"a minor discrepancy"
Man do I wish I could label $10 million as a "minor discrepancy" in my accounting !
Asda, the UK's third largest retailer, discovered a multi-million pound discrepancy between its distribution system and SAP ERP tech installed earlier this year, according to an internal "major incident" report seen by The Register. Asda migrated from the legacy SAP system run by former owner Walmart to a new instance of S/ …
> My local co-op has just had to order more shopping baskets, because the shoplifters steal the baskets to transport their stolen food.
I'm calling bullshit on this. I shop in a Co-Op every day, how the hell do you walk out past the security guard with a shopping basket under your jacket?
My lodger, who is a security guard, also says you're talking shite.
@IronGut
At neither of my 2 nearest co-ops is there a security guard.
In fact very few stores, whatever the retailer, in the 2 nearest towns to me have a security guard
(none of my regular stores do, a couple I visit occasionally do, not aware of any beyond those 2 with guards ).
So maybe your assumption that every store has security guard(s) is based on your local stores but does not extrapolate to all stores around the UK.
Speaking to an Aldi manger last year about why they now had a security guard, he told me it's head office decision based on number and types of thefts and weighted by assaults (physical and verbal) on staff. So yeah, it depends where you are. I travel a lot and often stop off at a supermarket[*] for a sandwich/pie/pasty/whatever and have noticed large town/city branches almost always have security at the front entrance whereas the more rural ones, small market towns etc, don't, even though the shop is just as big. Not always, but seems to be a good rule of thumb.
* hey, I know, but easy to find and free parking and I'd rather spend my break relaxing, not wandering around a strange town trying to find a decent sandwich shop or bakers. Supermarket fare is usually "good enough" :-)
Both Lidl and Sainsbury's here have tightened their security recently. The Lidl isn't huge, but doesn't have the double entry/exit doors that they commonly have. Lidl added a security guard a while back. Sainsbury has just added automatic gates, and has had security guards for years.
I can see people stealing the basket occasionally. Probably those using distraction - someone kicks off, they nip out the door with the unpaid basket. Trolleys disperse themselves all the time, and they're way bigger!
If your Co-Op has a security guard, that means they think that without that guard they'll lose more than in theft than it costs to employ that guard. Or staff will face violence that they need a professional to deal with immediately.
In less theft-prone areas of the country, these aren't required.
Average store turnover is ~100-200k per week, depending on size and location obviously. 10k loss = 5% is a large over-estimate even for the largest stores. They call it “retail shrinkage” which includes all discrepancies - customer theft; employee & logistics chain theft (traditionally higher than customer theft, they’d prefer you didn’t know that); returns fraud; breakage; admin errors. And you’re looking at 1.5%ish for that total. Of course, that average will include some stores supporting a one-man crime wave.
Soon to be the DWP solution given Sturmer has given them control of investigations, only a matter of time before he hands them the full police powers they have been lobbying hard for....
(After that the CPS will be cut out and then specialist "benefit fraud courts" staffed of course by those handpicked by the DWP, the govt has of course learned from the horizon scandal....this time they will make sure no one can prove they aren't guilty....)
The article does not say whether the mismatch, or discrepancy, favoured the company, or would count as a loss.
Would you be so quick to suggest that amount (which doesn't actually exist, either way) should be docked from the employees if it was a write-down?
It is only relevant to the accountants who have to sign off on the company's annual accounts. So they can offer a true report.
The company is drowning in debt, the idiot brothers who bought it are having some sort of family feud, the asset strippers (TDR) have majority control now and they can't recruit a CEO regardless of how much money is on offer.
They've had to get the 75 year old (mainly retired) ex-CEO of M&S to take over from moron #1 (Mohsin Issa) on a temporary basis until someone can be persuaded to be the whipping boy (CEO). Issa can't be left in charge because he's clueless.
If anyone has been in one of their larger supermarkets then they can't have failed to notice the epically long queues at the self-scan checkouts and perhaps one in ten tills actually open (but often broken - card readers). Add to that the chaotic supply of product to the shop floor, not very attractive pricing (in-store & fuel station) and they're fucked for the busiest time of the year.
That's what you get when two idiots borrow shitloads of money from asset strippers to buy a business they know ZERO about. If Walmart couldn't make a decent return on capital with Asda over three decades then two wide boys were always going to crash and burn.
Indeed. Look at the pig's ear Sainsburys made when the morons bought Argos. Within a few short years they'd closed most of the Argos stores, the in-Sainsbury kiosks never properly took off because Sainsbury knew jack shit about the need to have stock available on the day, something Argos were very good at.
Argos were close to being a capable Amazon competitor, after Bungleburys took charge they're now just a faded brand that offers nothing.
Loading debt onto a company that's been well-run before you buy it, can be a very successful strategy. Not for the company mind, but for you. You burn the fat, and a bit of the muscle, that the previous management had built up, use profits, maintenance budget and money for future investment to pay off the most expensive of the debt - and then sell the remains onto someone else saying how profitable it is and how you've "turned the company around". They then get the problem of dealing with all the systems that are now creaking due to lack of maintenance/investment - and the probably very low staff morale and high staff turnover.
The problem is that I think Walmart had been disappointed in their Asda purchase - and rather than investing in it to have a go at dominating the market (like they do in the US) - I think they just decided to run it for profit until they could find a buyer to dump it on. So there probably wasn't much to cut. Worse, the IT was probably quite good, because Walmare were just using their own US systems - but building an entirely new IT system from scratch is basically a nightmare for retail.
The IT outsourcing fuckup was what knocked Sainsbury's off the top spot in the 90s, and left Tesco as top dog. Sainsbury's outsourcing was so bad, that only two years after they had to bring the whole thing back in house again - a friend was working for Computer Associates at the time and his colleague made his year's sales target (4 times over) in Q1 by just on Sainsbury's.
Retail chains are like banks. They live and die by their IT. But management probably spend most of their time thinking about their product offer - and senior management either come from store operations, buying or finance. IT is tacked on, and too often outsourced. When I worked for a medium retail chain our entire POS and stock control mainframe team were contractors. We had literally no in-house knowledge of our most vital systems. Our MDs were a buyer (very good) and a finance guy we hired in from Tesco (not so good).
> “Retail chains are like banks. They live and die by their IT. But management probably spend most of their time thinking about their product offer - and senior management either come from store operations, buying or finance. IT is tacked on, and too often outsourced.”
I forget when it was observed that the major supermarkets were effectively banks with a retail operation, due to them using the (retail) revenues to play the overnight markets and operate banking services (the interest on your savings account was effectively a slice of the profits from the tills).
Then things progressed and at some point it was stated most businesses were IT operations with a xyz banking/retail operation attached. As you note few in management appreciate the shift and still think IT merely supports the business rather than enables the business, until the IT goes offline…
What is notable is that so far this year: Tesco’s have sold their banking operation to Barclays, and Sainsbury’s to NatWest.
Roland6,
Back in the day (early 90s) the top UK Supermarkets were making something like 6% net margin on sales. Which was higher than basically any other supermarkets in the world. Tesco and Sainsbury in particular were making money hand-over-fist. M&S were still doing incredibly well in both clothes and food and life was good. Also the big supermarkets were paying some of their suppliers on a 6 monthly basis. Not the big companies obviously, but if you were a farmer selling direct to Sainsbury/Tesco you raised your invoices whenever and got paid in July or January.
So the supermarkets were absolutely drowning in cash! They had so much cash on hand, they didn't known what to do with it. And went into banking and insurance. Plus they were making nice money on the overnight markets. After 2007, with low interest rates, banks losing trust in each other and then having to hold more assets - the overnight money market stopped being much of a cash generator. The government banned the predatory payment practises of the only paying twice a year thing sometime in the 2000s as well.
Finally Lidl and Aldi hit the UK market and I think the average net margin for the supermarkets is down to the 1-2% it is in other markets. I didn't realise they'd sold their banking arms, but it makes sense.
"Also the big supermarkets were paying some of their suppliers on a 6 monthly basis."
Not just that. A former colleague went into a wholesale booze supplier. He said one big supermarket - may have been the one in question - would have them send a load of stock and then just take delivery of what they needed. The supermarkets had so much purchasing power that they could get away with this sort of stuff.
"It's almost funny how the UK ones bang on about price matching the German ones, endlessly, now."
But usually the quality of the Aldi/Lidl product is substantially better than the adulterated crap that Tescorriburys price down and claim a price match on. Whilst that's been obvious for years (except for the dim) a recent Panorama programme confirmed it.
"That's what you get when two idiots borrow shitloads of money from asset strippers to buy a business they know ZERO about. If Walmart couldn't make a decent return on capital with Asda over three decades then two wide boys were always going to crash and burn."
You may well be right about the current owners, but Walmart keep trying and failing to succeed outside of their home market. It seems they just don't "get" local culture in other countries. They seem to be operating in a number of US "client" states in Central and South America and a very few countries outside of that region, but have failed to take on anywhere in Europe and succeed, despite trying a few times It looks like they do ok in India, China and Africa, but they have bought into and partnered with existing businesses, not just steamed in "took over". Maybe they are learning after all?
IMHO Walmart sold because of the equal pay claims they've been fighting for nearly two decades.
They had a higher profit margin than Tesco for most of their ownership period of Asda (28 years or so?) and didn't really change anything from a customer perspective. Staff perspective, sure, but to the average shopper nothing much changed when Walmart bought Asda....
"Walmart keep trying and failing to succeed outside of their home market. It seems they just don't "get" local culture in other countries"
Common of most international M&A, like when European companies go into the US, or US companies go into Europe. Or when Ozzies go shopping abroad - as evidenced by the spectacular Bunnings/Homebase disaster.
Thing is Bunnings were starting to get traction, I know plenty of fellow tradespeople who had been in for a look and came out impressed as hell, particularly their largest stores.
Then the carpetbaggers SCREAMED for inflated figures, management got cold feet and well the rest was history.....now homebase is back to selling the same overpriced shite it always did....
they can't have failed to notice the epically long queues at the self-scan checkouts and perhaps one in ten tills actually open
No. Have an ASDA superstore nearby, a big one with a Decathlon attached and it's busy but we normally waltz straight up to a pay terminal, no queue.
I agree the shelf stocking is not so good since the buyout, and the pricing is less competitive.
What grinds my wheels is that it's rarely possible to buy everything you need in one supermarket.
One has organic carrots, but doesn't have organic kale, the other has organic kale, but doesn't have carrots and the two don't have organic avocados, so you have to go to third one. The all three on the other hand don't stock spelt sourdough bread, so you gotta go to fourth etc.
Supermarkets were supposed to solve going to dozens stores to get your groceries and now you have to go to dozens supermarkets.
Oh and the amount of inedible crap they all stock. So much waste.
That's not the same. In large town the air quality is not suitable, you don't know how contaminated is the soil and you have no guarantee that your neighbour is not going to spray their plants and contaminate yours. Basically you cannot control the environment to the organic standard.
Allotment is more about going out and proving yourself that you can sustain a patch of vegetables than something practical.
That's not the same. In large town the air quality is not suitable, you don't know how contaminated is the soil and you have no guarantee that your neighbour is not going to spray their plants and contaminate yours
But you'll believe the shysters who run Asda, Morrisons etc to be entirely open and honest about the origin of the food? "Look, it's got a Soil Association label, that PROVES it's pure and organic".
And if you want to mutter on about supply chain assurance and trading standards, then I've got some Findus Organic Beef* Lasagne to sell you.
* Guaranteed real, British organic beef. Maybe a little Romanian donkey, horse and murder victim in the mix, but only to add flavour you understand, and entirely within permitted limits.
Depending on what the contaminant is, it may be outside the Soil Association organic certification requirement - which focuses more on what you do and do not apply to the crop; remember basically land is deemed “organic” after no pesticide or chemical fertiliser has been applied for three years.
Air quality doesn’t seem to factor in the Soil Association’s criteria…
Allotments are in short supply, councils are flogging them off where they can as they are skint since Sterling collapsed and every third schoolkid got a special needs requirement. You also have to be able to get to them and work them around your job, and hope they don't get vandalised and your crops don't get nicked. And then if you sort all that, the weather wipes out half your harvest.
Even with a large allotment/garden and decent weather, you will struggle to be better than self-sufficient in some specific crops for a few months. It can be difficult/costly in terms of cash and space to process/store crops when they are ripe, domestically. And you stand little chance of producing much in the way of exotics without an expensively heated greenhouse.
Your best chance is to go for apple and pear trees on dwarf rooting stocks (birds will strip cherry trees and most berry bushes without a fruit cage). Runner/Dwarf French beans are reliable and easy. Tomatoes. Corn in a good year. Onions. Yes, kale, especially 'tree kale'. Courgettes are easy enough. You may lose root crops, strawberries and brassicas to the local wildlife. If you want to give peas a chance, you'll need to grow a heck of a lot of them for a decent harvest.
Any degree of self sufficiency is tough and you soon learn to respect farmers, who get screwed by the supermarkets, the weather and the government. For many, losing viable access to migrant workers was the final straw. More are choosing plan B now: selling up, solar panels or a rewilding grant.
Where I live, so many things have simply vanished from the supermarkets since Brexit. Processed food products and ordinary produce. It's a lottery if what you want is there. UK supermarkets used to be a joy to shop in. They have really declined in just a few years. Maybe all the good stuff goes to the SE of England. Or Ocado.
The supermarkets can't fill every niche. They all sell carrots, avocado and I presume kale - though I've never looked for it. But they're only going to sell organic if there's enough demand for it. And even though they're big, they still don't have infinite room. However the range is still amazing, you can get loads of ingredients for cooking Chinese, Thai, Indian, Easter European food that you had to go to specialist shops for 20 years ago. My recent experiences of shopping in the US, France and Belgium is that you don't get anything like the range you can in the UK.
Although, sadly, Tesco and Sainsbury's have trimmed their ranges recently. It's one of Lidl and Aldi's secrets to being cheaper, have a dramatically smaller range of goods, and thus have simpler and cheaper logistics. And the competition have clearly cut some products in order to cut costs.
In my days in retail we were obsessed with not having missing products. We would even bill suppliers if they couldn't fulfill agreed orders and we went out of stock. the theory being that someone comes in fro something specific - it's not there, so they simply dump everything else and go to another shop to get it - and the rest of their stuff. Lidl and Aldi work on the principal that this won't happen - people will just add what they couldn't get to the list of things they need to get next time - or later somewhere else. Who am I to argue - my retailer is out of business - they pulled out of Europe and only operate in the US - Lidl and Aldi are a significant percentage of the UK market.
Lidl and Aldi were formed on hard discounting for all but it seems looking through their latest brochures they're slowly becoming just as the rest.
Wall-to-wall general tat and few, if any discounted prices or offers on food.
Lidl also now appear to be taking the tactic others are going, by having what few discounts they have exclusive to people that download more crap onto their phone, you need their loyalty app in order to avail yourself of the offer.
I don't understand those people that dump everything because one item isn't there, the time you have spent is therefore wasted in the shop.
If I leave a supermarket unable to make dinner with the contents of my shopping bag then the time is wasted anyway plus I'm hungry. Better to waste it and still get dinner from another shop.
Surely this is when you pick the option of making a different dinner with ingredients the shop do have? I guess it also depends on how far away the alternative is.
I've got a Lidl at the end of my road, so it's an obvious choice for shopping trips. Even though its bakery department is often totally empty by mid-afternoon. The bakery products are excellent - but they've clearly made a decision to have almost no shrinkage (throwing away unused product at the end fo the day) in favour of losing sales. I'll regularly go in there and find several of the things I want missing.
So if there was another shop nearby I'd cut and run. However I don't drive, so I tend to do one shop in a more reliable supermarket on my way home from work and then go to Lidl to pick up extras. If they weren't at the end of my road, I wouldn't use them. Aldi seem to be more reliable about stocking their regular products (and their booze is generally excellent) - but they have an even more limited range than Lidl. Also the bastards stopped doing the 70% cocoa dark chocolate bars with cherry and chilli - and I'm still sad about that.
I often do main weekly shop at Lidl, as they are cheaper than other shops (despite so called price matching - stares at Morrisons when I expensively shopped there a couple of weeks ago ) & manage to get most stuff on my shopping list (though I do go at 8AM on a Saturday morning so no chance for them to sell out of stuff, only stock issue is if they are running late on shelf filling due to late lorries!). Caveat is I know they do not stock some more obscure items, so they are never added on my "Lidl list" & so do occasionally visit other shop(s) to get those (but they are generally non food items e.g. dishwasher salt as for some odd reason nearest Lidl stopped selling that).
Advantage is I'm not too fussy (I get organic food if they have it, but its not a deal breaker when I have to get some non-organic fruit & veg).
Not bothered by brand names (e.g. the Lidl washing machine pods do an acceptable job of cleaning so it's not an issue I cannot get Persil or whatever)
I also do not buy meat, so that simplifies things, as partner veggie (on the rare occasions I do (a rare treat for me when partner away) I go to a proper butchers not a supermarket).
As we cook most meals from scratch, then any shop that sells basic veg, fruit, and various "dry" carbs (e.g. rice, pasta etc.) will do the job. Though I would prefer a bit wider range of foods & less "middle of Lidl" tat (e.g. its bound to be full of Halloween costume & similar junk this weekend)
BTW Agree on good bakery section.
Lidl do seem to struggle with the "complementary product" concept. As an occasional involuntary DIYer I like the Parkside power tools - reasonable quality, reasonable price - and I'd been on the lookout for a 20V circulat saw to replaced my corded one. Finally I spotted them, bought one BUT I'm still waiting for the 20V batteries to come into stock :(
"I've got a Lidl at the end of my road...So if there was another shop nearby I'd cut and run."
I'm lucky in that although there's an Aldi and small ASDA at the end of the road, just a couple of miles further on there's an Aldi and Lidl right next door to each other. I find I can get most of what i want between the two and on the way back there's some more very nice "specialist" shops like bakers, butchers etc who are very good. I have no issues with buying from where I get the best value (and I don't necessarily mean cheapest), and certainly for "every day" stuff, price comparing between Aldi and Lidl is useful, you soon get a "feel" for the prices if you go every week. Sometimes I even get all the way down to Morrison's for a few items I've not been able to locate elsewhere (The cat won't eat the cheap stuff from Aldi/Lidl, has to be Whiskers or Felix!!). I've been in "hypermarket" sized places, there's a huge ASDA not too far away and a huge Tescos a similar distance the other way, but despite their huge range of products, I don't think I've ever found everything I want in one shop. As you say, for those who want to get everything in one shop, you have to decide if they have what you can use, rather than what you actually want and change your expectations.
-- the 70% cocoa dark chocolate bars with cherry and chilli --
I'm a lover of dark chocolate (initiated on Terry's bitter dessert chocolate) and struggle to find products. My current quest is for a dark dringing chocolate that's not loaded with sugar (I'm diabetic)
> My current quest is for a dark dringing chocolate that's not loaded with sugar
Any drinking chocolate that’s not loaded with sugar/carbohydrates would be a good start.
I laugh you can have your coffee with a dozen types of dairy and non-dairy milk, but hot chocolate is always with excessive sugar…
"I don't understand those people that dump everything because one item isn't there"
I have, on occasion, dumped everything due to poor service. I'm not going to get the time back if I stay; it's a sunk cost and I don't intend to waste more of it to the further detriment of my blood pressure.
The chain I use has 1) a supermarket that's literally the second closest grocery store to me at an exhausting 300 meters away, and 2) does banking services, and the ones I need are free if you're a member of the co-op.
Yes, they can have my info. I just want to minimize direct cost to myself because I'm poor. Funnily enough, they aren't being annoying about marketing either.
> dump everything else and go to another shop
I have been known to do this but it does require the supermarket being out of stock of so many things I get frustrated enough to walk to another shop.
Funnily enough I have done this in ASDA several times, leaving my half full trolley behind.
I have on occassion dumped my shopping when I have become totally fed up with hunting for items after one of their "let's move stuff to different aisles for shits and giggles" events.
On other occassions, when I have time on my hands, I have one of the supervisor staff to repeatedly ask where items are. I noted on a recent occassion that the local Tesco had left placards around saying where the item that used to be there could now be found - but that is probably in response to wider customer griping.
"What grinds my wheels is that it's rarely possible to buy everything you need in one supermarket."
In Germany people seem to buy things in supermarkets mainly based on price (sometimes on quality) and, to achieve that, they routinely shop in multiple supermarkets, so a person might for example do the main part of their weekly shop at ALDI (North or South company, depending on where they live) or LIDL but then buy meat from REVE and buy fresh vegetables from Edeka and something else from Real.
I always wondered *why*! If you factor in any travel costs (i.e. petrol and car wear-and-tear) and time costs (of lost "free time") of routinely shopping in 3 or 4 supermarkets then any price "savings" would be lost once those other costs are factored in.
Side note: both ALDI and LIDL are Germany-originated supermarkets, and the ALDI North/South split is a classic example of German family feuds (like Adidas/Puma).
I always wondered *why*! If you factor in any travel costs (i.e. petrol and car wear-and-tear) and time costs (of lost "free time") of routinely shopping in 3 or 4 supermarkets then any price "savings" would be lost once those other costs are factored in.
There's no travel costs if you walk to the supermarket. In my case I've got a Lidl 5 minutes from home, and 3 supermarkets within ten minutes of work. But then I don't drive anyway, so if I buy more than 2-3 bags (3 if I've bought a shoulder bag / backpack) then I'm getting a taxi home anyway. So a trip to Tesco for 2 bags on the way home means I'm not going out of my way - and it's just how much time I spend buying stuff. I basically do one shop a week buying stuff, and then pop into another shop to get a few bits in a more targetted raid*.
So it's cheaper for me to do multiple shops and walk. Plus I'm a fussy bugger, and can stock up on the things I like that only one shop does. Fresh clementine juice from Morrisons, the best raspberry sorbet from Aldi, Sainsbury's Red Label tea, and their own brand wine gums.
Surely if you drive everywhere, it's not too much of a detour to pop into a shop on the way home from somewhere and grab whatever bits you couldn't get in your main shiop.
*You send the sniper team to the fruit section - where they have a good overview of the whole shop. Flank guard to the checkout, to hold a self-scan machine free. Deploy landmines in the bakery aisle - you need to maintain control of all the cakes. Then the trolley-mounted cavalry make a charge for the milk (always hiding at the back of the shop).
>> What grinds my wheels is that it's rarely possible to buy everything you need in one supermarket.
The range of choice has also reduced since Covid, I suspect the big supermarkets took the shortages as an opportunity to vastly reduce the number of different lines they stock of basically the same item.
Once this literally happened to me. I was buying some reduced-price minces pies, which were also on a 3-for-2. So the till charged me the appropriately reduced price for the three discounted packs, and then also subtracted the usual 3f2 saving - i.e. the full price of one pack. I think I was paid about 19p per pack, and not only that, they were Heston mince pies as well. :-D
Didn't happen again, mind you. :-/
Sainsburys used to do that. It was a very good way to get ulta-cheap shopping back in the day. I did always make sure to add sufficient other stuff to the basket to ensure a +ve final bill.
Now I think if it is reduced to clear, that over-rides the multibuy offer.
I've seen the opposite, many times. An item on the "nearly out of date" shelf marked down by about 20% and the discount sticker states "Other offers not valid" while the fresh stuff with plenty of life left on it is being sold as BOGOF or 3 for 2 etc making that cheaper than the "quick sale while still fresh" item. I've also seen "mistakes" where there's a big promotion sticker for "buy 2 for £2" and the smaller everyday price label next to it has a per item price of 95p (pro tip: if you want two in that situation, go through the self-service till and leave one item back and run that through separately after paying for the main batch of shopping or it'll charge the higher "offer" price :-)
Them were the good old days... when you could make a tesco's value pizza last all week. mostly by saying "I must find some real food or its that bloody pizza"
But they were good them days... walking 12 miles to study in a freezing cold classroom.. followed by 8 hours down t' pit before walking 'ome again.
Echoes of the Post Office scandal here. That there was a discrepancy is one thing. It's the direction of the discrepancy that's interesting. If a system was being randomly inaccurate due to data entry and software logic errors, you could reasonably expect that the errors would sort out of balance out. With the PO the errors were seemingly consistently adverse to the PO branch managers. How is it with Asda? Let me guess, Asda stock has disappeared. Let me speculate: There is such a thing as the perfect crime.
Working on another manhattan active system deployment and not surprised with the kind of issues. I haven’t dealt with more unethical, complacent and shoddy consulting team in my career. Kids fresh out of school have been deployed for stabilization at 300$ consulting hour and they have no clue and no plan for fixing anything from an implementation standpoint. The irony in prepackaged application deployment is with that kind of money any mid size organization can literally deploy a custom solutio n instead of taking these SaaS solutions. It is literally the biggest farce that has been pandered and bigwig CIOs who don’t have real experience in technology think that this is the way to go.
Heard yesterday that at a large pharma company Sap deployment cost overruns were of the range of 600 million dollars and the CIO was booted off