I have been to a Walmart in Germany back then, out of sheer curiosity. Let me tell you, it was definitely not just the price that was the problem. The whole shop screamed "We were to lazy to even think about German shoppers being different from American ones".
A Costco moved in down the road from us (Australia ) and we signed up - have had a membership in the past at one much further away but thought we should give it another go.
Won't be renewing, we decided we just aren't Costco people. It's so inefficient and backwards and has that Americanness that just doesn't suit us and I bet a lot of other Aussies.
Sure it's not dying off here, but I totally get what you mean.
Meanwhile, Germans still go out of their way to shop in Czech/Polish border towns. Although these days I guess that's mostly for cigarettes, alcohol, cheap restaurant meals, and haircuts.
Grocery store prices do not vary significantly across German federate states. The main part of cost of living differences comes from housing prices. Restaurant prices vary more than grocery store prices too.
Speaking as an Austrian, German groceries are absurdly cheap in north Germany and still cheaper in the south than in the surrounding countries. The store chains say that it's because Germany is such a big market that they can offer anything cheaper.
It is also because of predatory business praxis. A typically thing for Aldi & co. to do is making good contracts with farmers, make them invest in an expansion, and then renegotiate the prices at a point the farmers are operate without any profit or even at loss. But since they have expanded, they can only deal with the supermarkets, who are able to buy these quantities.
Probably we just pay the hidden price through farming subsidies.
Yeah we have a grocery delivery business here in the Netherlands that has really low prices and I've heard it's because they ship in a lot of the food directly from Germany. Kind of insane to me that it's cheaper to cart in food from another country than it is to just get it here.
No, not really. The problem isn't that he's wrong. He just basically did this out of nowhere, without any reason or any conclusion. He basically did "Hello everyone, just wanted to let you know that you're fucked, have a nice day, good bye."