains.
If this was caused by actual inflation, Target wouldn’t be able to just lower prices on 5,000 items just because we’re struggling to survive. This isn’t inflation. This is unchecked capitalist greed.
Edit. Fix autocorrect.
no it’s never that, just blame the fed for printing money!
I love how the only point of companies now is to get infinite growth with whatever product they have
I mean, it’s both, among other things.
Target would absolutely love to charge $1000 for a carton of eggs, and would if they could, but they can’t. There has always been some ceiling price past which most consumers will simply walk away and go somewhere else. What exactly that number is depends firstly on the actual cost of getting the item in the first place, since no store will sell an item at a loss (unless they expect that to drive greater returns elsewhere), but then on how much money people actually have available to spend, and that very much is influenced by how much money the Fed is printing, among plenty of other things.
My point here isn’t that corporate greed isn’t a factor, but it’s not a new factor. It’s not like corporations were feeling generous in 2019 and then got in a greedy mood in 2021. They always have and always will charge as much as people are willing to pay, so any changes to what they’re charging should be examined by looking at what other factors might be at play. In this case, they’ve probably realized that they’ve gotten past the point of driving too many customers away.
Obviously corporate PR will never come out and say “We’re being greedy because fuck you, but we got a little too greedy so please come back”, but that is and always has been the dynamic.
That makes it sound suspiciously like they (and everyone else) were price gouging.
Hmm…
Target launched one such collection in January called Dealworthy which includes nearly 400 basic items, ranging from clothing to electronics, that can cost less than $1, with most items under $10.
So are they really cutting prices, or are they hiking them until it hurts and then introduce a “new brand” of the same stuff in a different box, just with less markup?
Raise the price on everything, rake in profits till they can’t squeeze any more blood out of the stone, then launch their in house brands as loss leaders to gain market share before slowly raises prices to be where name brand was…
A tale as old as unchecked rampant capitalism with zero regulation
This is probably partially true but just to note that there’s a lot of factors at play here. Since prices have risen on all items, what is more likely is that the prices are due to manufacturing companies raising them.
We know that’s true from the government reports, so what target is doing here makes sense. Their volume has become low enough that their margin isn’t making them money. Which is why they increased prices in the first place to try and maintain that margin. Now they want to increase volume on their own products which have higher margin (they don’t have to share) so the prices are guaranteed to be lower.
This is what we expect of late stage capitalism where most of the grocery store is effectively owned by a small handful of companies (J&J,P&G,General Mills, Tyson, etc.) and the only people able to compete with them are the grocery stores themselves.
The budget options still aren’t there to help you, but these options will represent the bottom of the market. And since they rely on the consumer choosing the value brand instead, they need to have volume of sales to work. And as we know, that means these products will always be nearer to the cheapest possible price.
Last note is important: if you observe that even the discount brand prices are beginning to become unaffordable for you and you represent an average consumer, your economy is already failing
Why are we posting corporate advertising in News now?
…which means they were intentionally overpriced to begin with.
Way to bury the lede, AP.
Government enforced lockdowns disrupted production of various goods and destroyed global supply lines by preventing people from working. Prices rose because of market volatility and scarcity, oh, and massive amounts of money printing.
COVID disrupted production, or more so many companies expected decreased demand so they adjusted production down but work from home actually caused an excess demand and the market couldn’t adjust. That was true for some goods, not all. Companies noticed that despite the higher prices on disrupted goods, demand didn’t drop, so they used inflation as an excuse to raise prices across the board.
