I am talking about home branded products marching their way through the isles of our two biggest grocery retailers (they shall remain nameless for the purpose of this post lol).
Complacency brings us short term gains in slightly cheaper products and obviously increased profits for the retailers involved.
Long term issues as I see it are ...
# prices will increase and product range/competition will decline as brand producers go to the wall or succumb to buyouts from retailers
# many of the competition advantages to the nation/population of having varied productive capacity and significant employment in the industry will be lost and channelled to increased corporate profits for the aggresive few
I am concerned that our consumer and competition watchdogs are making short term decisions in response subtle, long term plans from a few patient retailers.
If things continue, a decade from now it may be too big a problem to resolve.
